As an ethic that spans
science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
,
engineering
Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
,
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...
, and the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
, transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. Transparency implies
openness
Openness is an overarching concept that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency and collaboration. That is, openness refers to "accessibility of knowledge, technology and other resources; the transparency of action; the permeability of or ...
, communication, and
accountability
In ethics and governance, accountability is equated with answerability, culpability, liability, and the expectation of account-giving.
As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public secto ...
.
Transparency is practiced in companies, organizations, administrations, and communities. For example, in a business relation, fees are clarified at the outset by a transparent agent, so there are no surprises later. This is opposed to keeping this information hidden which is "non-transparent". A practical example of transparency is also when a cashier makes changes after a point of sale; they offer a transaction record of the items purchased (e.g., a receipt) as well as counting out the customer's change.
In
information security
Information security is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorized or inappropriate access to data ...
, transparency means keeping the arcane, underlying mechanisms hidden so as not to obstruct intended function—an almost opposite sense. It principally refers to security mechanisms that are intentionally undetectable or hidden from view. Examples include hiding utilities and tools which the user does not need to know in order to do their job, like keeping the remote re-authentication operations of
Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol
In computing, the Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) is an authentication protocol originally used by Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) to validate users. CHAP is also carried in other authentication protocols such as RADIUS and Diamete ...
hidden from the user.
Wages
In Norway and in Sweden, tax authorities annually release the ''"skatteliste''", ''"
taxeringskalendern"'', or "tax list"; official records showing the annual income and overall wealth of nearly every taxpayer.
Regulations in Hong Kong require banks to list their top earners – without naming them – by pay band.
In 2009, the Spanish government for the first time released information on the net worth of each cabinet member, but data on ordinary citizens is private. Currently, elected officials have to disclose their net worth on a yearly basis.
An unwritten norm requires that American politicians release their tax returns, in particular those running for the office of president. During the
2016 presidential campaign,
Donald Trump refused to release them, breaking a 47-year-old custom, but still got elected.
Management
Radical transparency is a
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...
method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly. All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, all final decisions, and the decision making process itself are made public and remain publicly archived. This approach has grown in popularity with the rise of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. Two examples of organizations utilizing this style are the
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
community and
Indymedia
The Independent Media Center, better known as Indymedia, is an open publishing network of activist journalist collectives that report on political and social issues. Following beginnings during the 1999 Carnival Against Capital and 1999 Seat ...
.
Corporate transparency
Corporate transparency describes the extent to which a corporation's actions are observable by outsiders. This is a consequence of regulation, local norms, and the set of information, privacy, and business policies concerning corporate decision-mak ...
, a form of radical transparency, is the concept of removing all barriers to—and the facilitating of—free and easy public access to corporate information and the laws, rules, social
connivance
Connivance is the act of conniving or conspiring, especially with the knowledge of and active or passive consent to wrongdoing or a twist in truth, to make something appear as something that it is not.
A legal finding of connivance may be made ...
and processes that facilitate and protect those individuals and corporations that freely join, develop, and improve the process.
In 2025 the
Austrian Court of Audit
A Court of Audit or Court of Accounts is a supreme audit institution, i.e. a government institution performing financial and/or legal audit (i.e. statutory audit or external audit) on the executive branch of power.
See also
*Most of those ...
argued that mistakes had been made in granting neither Austria's
ministery of energy nor regulatory
E-Control
E-Control (ECG) is the government regulator for electricity and natural gas markets in Austria. It was founded in 2001 on the basis of the Energy Liberalisation Act. E-Control's main duty as the independent regulatory authority is to "oversee an ...
full access to gas contracts agreed upon between
OMV and Russian
Gazprom
PJSC Gazprom ( rus, Газпром, , ɡɐsˈprom) is a Russian State-owned enterprise, majority state-owned multinational Energy industry, energy corporation headquartered in the Lakhta Center in Saint Petersburg. The Gazprom name is a contract ...
in 2006.
Non-governmental organizations
Accountability and transparency are of high relevance for
non-governmental organisation
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...
s (NGOs). In view of their responsibilities to stakeholders, including donors, sponsors, programme beneficiaries, staff, states and the public, they are considered to be of even greater importance to them than to commercial undertakings.
[Preview.]
/ref> Yet these same values are often found to be lacking in NGOs.
The '' International NGO Accountability Charter'', linked to the Global Reporting Initiative
The Global Reporting Initiative (known as GRI) is an international independent standards organization that helps businesses, governments, and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rig ...
, documents the commitment of its members international NGO
An international non-governmental organization (INGO) is an organization which is independent of government involvement and extends the concept of a non-governmental organization (NGO) to an international scope. INGOs can admit members affiliated t ...
s to accountability and transparency, requiring them to submit an annual report, among others. Signed in 2006 by 11 NGOs active in the area of humanitarian rights, the INGO Accountability Charter has been referred to as the "first global accountability charter for the non-profit sector". In 1997, the One World Trust
The One World Trust is a charitable organization that promotes education and research into changes required in global governance to achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice, environmental degradation and war. It develops recommendations on ...
created an ''NGO Charter'', a code of conduct
A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the social norm, norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization.
Companies' codes of conduct
A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is comm ...
comprising commitment to accountability and transparency.
Media
Media transparency
Media transparency, also referred to as transparent media or media opacity, is a concept that explores how and why information subsidies are being produced, distributed and handled by media professionals, including journalists, editors, public r ...
is the concept of determining how and why information
Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...
is conveyed through various means.
If the media and the public knows everything that happens in all authorities and county administrations there will be a lot of questions, protests and suggestions coming from media and the public. People who are interested in a certain issue will try to influence the decisions. Transparency creates an everyday participation in the political processes by media and the public. One tool used to increase everyday participation in political processes is freedom of information legislation and requests. Modern democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
builds on such participation of the people and media.
There are, for anybody who is interested, many ways to influence the decisions at all levels in society.
Politics
The right and the means to examine the process of decision making is known as transparency.
In politics, transparency is used as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...
. When a government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...
's meetings are open to the press and the public, its budgets
A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environment ...
may be reviewed by anyone, and its laws and decisions are open to discussion, it is seen as transparent. It is not clear however if this provides less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system for their own interests.
When military authorities classify
Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...
their plans as secret, transparency is absent. This can be seen as either positive or negative; positive because it can increase national security
National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...
, negative because it can lead to corruption and, in extreme cases, a military dictatorship
A military dictatorship, or a military regime, is a type of dictatorship in which Power (social and political), power is held by one or more military officers. Military dictatorships are led by either a single military dictator, known as a Polit ...
.
While a liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...
can be a plutocracy
A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established ...
, where decisions are made behind locked doors and the people have fewer possibilities to influence politics between the elections, a participative democracy is more closely connected to the will of the people. Participative democracy, built on transparency and everyday participation, has been used officially in northern Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
for decades. In the northern European country Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, public access to government documents became a law as early as 1766. It has officially been adopted as an ideal to strive for by the rest of EU, leading to measures like freedom of information laws and laws for lobby transparency.
To promote transparency in politics
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
, Hans Peter Martin, Paul van Buitenen ( Europa Transparant) and Ashley Mote decided to cooperate under the name Platform for Transparency (PfT) in 2005. Similar organizations that promotes transparency are Transparency International
Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil s ...
and the Sunlight Foundation.
A recent political movement to emerge in conjunction with the demands for transparency is the Pirate Party
Pirate Party is a label adopted by various Political party, political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on Civil and political rights, civil rights in the digital age. The fundamental principles of Pirate Partie ...
, a label for a number of political parties across different countries who advocate freedom of information, direct democracy, network neutrality, and the free sharing of knowledge.
Online culture
21st century culture affords a higher level of public transparency than ever before, and actually requires it in many cases. Modern technology and associated culture shifts have changed how government works (see WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...
), what information people can find out about each other, and the ability of politicians to stay in office if they are involved in sex scandals. Due to the digital revolution
The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...
, people no longer have a high level of control over what is public information, leading to a tension between the values of transparency and privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
.
Research
Scholarly research in any academic discipline
An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part) and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, a ...
may also be labeled as (partly) transparent (or open research) if some or all relevant aspects of the research are open in the sense of open source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...
, open access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
and open data
Open data are data that are openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shareable by anyone for any purpose. Open data are generally licensed under an open license.
The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-so ...
, thereby facilitating social recognition and accountability
In ethics and governance, accountability is equated with answerability, culpability, liability, and the expectation of account-giving.
As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public secto ...
of the scholars who did the research and replication by others interested in the matters addressed by it.
Some mathematicians and scientists are critical of using closed source mathematical software
Mathematical software is software used to mathematical model, model, analyze or calculate numeric, symbolic or geometric data.
Evolution of mathematical software
Numerical analysis and symbolic computation had been in most important place of the ...
such as Mathematica
Wolfram (previously known as Mathematica and Wolfram Mathematica) is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allows machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network ...
for mathematical proofs
A mathematical proof is a deductive argument for a mathematical statement, showing that the stated assumptions logically guarantee the conclusion. The argument may use other previously established statements, such as theorems; but every proof c ...
, because these do not provide transparency, and thus are not verifiable. Open-source software such as SageMath
SageMath (previously Sage or SAGE, "System for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation") is a computer algebra system (CAS) with features covering many aspects of mathematics, including algebra, combinatorics, graph theory, group theory, differentia ...
aims to solve this problem.
Technology
In the computer software world, open source software
Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...
concerns the creation of software, to which access to the underlying source code
In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer.
Since a computer, at base, only ...
is freely available. This permits use, study, and modification without restriction.
In computer security, the debate is ongoing as to the relative merits of the full disclosure of security vulnerabilities, versus a security-by-obscurity approach.
There is a different (perhaps almost opposite) sense of transparency in human-computer interaction, whereby a system after change adheres to its previous external interface as much as possible while changing its internal behaviour. That is, a change in a system is transparent to its users if the change is unnoticeable to them.
Sports
Sports
Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...
has become a global business over the last century, and here, too, initiatives ranging from mandatory drug testing to the fighting of sports-related corruption are gaining ground based on the transparent activities in other domains.
Criticism
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...
, following Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...
("On Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense"), regularly argues that transparency is impossible because of the occluding function of the unconscious.
Among philosophical and literary works that have examined the idea of transparency are Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
's ''Discipline and Punish
''Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison'' () is a 1975 book by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It is an analysis of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind the changes that occurred in Western penal systems during the modern ...
'' or David Brin
Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo Award, Hugo, 's '' The Transparent Society''. The German philosopher and media theorist Byung-Chul Han, in his 2012 work ''Transparenzgesellschaft'', sees transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on the pornographic. According to Han, the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame
Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.
Definition
Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...
, secrecy
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controver ...
, and trust. He was criticized for his concepts, as they would suggest corrupt politics, and for referring to the anti-democratic Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt (11 July 1888 – 7 April 1985) was a German jurist, author, and political theorist.
Schmitt wrote extensively about the effective wielding of political power. An authoritarian conservative theorist, he was noted as a critic of ...
.
Anthropologists have long explored ethnographically the relation between revealed and concealed knowledges, and have increasingly taken up the topic in relation to accountability, transparency and conspiracy theories and practices today. Todd Sanders and Harry West, for example, suggest not only that realms of the revealed and concealed require each other, but also that transparency in practice produces the very opacities it claims to obviate.
Clare Birchall, Christina Gaarsten, Mikkel Flyverbom, Emmanuel Alloa and Mark Fenster, among others, write in the vein of "critical transparency studies", which attempts to challenge particular orthodoxies concerning transparency. In an article, Birchall assessed "whether the ascendance of transparency as an ideal limits political thinking, particularly for western socialists and radicals struggling to seize opportunities for change". She argues that the promotion of "datapreneurial" activity through open data initiatives outsources and interrupts the political contract between governed and government. She is concerned that the dominant model of governmental data-driven transparency produces neoliberal subjectivities that reduce the possibility of politics as an arena of dissent between real alternatives. She suggests that the radical left might want to work with and reinvent secrecy as an alternative to neoliberal transparency.
Researchers at the University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
and Warwick Business School found that transparency can also have significant unintended consequences in the field of medical care. Gerry McGivern and Michael D Fischer found "media spectacles" and transparent regulation combined to create "spectacular transparency" which has some perverse effects on doctors' practice and increased defensive behaviour in doctors and their staff. Similarly, in a four-year organizational study, Fischer and Ferlie found that transparency in the context of a clinical risk management can act perversely to undermine ethical behavior, leading to organizational crisis and even collapse.
See also
* Access to public information
* Ethical banking
*Lobbying
Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by va ...
*Market transparency
In economics, a market is transparent if much is known by many about: What products and services or capital assets are available, market depth (quantity available), what price, and where. Transparency is important since it is one of the theore ...
*Open government
Open government is the governing doctrine which maintains that citizens have the right to access the documents and proceedings of the government to allow for effective public oversight. In its broadest construction, it opposes reason of state a ...
*Open science
Open science is the movement to make scientific research (including publications, data, physical samples, and software) and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional. Open science is transparent and accessib ...
*Open society
Open society () is a term coined by French-Jewish philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932, and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.Thomas Mautner (2005), 2nd ed. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' Open society" entry p. ...
*Public record
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government.
Depending on jurisdiction, examples of public records includes information pertaining to births, deat ...
* Transparency of media ownership in Europe
*Whistleblower
Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...
*Whitewash
Whitewash, calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, asbestis or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime ( calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk (calcium carbonate, CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes ...
References
Further reading
* Emmanuel Alloa & Dieter Thomä (eds.). ''Transparency, Society and Subjectivity: Critical Perspectives''. Basingstoke, UK: PalgraveMacmillan, 2018.
* Emmanuel Alloa (ed.). ''This Obscure Thing Called Transparency: Politics and Aesthetics of a Contemporary Metaphor''. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2022.
* Michael Schudson, ''The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945–1973''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
{{Authority control
Humanities
Transparency
Public economics