Jennifer Shkabatur, Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, presented her research at the Edmond J. Safra Lab Seminar on November 2. Shkabatur’s presentation, “Transparency with(out) Accountability: The Effects of the Internet on the Administrative State,” examined the difficulties of enforcing transparency as a regulatory tool for federal agencies in the age of the Internet.
Shkabatur noted that the common problems of offline transparency (agencies’ resistance to releasing information, barriers to public participation) have not been entirely eliminated in the age of online transparency, despite optimism that the Internet would remove all such barriers. She described the types of transparency that represent the current system of online transparency: mandatory, which requires agencies to publish specific types of information online; discretionary, which allows agencies to decide what information to publish; and involuntary, in which transparency is forced on an agency, usually by a whistleblower. Shkabatur then detailed the ways that each of these modes of transparency falls short of the goal of increased accountability. For example, mandatory transparency doesn’t always target the most relevant types of information, and discretionary transparency allows agencies too much leeway to avoid giving up sensitive information that would subject them to public scrutiny. While involuntary transparency (in the form of whistleblowers) can be one of the best sources of information, increasing crackdowns on whistleblowers make it less likely that such people will come forward. Shkabatur went on to outline an alternative architecture for online transparency, with a focus on litigation and public advocacy for holding agencies accountable, and transparency policies that target specific types of information, including process, performance, and oversight transparency.
Seminar participants were particularly interested in the question of how much information agencies should be required to publish, and the form that information should take. Some pointed out the great difficulty of standardizing complex contextual data for public consumption, while others felt that in many cases, there was enough information available online for motivated individuals to do the necessary research and draw their own conclusions. Others noted the importance of having information presented in ways that describe outcomes, pointing out that while there is already a great deal of information available online, most of it is merely descriptive.
The seminar concluded with participants considering the tension between transparency as a means to accountability and transparency as an important source of information for academics, journalists and researchers.
--Summary by Jennifer Campbell