Transparency by Conformity: A Field Experiment Evaluating Openness in Local Governments

• Author: Hanna Wallach,James ben‐Aaron,Matthew Denny,Bruce Desmarais
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12596
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Date: 01 January 2017

68 Public Administration Review • January | February 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 1, pp. 68–77. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI:10.1111/puar.12596.

Bruce Desmarais is associate professor

in the Department of Political Science and

Institute for CyberScience at Pennsylvania

State University. His research focuses

on the development and application of

research methods that characterize the

complex interdependence underlying the

formation and implementation of law and

public policy.

E-mail : bdesmarais@psu.edu

Matthew Denny is a doctoral student

in political science and social data analytics

and National Science Foundation IGERT

(Integrative Graduate Education and

Research Traineeship) fellow at Pennsylvania

State University. His research focuses on the

development of machine learning models

for social processes, which he applies to the

study of Congress, government bureaucracy,

and organizational dynamics.

E-mail : mdenny@psu.edu

James ben-Aaron is a doctoral student

in the Department of Political Science at

the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

His research focuses on decision making by

government officials and, more specifically,

what forms of language are most apt to

persuade, especially within the realm of

laws and public policy formation.

E-mail : jbenaaro@acad.umass.edu

Abstract : Sunshine laws establishing government transparency are ubiquitous in the United States; however, the

intended degree of openness is often unclear or unrealized. Although researchers have identified characteristics of

government organizations or officials that affect the fulfillment of public records requests, they have not considered the

influence that government organizations have on one another. This picture of independently acting organizations does

not accord with the literature on diffusion in public policy and administration. This article presents a field experiment

testing whether a county government ’ s fulfillment of a public records request is influenced by the knowledge that

its peers have already complied. The authors propose that knowledge of peer compliance should induce competitive

pressures to comply and resolve legal ambiguity in favor of compliance. Findings indicate peer conformity affects both

in the time to initial response and in the rate of complete request fulfillment.

Practitioner Points

• Transparency advocates should publicize instances of public records releases in order to induce pressure on

government organizations to conform.

• When requesting records from multiple organizations, requesters should use a sequential process in which

new requests indicate prior instances of fulfillment.

• When requesting records from multiple organizations, requesters should experiment with their choice of

words in order to identify the most effective wording.

G overnment organizations in the United States

often fail to fulfill public records requests

to the extent required by local, state, and

federal laws (Geraghty and Velez 2011 ). When

deciding whether to fulfill a request, government

officials exercise considerable discretion and must

handle multiple sources of ambiguity. For example,

in addition to applying confidentiality and security

exemptions, they must assess the cost of fulfillment

and evaluate the potential legal and political risks

associated with denial (Kimball 2003 ). These

challenges cause organizations’ request fulfillment

rates to vary considerably.

Researchers have only recently begun to study the

factors that affect organizations’ responses to public

records requests. For example,

Wood and Lewis ( 2015 ) found

that agencies with higher levels

of responsiveness to elected

officials were less responsive

to Freedom of Information

Act (FOIA) requests from the

public; Cuillier and Davis

( 2011 ) found that friendly

records requests were more effective than threatening

ones; and Relyea ( 2009 ) surveyed amendments made

to the FOIA to improve its efficient operation.

Although researchers have identified characteristics of

government organizations or officials that affect the

fulfillment of records requests, they have not examined

the influence that government organizations have on

one another. This picture of independently acting

organizations does not accord with the literature on

public policy diffusion, which shows that governments

follow the behavior of their peers (e.g., Berry and

Berry 1990 ; Boehmke 2009 ; Desmarais, Harden, and

Boehmke 2015 ; Shipan and Volden 2006 ; Tolbert,

Mossberger, and McNeal 2008 ; Walker 1969 ).

Government organizations often have incentives to

look to one another ’ s decisions

when evaluating the legality of

and costs or benefits associated

with request fulfillment.

Furthermore, implementations

of transparency laws are

closely tied to innovations in

e-government (Bertot, Jaeger,

and Grimes 2010 ). Therefore,

James ben-Aaron

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Matthew Denny

Pennsylvania State University

Bruce Desmarais

Pennsylvania State University

Hanna Wallach

Microsoft Research New York City

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Transparency by Conformity:

A Field Experiment Evaluating Openness in Local Governments

Hanna Wallach is senior researcher

at Microsoft and adjunct associate

professor in the College of Information

and Computer Sciences at the University of

Massachusetts Amherst. Her research is in

the interdisciplinary field of computational

social science. In collaboration with political

scientists, sociologists, and journalists, she

develops new machine learning methods

for studying the structure, content, and

dynamics of social processes.

E-mail : wallach@microsoft.com

Government organizations

often have incentives to look to

one another ’ s decisions when

evaluating the legality of and

costs or benef‌i ts associated with

request fulf‌i llment.