Is Transparency the Best Disinfectant?

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 389-404

  Etzioni, Amitai ^a  

^a GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 78751474165     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2010.00366.x     Document Type: Article

References (70)

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2. Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord, "The surprising logic of transparency,"International Studies Quarterly, 43 (1999), 315-39 at p. 316.
3. "Openness might therefore be thought of as a characteristic of the organization, where transparency also requires external receptors capable of processing information made available" (Heald, "Varieties of transparency," p. 26).
4. Christopher Hood, "Transparency in historical perspective,"Transparency: The Key to Better Governance?, pp. 3-23 at p. 9.
5. Transparency International, the National Democratic Institute, and Openthegovernment.org are examples of organizations promoting more transparency in government.
6. Finel and Lord, "The surprising logic of transparency," p. 315.
7. Hood, "Transparency in historical perspective," p. 15.
8. Steven Thomma and Kevin G. Hall McClatchy, "President Rolls Out Financial Regulation Proposal,"The Spokesman-Review, June 18, 2009.
9. Gene Healy, "Obama's statist ambitions,"DC Examiner, June 30, 2009; Mark A. Calabria, "Cato scholar comments on the Obama Administration's financial regulation reforms," <>, posted June 17, 2009.
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11. Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, "Disclosure is the best kind of credit regulation,"Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2008.
12. L. Gordon Crovitz, "Transparency is more powerful than regulation,"Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2009.
13. Daniel Roth, "Road map for financial recovery: radical transparency now!"WIRED Magazine, 17, February 23, 2009.
14. I use the term guidance rather than control because it captures the observation that as a rule regulations merely point to preferred choices and are rarely fully coercive in their adaptation. For more discussion see Amitai Etzioni, The Active Society (New York: Free Press, 1968).
15. Dennis Wrong, The Problem of Order: What Unites and Divides Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
16. Patrick Birkinshaw, "Transparency as a human right,"Transparency: The Key to Better Governance? pp. 47-57 at p. 50; Finel and Lord, "The surprising logic of transparency," p. 320; Mark Landler, "Experts say full disclosure may not always be best tactic in diplomacy,"New York Times, June 17, 2009; Kristin M. Lord, The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006
17. Warren Bennis, "The new transparency,"Transparency (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), pp. 93-122 at p. 11. For further discussion see also: Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Wintrobe, The Economics of Transparency in Politics (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), p. 1.
18. M. Joseph Sirgy and Chenting Su, "The ethics of consumer sovereignty in an age of high tech,"Journal of Business Ethics, 28 (2002), 1-14 at p. 2.
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20. See also: Jerry Brito and Jerry Ellig, "An accountability agenda,"Regulation, 31 (2008), 4-7 at p. 5.
21. Ripken, "The dangers and drawbacks of the disclosure antidote," pp. 153-4.
22. Tara Vishwanath and Daniel Kaufmann, "Toward transparency: new approaches and their application to financial markets,"The World Bank Research Observer, 16 (2001), 41-57 at p. 41.
23. Onora O'Neill, "Transparency and the ethics of communication,"Transparency: The Key to Better Governance? pp. 75-90 at p. 13.
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25. McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (02-1674), 540 U.S. 93 (2003).
26. Ron Wyden, "Transparency: a prescription against malpractice,"Public Health Reports, 110 (1995), 380-1; Clay Christiensen, "What Obama's health care team can learn from Massachusetts,"Harvard Business Review, January 22, 2009.
27. Michael B. Rothberg, Elizabeth Morsi, Evan M. Benjamin, Penelope S. Pekow and Peter K. Lindenauer, "Choosing the best hospital: the limitations of public quality reporting,"Health Affairs, 27 (2008), 1680-7.
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30. Jason Zweig, "About time: regulation based on human nature,"The Wall Street Journal, June 20-21, 2009.
31. For examples of limited transparency theory, see: "Disclosure as a legislative device,"Harvard Law Review, 76 (1963), 1273-93 at pp. 1277-8; Jon Faust and Lars E. O. Svensson, "Transparency and credibility: monetary policy with unobservable goals,"International Economic Review, 42 (2001), 369-97; Andrea Prat, "The wrong kind of transparency,"American Economic Review, 95 (2005), 862-77 at p. 869; Robert Bloomfield and Mareen O'Hara, "Market transparency: who wins and who loses?"Review of Financial Studies, 12 (1999), 5-35.
32. Martin N. Marshall, Paul G. Shekelle, Sheila Leatherman, and Robert H. Brook, "The public release of performance data,"Journal of the American Medical Association, 283 (2000), 1866-74 at p. 1866.
33. Bennis, "The new transparency," pp. 108-9.
34. For example: Scott B. Keller, Mike Landry, Jeanne Olson, Anne M. Velliquette, Scot Burton and J. Craig Andrews, "The effects of nutrition package claims, nutrition facts panels, and motivation to process nutrition information on consumer product evaluations,"Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 16 (1997), 256-69; Scot Burton, Abhijit Biswas and Richard Netemeyer, "Effects of alternative nutrition label formats and nutrition reference information on consumer perceptions, comprehension, and product evaluations,"Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 13 (1994), 36-47; John C. Kozup, Elizabeth H. Creyer and Scot Burton, "Making healthful food choices: the influence of health claims and nutrition information on consumers' evaluations of packaged food products and restaurant menu items,"Journal of Marketing, 67 (2003), 19-34.
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38. Jeffrey Kraus, "Campaign finance reform reconsidered: New York's public finance program after fifteen years,"The Forum, 3 (2006), 20 (article 6). See also: Nathaniel Persily and Kelli Lammi, "Perceptions of corruption and campaign finance: when public opinion determines constitutional law,"University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 153 (2004), 119-80 at pp. 119-20.
39. Kyoungrae Jung, "The impact of information disclosure on quality of care in HMO markets," presented at iHEA 2007 6th World Congress: Explorations in Health Economics, abstract available at
40. William Walker, "Some reflections on transparency in the contemporary security environment,"Disarmament Forum, 2 (2003), 55-9 at p. 56.
41. Communication Research Institute, "Card Statements Blind Consumers to Debt Traps,"
42. Sara Hansard, "Insurers, banks criticize Obama's proposed consumer watchdog agency,"Investment News, June 24, 2009.
43. Prat, "The wrong kind of transparency," p. 93. See also: Heald, "Transparency as an instrumental value," p. 62; Lord, The Perils and Promise of Global Transparency, p. 5; Bennis, "The new transparency," pp. 112-3.
44. Kaveh G. Shojania and Alan J. Forster, "Hospital mortality: when failure is not a good measure,"Canadian Medical Association Journal, 179 (2008), 153-7 at p. 155.
45. Charles Duhigg, "Clean water laws neglected, at a cost,"New York Times, September 13, 2009.
46. Florini, The Right to Know, p. 4.
47. D. Kahneman, J. Knetsch and R. Thaler, "Anomalies: the endowment effect, loss aversion, and status quo bias,"Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5 (1991), 193-206
48. J. Edward Russo and Paul J. H. Shoemaker, Decision Traps (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989)
49. Arthur Lefford, "The influence of emotional subject matter on logical reasoning,"Journal of General Psychology, 34 (1946), 127-51
50. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, "Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases,"Science, 185 (1974), 1124-31
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53. Brigitte Madrian and Dennis Shea, "The power of suggestion: inertia in 401(k) participation and savings behavior,"Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116 (2002), 1149-225; Kahneman et al., "Anomalies"; Uri Gneezy and Also Rustchini, "Incentives, punishment, and behavior,"Advances in Behavioral Economics, ed. C. F. Camerer, G. Lowenstein, and M. Rabin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 573-89.
54. Gordon Malkiel Burton, A Random Walk Down Wall Street: Including a Life Cycle Guide to Personal Investing, 7th edn (New York: Norton, 1999).
55. Ripken, "The dangers and drawbacks of the disclosure antidote," p. 186.
56. Onora O'Neal, "Transparency and the ethics of communication," p. 81.
57. Vishwanath and Kaufmann, "Toward transparency: new approaches and their application to financial markets," p. 43
58. See also: Onora O'Neill, "Transparency and the Ethics of Communication," pp. 88-9; Virginia A. Sharpe, "Science, bioethics, and the public interest: on the need for transparency,"Hastings Center Report, 32 (2002), 23-6 at p. 24.
59. Ripken, "The dangers and drawbacks of the disclosure antidote," p. 163.
60. Ripken, "The dangers and drawbacks of the disclosure antidote," p. 178.
61. Helen Margetts, "Transparency and digital government,"Transparency: The Key to Better Governance? 197-207 at p. 201
62. Richard H. Thaler, "Mortgages made simple,"New York Times, July 5, 2009.
63. Elizabeth F. Farrell and Martin Van Der Werf, "Playing the rankings game,"Chronicle of Higher Education, May 25, 2007
64. Glen Kersten, "Grading on the curve: college ratings and rankings,"Points of Reference, January, 2000, <>; Eric Hoover, "Liberal-arts college group plans to help develop alternative to commercial rankings,"Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2007.
65. Wired Blogs, "Report: TrustE sites twice as likely to be bad actors," September 26, 2006
66. Kimberly Kindy and Lyndsey Layton, "Purity of federal 'organic' label is questioned,"Washington Post, July 3, 2009. See also: Heald, "Transparency as an instrumental value," p. 70; O'Neill, "Transparency and the ethics of communication," p. 75.
67. George S. Day, "Assessing the effects of information disclosure requirements,"Journal of Marketing, 40 (1976), 42-52 at p. 42.
68. Ripken, "The Dangers and Drawbacks of Disclosure," pp. 159-60.
69. William M. Sage, "Regulating through Information,"Columbia Law Review, 99 (1999), 1701-829 at p. 1729.
70. Ripken, "The dangers and drawbacks of the disclosure antidote."