The 'Dark Sides' of Transparency: Rethinking Information Disclosure as a Social Praxis

Abstract

Today transparency is perceived to be fundamental to a well-functioning democracy. At the same time, empirical research shows transparency to be severely limited as an organizing principle in the social world. In this thesis I develop an argument that attempts to reconcile these two sides of the debate. I argue that the current dominant conception of transparency relies on an overly static and informational model of communication. I call this conception ‘transparency-as-information’. I show which further commitments one needs to incur on the basis of the available empirical material, and argue that these further commitments call for a new conception of transparency – relational transparency. In other words, in this thesis my aim is to conceptualize the ‘darker sides’ of transparency-as-information in a manner that allows for invigorating renewed practices of transparency. These new practices are characterized by both an active and practical engagement with transparency’s pernicious social effects, and turn our attention to the social conditions needed for ensuring a well-functioning democracy that the current conception of transparency tends to obscure. Attending to these ‘dark sides’ in the double sense of the word, then, will prove to be vital if we are truly committed to those fundamental democratic values that we take the current conception of transparency to be serving.