Transparency and accountability: principles and rules for the construction of publicity

Published date01 May 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1575
Date01 May 2016
Academic Paper
Transparency and accountability: principles
and rules for the construction of publicity
Fernando Filgueiras*
Department of Political Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais Brazil
Western countries have experienced a growing demand for accountability as a key element to the democratization of
the State. This demand has given rise to an advocacy towards a transparency of State institutions and its subsequent
public policies. This advocacy, in turn, aims to make governments accountable before the public. The goal of this ar-
ticle is to establish a critical perspective towards what we call transparency policy in favor of what we call publicity
policy.The latter provides a normative argument for the concept of accountability aimed towards a deeper democracy
and stronger public management processes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
One of the central themes in contemporary political
theory has been the democratization of the State, so
as to promote reforms grounded on the diagnosis of
its growing crisis. The goal of this process is to
tackle structural contradictions, which manifest
themselves in corruption, low density of electoral
processes in everyday life, escalation of violence,
and by the extension of poverty, even in central cap-
italist countries. Political representation processes
have changed because of a stronger presence of ple-
biscitary leaderships, the loss of centrality of politi-
cal parties, changes within the labor market that
have made class identities to be more uid, and
the growing distrust of citizens towards democratic
institutions (Rosanvallon, 2009).
These structural contradictions triggered the
emergence of different conceptions of state reform
aimed at recovering a stronger ideal of democratic
legitimacy. Within the specialized literature and in
different traditions of thought and political theory,
much has been written on institutional reforms.
Nonetheless, a point of intersection between these
different traditions is the recognition that the de-
mocratization of the State requires a strengthening
of accountability. This is a concept that has come
into the lexicon in contemporary political theory
and has become a fundamental principle for the
democratic order. In turn, demands for accountabil-
ity reinforced the creation of another principle for
the democratization of the State: transparency.
The demands for reforms and strengthening of
accountability are unequivocal in underscoring the
need for greater transparency in State actions to-
wards society,thus creating a policy of transparency
in contemporary democracies. In these terms, the
democratization of the State should promote an
opening of the political system so as to make it more
transparent and, in turn, more wont to public evalu-
ation. The transparency policy articulates a concep-
tion of accountability and a practical perspective
buoyed by institutional designs and political dis-
course. Thus, the increasing delinquencies of the
public man call for a transparency policy so as to
submit the State and its agents to citizenship con-
trol. The concept of transparency, consequently,
has become something of a commonplace in con-
temporary politics, being present in political dis-
courses as an irrefutable truth. It presents itself as
a remedy for the evils and delinquencies practiced
in politics and in public management, but it does
not provide a normative substrate for the concept
of accountability. Both concepts are often used as in-
terchangeable terms, without grasping the differ-
ences and institutional issues that they bring forth.
*Correspondence to: Fernando Filgueiras, Department of Political
Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos,
6627Pampulha, Belo Horizonte,Minas Gerais, 31270-901,Brazil.
E-mail: fernandolgueiras@hotmail.com
Journal of Public Affairs
Volume 16 Number 2 pp 192202 (2016)
Published online 19 June 2015 in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1575
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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