Transparency Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Transparency in the field of government is the ability of constituents to gain access to the facts, figures, documents, decisions, and other aspects of their government. Its meaning in this political context is, then, a derivative of its meaning in more common parlance—to see through an object. However, the definition in the context of politics has a deeper significance to the ways in which people are able to understand, participate, and control their country’s government.

Of course, political entities have sought to limit transparency for most of the history of government. From the politically minded writers in ancient Greece to the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, political commentators have known that controlling information is central to maintaining political power. Therefore, the monarchs of Europe and similar rulers around the globe did not make it a priority to explain the mechanics of the state apparatus to their subjects; they did not need to maintain any sense of popularity, as they usually ruled through fear and brutal, violent oppression.

As more democratic forms of government arose after the American Revolution (1776–1783) and also after the French Revolution (1789–1799), transparency entered the political discourse as a priority for governments and citizens. The three branches of government in the United States, for example, were designed as a system that had checks and balances of power that support the principle of transparency. In this case, the legislative branch has oversight over the executive branch’s actions. Therefore, transparency increases because each branch must be willing to show each other and the public how it is working. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.

Another element of transparency in modern politics is the role of the press. From the first pamphleteers to the most recent cable news shows and Internet outlets, journalists have played a role in fighting for increased access to public officials and their public policy decisions. Many countries have passed freedom of information legislation giving the public and journalists access to certain documents that the government would not normally make available. These laws have been instrumental in increasing the transparency of governmental actions and the motivations of elected and appointed officials.

The exception to transparency comes from a government’s desire to still protect its power through the restriction of information to the public. In this modern era of greater transparency, governments around the world have used several means to cloud the political waters surrounding access to government documents. These strategies can include any one or combination of the following techniques: claiming to have lost the documents people are seeking; burying interested document seekers with tens of thousands of pages of documents unrelated to ones requested; stating that the documents are classified for some type of national security purpose; or claiming that the documents are beyond the reach of the transparency principle, by asserting executive privilege in the United States or hiding behind an official secrets law in other parts of the world. Of course, to most politically engaged citizens, these types of actions are seen transparently for what they likely really are—politicians still simply trying to protect their power by not allowing the public to know their actions while in office.

Bibliography:

Finkelstein, Neil D. Transparency in Public Policy: Great Britain and the United States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
Lathrop, Daniel, and Laurel Ruma. Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: O’Reilly Media, 2010.

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