Short description:

This volume addresses the major questions surrounding the increasing demands for ?transparency? in political, media and civil society discourse, exploring the ambiguities contradictions, as well as the social and political dilemmas, that the age of transparency has unleashed.

Long description:

This volume addresses the major questions surrounding a concept that has become ubiquitous in the media and in civil society as well as in political and economic discourses in recent years, and which is demanded with increasing frequency: transparency.

How can society deal with increasing and often diverging demands and expectations of transparency? What role can different political and civil society actors play in processes of producing, or preventing, transparency? Where are the limits of transparency and how are these boundaries negotiated? What is the relationship of transparency to processes of social change, as well as systems of social surveillance and control? Engaging with transparency as an interrelated product of law, politics, economics and culture, this interdisciplinary volume explores the ambiguities and contradictions, as well as the social and political dilemmas, that the age of transparency has unleashed.

As such it will appeal to researchers across the social sciences and humanities with interests in politics, history, sociology, civil society, citizenship, public policy, criminology and law.

Table of Contents:

1. Cultures of Transparency in a Changing World ? an Introduction
   Dimitrij Owetschkin, Julia Sittmann, Stefan Berger





Part I: Transparency and Public Policy - Historical and Methodological Perspectives







2. Transparency in Public Affairs: The Rise of a Successful Political Metaphor
   Sandrine Baume








3. Transparency and Economic Development
   Jens Forssbaeck







Part II: Transparency in the Digital Age







4. Bullets of Truth: Julian Assange and the Politics of Transparency
   Mark Fenster








5. Whistleblowers, Media, and Democracy in Latin America
   Rogério Christofoletti








6. Blind Spots: Shedding Light on Media Transparency Research Across the World
   Susanne Fengler, Dominik Speck, Mariella Bastian and Judith Pies







Part III: The Limits of Informational Openness







7. Does Transparency Endanger Trust? Reflections on a Delicate Relationship
   Martin Hartmann








8. Can Transparency be a Sin? On the Advantages and Obstacles of the New Silver Bullet in Academic Research
   Stefan Hornbostel








9. The Limits of Transparency: China, the United States and the World Trade Organization
   Padideh Ala?i & Katayoon Beshkardana







Part IV: Transparency and the Individual - The "End of Privacy"







10. Transparency and Privatisation
    Thomas Docherty








11. Transparency, Privacy, and Civil Inattention
    Emmanuel Alloa







Part V: Towards a "Transparent Society"?







12. Stainless Subjects: Transparency Imaginaries of the Avantgardes
    Vincent Kaufman








13. The Idea of the Public Sphere and Social Movements as Agents of Transparency: Historical Perspectives
    Stefan Berger and Dimitrij Owetschkin