What is it about?
According to a popular assumption, transparency is a great idea while secrecy is harmful and should thus be eradicated. My article assumes that there might actually be good reasons for the continuance of organizational secrecy, which I demonstrate in a case study on a German political party that vows to be as transparent as possible but fails to implement its ideal once elected into public office.
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Why is it important?
Most research uncritically affirms the ideal of transparency and thus takes a reformist approach ("how can be make transparency better?"). In contrast, my theoretical perspective and empirical findings call for caution and help us understand, why transparency often fails in practice.
Perspectives
Doing research on transparency has been an illuminating experience for me, not only as a scientist but also as a citizen. It is one of those magic buzzwords that we endorse in our daily life without thinking much about it. Finding out about the unintended and sometimes detrimental effects of transparency has had an enormous impact on my thinking and challenged some deeply held beliefs about how we could improve society.
Leopold Ringel
Universitat Bielefeld
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unpacking the Transparency-Secrecy Nexus: Frontstage and backstage behaviour in a political party, Organization Studies, March 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0170840618759817.
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