Transparency as transparagency—New “meaning” for new contexts

• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1872
• Date: 01 February 2019

ACADEMIC PAPER

Transparency as transparagency—New “meaning”for new

contexts

Mirko Pečarič

Faculty of Public Administration, University of

Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Correspondence

Mirko Pečarič, Associate Professor for

Administrative Law and Public Administration,

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of

Administration, Gosarjeva ulica 5, 1000

Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Email: mirko.pecaric@fu.uni‐lj.si

Funding information

The Slovenian Research Agency, Grant/Award

Number: Grant No. J5‐8238 (The development

of a holistic governance model for an efficient

and effective Slovenian public administration).

A literature review was undertaken to find how transparency is connected to different

models of governance. This paper addresses transparency in a wider sense than usual

and claims its recognition from the systemic point of view. With this goal in mind,

Wittgenstein's language games were used to show that transparency means what

practice shows it is to regain its meaning in the never‐ending circle. On this basis, a

new notion of transparency is proposed: transparagency, which connects knowing,

understanding, acting, and evaluating under a new umbrella term. On the basis of

Google Trends, the paper exposes a link between transparency and freedom of

expression that is contrary to common understanding—Transparency is ensured more

when people talk about it less.

1|INTRODUCTION

The present understanding of transparency is often seen as some kind

of Holy Grail of democracy, as a “one size fits all”principle, while this

paper will argue that it is only the first step towards its fuller meaning.

One of the paradoxes surrounding “transparency”is its lack of a clear,

transparent meaning. One of the first divisions of this notion was

undertaken by Hood and Heald (2006), who understood transparency

from four perspectives: transparency inwards (those who are outside

can see what is going on inside the organization), transparency out-

wards (those inside the organization can see what is happening out-

side the organization), transparency upwards (from subordinates to

superiors), and transparency downwards (from superiors to subordi-

nates). Grimmelikhuijsen and Welch (2012) gave three dimensions of

transparency (decision‐making transparency, policy information trans-

parency, and policy outcome transparency) and three explanations for

each (organizational capacity, political influence, and group influence

on government). Cucciniello and Nasi (2014) set out three objects of

transparency: financial/budget transparency, administrative transpar-

ency, and political transparency. These perspectives can be included

in the definition of transparency that was put forward by

Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer (2014, p. 139): “the availability of infor-

mation about an organization or actor that allows external actors to

monitor the internal workings or performance of that organization or

actor.”The ambiguous relation between trust and openness or the

misconception about transparency is based on confusion over what

transparency can and cannot do (Meijer, 2009; Roberts, 2015).

Monitoring is intuitively good, but to be useful results must be pres-

ent. On the basis of 187 studies, Cucciniello, Porumbescu, and

Grimmelikhuijsen emphasize that there is “a need to think more sys-

tematically about how transparency can be used for better gover-

nance”(2016, p. 32). This paper starts with this need to more fully

understand the contextual and societal conditions under which trans-

parency can be applied. These conditions can be better comprehended

in the public's practice: The public is one of the expressions of res

publica (“the people's thing”); it is derived from the Greek ta pragmata

(“things; the business of government; suitable for action”; Cartledge,

2009). If a system is democratic, it is based on practice. The same is

true for politics and the ethics of action (Aristotle, 2004, 2013), and

thus, practice becomes one of the aspects of polis as a “community

of politically empowered and actively participating citizens”(Berent,

2004). Transparency (the same/different meanings) is thus revealed

only in (the same/different) practice.

From the systemic point of view, transparency is only the input

element, while there should be also the elements of output and feed-

back to positively/negatively correct the input values according to the

desired goals. Transparency seen this way implies not only the avail-

ability of information but also communication, legal action, and

“accountability.”In the present time, we are in the midst of a global

public struggle on the issue of information as property (Facebook/

Google Analytics), on the idea of representation (Who can/should

present the data as the information—whom could or should people

believe?), while the basic question is: What can the public do with

the revealed information? Transparency is not only something to be

Received: 10 July 2018 Revised: 27 August 2018 Accepted: 27 September 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1872

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1872.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1872

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10