Transparency, as used in the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning a "transparent" object is one that can be seen through. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc.
Transparency in Politics
In politics, transparency is introduced as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When government meetings are open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to discussion, they are seen as transparent and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest.[9]
In government, politics, ethics, business, management, law, economics, sociology, etc., transparency is the opposite of privacy; an activity is transparent if all information about it is open and freely available. Thus when courts of law admit the public, when fluctuating prices in financial markets are published in newspapers, those processes are transparent.
When military authorities classify their plans as secret, transparency is absent. This can be seen as either positive or negative; positive, because it can increase national security, negative, because it can lead to secrecy, corruption and even a military dictatorship.
While a liberal democracy can be a plutocracy, where decisions are taken behind locked doors and the people have very small possibilities to influence the politics between the elections, a participative democracy is more closely connected to the will of the people.
Participative democracy, built on transparency and everyday participation, has been used officially in northern Europe for decades. (In the northern European country Sweden, public access to government documents became a law as early as 1766.) It has officially been adopted as an ideal to strive for by the rest of EU.
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I rarely see any mention of this in the media. Are the cons pushing this? The libs?
We can't hold any of our governments accountable if we (the people) have no idea what they're up to.
The only thing I've read recently about this crucial aspect of government relates to the upcoming election debate where one of the party is actually SUPPORTING another's freedom to debate. You would never see this under the normal slugfest diversion we have now..
Jack Layton says he would like Green Party Leader Elizabeth May to take part in the election debate and wants the broadcast consortium that decides who is in and who is out to clarify its criteria.
“We would be fine with her being there and what we think is there needs to be some rules established,” Mr. Layton said on a campaign stop at a cabinet maker in Oshawa east of Toronto on Wednesday.
“Right now there’s no transparency,” he said. “There’s this closed-door decision making process. Canadians don’t know what this consortium is up to when it makes its decisions and we think it would be good if she were to be there.”
Layton backs May’s participation in leaders debate - The Globe and Mail
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None of the parties have mentioned transparency in their official platforms, and yet, all of them should. With the abject corruption coming from both governments we voted into power, accountability is the highest priority we should be striving for.
