The transparency president? The Obama aministration and open
government
Coglianese (2009)
The Bush-to-Obama transition reveals that the most important challenge for open government is
not secrecy versus transparency, but figuring out how much transparency, and what type, to have
over different aspects of the governmental process.
Toward Transparency’s Triumph
More specifically “Good, open government is not the same as a reality television show that
broadcasts every move officials make and every conversation they have. On the contrary, good
government actually requires certain limits on this kind of fishbowl transparency
Transparency’s Triumph
The Virtuous and vices of open government
With nearly everyone agreeing that government should be more transparent, it may seem as if
transparency has become viewed as an unalloyed public good, even an end all of its own.
Rather than being valued for its own sake, transparency is actually a tool that can advance the
much more fundamental goals of good public policy and legitimate governmental decision-
making. Transparency can serve these larger ends in both affirmative and preventive ways:
1. Transparency can affirmatively improve governmental decision making by helping
inform the public about problems governmental officials seek to solve and the options
they are considering. The public can than participate more thoughtfully.
2. Transparency can help preventively, making abuses and mistakes by government officials
less likely.
This does not mean more transparency is always better:
- Too much transparency—or transparency in the wrong places—might actually detract
from officials’ ability to make good decisions.
- Total transparency could also make it less likely that government offi-cials would gain
useful information from private actors (Coglianese, Zeck-hauser, and Parson 2004).
Certain kinds of trade secrets or other sensitivebusiness information may be essential for
government officials to obtainand analyze in order to adopt effective policies regulating
industry.
The Obama Administration, as well as most of the organized groups and tech-savvy individuals
that advocate open government, have emphasized what could be called fishbowl transparency.
The aim is to expand the release of information that can document how government officials
actually behave, such as by disclosing meetings held between White House staff and outside
groups. But there is another type of transparency, reasoned transparency, that demands that
government officials offer explicit explanations for their actions. Sound explanations will be
, based on application of normative principles to the facts and evidence accumulated by decision
makers—and will show why other alternative courses of action were rejected.
Greater transparency—of the fish-bowl variety—is not always better. In developing federal open
government rules, decision makers need to balance both the advantages and disadvantages of
expanded transparency, and to consider which type of transparency (if any) ought to be
expanded.
The political economy of transparency
Advocating transparency not only distances his administration from his unpopular predecessor’s,
but transparency sells well. Everyone seems to favor it, whether on the political left or the right.
The beneficiaries of enhanced transparency are well-organized groups of all stripes; businesses
favor govern-mental transparency as much as public interest groups do.
Conclusion
As a matter of political strategy, then, transparency is a double-edged sword. During the
transition from the Bush Administration, it may well have looked like trumpeting the cause of
open government would be an easy way for any new president to score political points,
especially when taking over from a reviled predecessor with a reputation for secrecy. But
President Obama’s rhetoric and zeal for transparency has also created false impressions—and
unrealistic expectations—about what it takes to make open government work well. Just as good
governance requires making judgment calls and difficult trade-offs about other policy criteria,
good open governance requires the same about transparency.
government
Coglianese (2009)
The Bush-to-Obama transition reveals that the most important challenge for open government is
not secrecy versus transparency, but figuring out how much transparency, and what type, to have
over different aspects of the governmental process.
Toward Transparency’s Triumph
More specifically “Good, open government is not the same as a reality television show that
broadcasts every move officials make and every conversation they have. On the contrary, good
government actually requires certain limits on this kind of fishbowl transparency
Transparency’s Triumph
The Virtuous and vices of open government
With nearly everyone agreeing that government should be more transparent, it may seem as if
transparency has become viewed as an unalloyed public good, even an end all of its own.
Rather than being valued for its own sake, transparency is actually a tool that can advance the
much more fundamental goals of good public policy and legitimate governmental decision-
making. Transparency can serve these larger ends in both affirmative and preventive ways:
1. Transparency can affirmatively improve governmental decision making by helping
inform the public about problems governmental officials seek to solve and the options
they are considering. The public can than participate more thoughtfully.
2. Transparency can help preventively, making abuses and mistakes by government officials
less likely.
This does not mean more transparency is always better:
- Too much transparency—or transparency in the wrong places—might actually detract
from officials’ ability to make good decisions.
- Total transparency could also make it less likely that government offi-cials would gain
useful information from private actors (Coglianese, Zeck-hauser, and Parson 2004).
Certain kinds of trade secrets or other sensitivebusiness information may be essential for
government officials to obtainand analyze in order to adopt effective policies regulating
industry.
The Obama Administration, as well as most of the organized groups and tech-savvy individuals
that advocate open government, have emphasized what could be called fishbowl transparency.
The aim is to expand the release of information that can document how government officials
actually behave, such as by disclosing meetings held between White House staff and outside
groups. But there is another type of transparency, reasoned transparency, that demands that
government officials offer explicit explanations for their actions. Sound explanations will be
, based on application of normative principles to the facts and evidence accumulated by decision
makers—and will show why other alternative courses of action were rejected.
Greater transparency—of the fish-bowl variety—is not always better. In developing federal open
government rules, decision makers need to balance both the advantages and disadvantages of
expanded transparency, and to consider which type of transparency (if any) ought to be
expanded.
The political economy of transparency
Advocating transparency not only distances his administration from his unpopular predecessor’s,
but transparency sells well. Everyone seems to favor it, whether on the political left or the right.
The beneficiaries of enhanced transparency are well-organized groups of all stripes; businesses
favor govern-mental transparency as much as public interest groups do.
Conclusion
As a matter of political strategy, then, transparency is a double-edged sword. During the
transition from the Bush Administration, it may well have looked like trumpeting the cause of
open government would be an easy way for any new president to score political points,
especially when taking over from a reviled predecessor with a reputation for secrecy. But
President Obama’s rhetoric and zeal for transparency has also created false impressions—and
unrealistic expectations—about what it takes to make open government work well. Just as good
governance requires making judgment calls and difficult trade-offs about other policy criteria,
good open governance requires the same about transparency.
