The Limits of Transparency

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12276
• Date: 01 November 2014
• Author: Amitai Etzioni
• Published date: 01 November 2014

Perspective

Amitai Etzioni is University Professor

at the George Washington University. He

taught at Columbia University, Harvard

University, and the University of California,

Berkeley. He served as president of the

American Sociological Association and

is author of several books, including

The

Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics,

Modern Organizations,

and

A Comparative

Analysis of Complex Organizations.

His

latest book,

The New Normal: Life in Post

Aff‌l uence America,

will be published by

Transaction Publishers in November 2014.

E-mail: etzioni@gwu.edu

The Limits of Transparency 687

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 6, pp. 687–688. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12276.

and Regulatory Af‌f airs, considers it a point of pride

that the Obama administration issued fewer regula-

tions than any of his four predecessors. In a 2013

column for the Wall Street Journal, Sunstein decried

the “red tape” that characterizes regulation and that,

according to him, risks “compromising economic

growth and job creation.” In contrast, Sunstein has

been an outspoken advocate of greater transparency,

arguing that it ensures government accountability

while saving money.

 e main reason transparency is vastly oversold is

that it rests on a popular but naive theory of the way

democracy functions, namely, that it operates as a

direct democracy.  is theory assumes that voters can

learn about the ins and outs of the numerous programs

the government carries out or af‌f ects, evaluate them,

and determine which they favor or seek to discon-

tinue.  e problem with this theory is that most peo-

ple are busy making a living and maintaining a family

and a social life, and they have very limited time and

energy to devote to following public af‌f airs. And, as

studies reviewed in  inking, Fast and Slow by Nobel

laureate Daniel Kahneman (2011, 157–58) show, peo-

ple do not have the training necessary to evaluate the

relevant data. For example, some hospitals have rather

low mortality rates, but this can be attributable to the

fact that that they do not treat complicated cases or

that they transfer dying patients to hospices. A correct

evaluation requires taking into account all of these and

other variables rather than merely looking at the end

results. And how is the public to determine who is

behind the donations a politician collects from politi-

cal action committees called “All America,” “America

Works,” and “American Dream”?

For information to be accurate and accessible,

transparency requires the kind of regulation that

proponents claim it is supposed to replace. Without

government-mandated disclosure, most corpora-

tions have little reason to issue information that is

reliable, comprehensive, and readable. For example,

many online companies post their privacy policies.

Transparency has long been a popular way

of governing in the United States. Recent

ideological and political developments have

further enhanced its popularity. However, it is a very

poor substitute for regulation. True, regulation poses

costs and raises normative issues of its own, hence it is

best used sparingly. However, when there are compel-

ling reasons to advance a particular common good—

say, climate control or public health—transparency

can help regulation but cannot replace it.

Transparency is generally def‌i ned by political scientists

as the principle of enabling the public to gain informa-

tion about the operations and structures of a given

entity. It is often considered synonymous with open-

ness and disclosure. Moreover, political theorists as well

as public intellectuals and leaders have long viewed

transparency as an essential element of keeping the gov-

ernment accountable to the people, that is, of the dem-

ocratic form of government. James Madison wrote that

any “popular Government, without popular informa-

tion, or the means of acquiring it is but a Prologue to a

Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.” Similar ideas are

found in the works of Locke, Mill, Rousseau, Bentham,

and Kant. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

famously declared that “publicity is justly commended

as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight

is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

In recent decades, the support for regulation has

declined and the favor of transparency has increased as

a result of the laissez-faire conservative backlash to the

Great Society liberal era. Over the years that followed,

libertarian ideologies gained a sizeable following. At the

same time, transparency became popular on the left,

which promoted sunshine laws that required govern-

ment meetings to be open to the public and the press.

 e Barack Obama administration found it dif‌f‌i cult

to promote much new regulation in the face of strong

conservative objections and often advanced transpar-

ency instead. Cass Sunstein, who served as admin-

istrator of the White House Of‌f‌i ce of Information

Amitai Etzioni

George Washington University

 e Limits of Transparency