Affiliation:
1. Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Syracuse University Syracuse New York USA
2. Newhouse School of Public Communications Syracuse University Syracuse New York USA
Abstract
AbstractAlthough transparency is recognized as an important public value, few studies examine how citizens see the relationship between transparency and other public values. To empirically investigate this relationship, we distinguish among five types of transparency and explore their associations with different views of “good” government and other public values. Using survey data and Q methodology, we find that citizens see transparency as an important value, albeit not the most important one. We also find that people give different weight to different kinds of transparency and that this depends on individual characteristics and on their overall value orientation or conception of “good” government. In particular, those who hold a contractarian view of democracy prefer types of transparency associated with accountability. Overall, transparency as candor is valued most highly and least associated with other value preferences—suggesting an important interpretation of transparency that has been hitherto neglected in the literature.
Subject
Marketing,Public Administration,Sociology and Political Science
Reference60 articles.
1. The Global Explosion of Freedom of Information Laws;Ackerman John M.;Administrative Law Review,2006
2. Organizational Transparency: Conceptualizations, Conditions, and Consequences
3. Public Value
4. The Future of FOIA in an Open Government Agenda for Freedom of Information Policy and Implementation;Berliner Daniel;Villanova Law Review,2018
5. Freedom of Information and Openness: Fundamental Human Rights;Birkinshaw Patrick;Administrative Law Review,2006