Affiliations: [a] Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration
(EBAPE), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Praia de Botafogo, RJ, Brazil | [b] Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Government, University
of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Greg Michener, Fundação Getulio
Vargas, Praia de Botafogo 190, Sala 536, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 22250-900, Brazil.
Tel.: +55 21 8231 7777; Fax: +55 21 3779 5778; E-mail: gregory.michener@fgv.br
Abstract: Recent scholarship on transparency has been voluminous, and
transparency policies continue to garner international adherents through global
initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership. Yet extant scholarship has
failed to address the empirical parameters for what constitutes 'transparency'
and what does not. This lacuna gives way to misuses and abuses, jeopardizing
the analytical utility of the term and the integrity of so-called
'transparency' policies. This article provides a framework and a vocabulary for
identifying and evaluating transparency, which depends on two necessary and
jointly sufficient conditions: the visibility of information, and its
inferability – the ability to draw accurate conclusions from it. By
disaggregating these two conditions for identifying transparency, this article
provides a framework for the emerging research agenda on the quality of
transparency.
Keywords: Transparency, information and communication technologies, public administration
