Transparency, Society and Subjectivity

Transparency, Society and Subjectivity PDF

Author: Emmanuel Alloa

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-22

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 3319771612

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This book critically engages with the idea of transparency whose ubiquitous demand stands in stark contrast to its lack of conceptual clarity. The book carefully examines this notion in its own right, traces its emergence in Early Modernity and analyzes its omnipresence in contemporary rhetoric. Today, transparency has become a catchword outplaying other Enlightenment values like empowerment, sincerity and the notion of a public sphere. In a suspicious manner, transparency is entangled in the discourses on power, surveillance, and self-exposure. Bringing together prominent scholars from the emerging field of Critical Transparency Studies, the book offers a map of the various sites at which transparency has become virulent and connects the dots between past and present. By studying its appearances in today’s hyper-mediated economies of information and by linking it back to its historical roots, the book analyzes transparency and its discontents, and scrutinizes the reasons why it has become the imperative of a supposedly post-ideological age.

The Transparency Society

The Transparency Society PDF

Author: Byung-Chul Han

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2015-08-19

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13: 080479751X

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Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything—and everyone—has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

The Transparency Paradox

The Transparency Paradox PDF

Author: Ida Koivisto

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-06-16

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0192667904

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Transparency has become a new norm. States, international organizations, and even private businesses have sought to bolster their legitimacy by invoking transparency in their activities. This growth in popularity was made possible through two interconnected trends: the idea that transparency is inherently good, and that the actual meaning of the term is becoming harder and harder to pin down. Thus far, this has remained undertheorized. The Transparency Paradox is an insightful account of the hidden logic of the ideal of transparency and its legal manifestations. It shows how transparency is a covertly conflicted ideal. The book argues that counter to popular understanding, truth and legitimacy cannot but form a problematic trade-off in transparency practices.

Cultures of Transparency

Cultures of Transparency PDF

Author: Stefan Berger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1000373541

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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.

Contested Transparencies, Social Movements and the Public Sphere

Contested Transparencies, Social Movements and the Public Sphere PDF

Author: Stefan Berger

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 3030239497

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This edited collection examines the multi-faceted phenomenon of transparency, especially in its relation to social movements, from a range of multi-disciplinary viewpoints. Over the past few decades, transparency has become an omnipresent catch phrase in public and scientific debates. The volume tracks developments of ideas and practices of transparency from the eighteenth century to the current day, as well as their semantic, cultural and social preconditions. It connects analyses of the ideological implications of transparency concepts and transparency claims with their impact on the public sphere in general and on social movements in particular. In doing so, the book contributes to a better understanding of social conflicts and power relations in modern societies. The chapters are organized into four parts, covering the concept and ideology of transparency, historical and recent developments of the public sphere and media, the role of the state as an agent of surveillance, and conflicts over transparency and participation connected to social movements.

Transparency in Global Change

Transparency in Global Change PDF

Author: Burkart Holzner

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9780822972877

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An examination of the quest for information exchange in an increasingly international, open society, Transparency in Global Change discusses the reasons for the recent increase in public desire for transparency and the byproducts this transparency can produce.

Radical transparency and digital democracy

Radical transparency and digital democracy PDF

Author: Luke Heemsbergen

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2021-08-04

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1800437625

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This book tells the story of radical transparency in a datafied world. The analysis, grounded from past examples of novel forms of mediation, unearths radical change over time, from a trickle of paper-based leaks to the modern digital torrent.

(In)visible European Government

(In)visible European Government PDF

Author: Maarten Hillebrandt

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-22

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1003832237

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This book questions the theoretical premises and practical applications of transparency, showing both the promises and perils of transparency in a methodologically innovative way and in a cross-section of policy instruments. It scrutinizes transparency from three perspectives - methodologically, theoretically, and empirically - both in the specific context of the EU but also in the wider context of modern society in which transparency is embraced as an almost unquestionable virtue. This book examines the ways in which transparency practices can make institutions visible and stands out for its methodological self-reflection: to fully understand the irresistible call for transparency in our governing institutions, we must reflect on our own relationship with it. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of transparency studies, democratic legitimacy, global governance, governance law, EU studies and law and public policy more widely.

Analysing the Trust-Transparency Nexus

Analysing the Trust-Transparency Nexus PDF

Author: Ian Stafford

Publisher: Policy Press

Published: 2023-09

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1447355229

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Drawing on fieldwork from the UK, France and Germany, this volume addresses the relationship between trust and transparency in the context of multi-level governance.

This Obscure Thing Called Transparency

This Obscure Thing Called Transparency PDF

Author: Emmanuel Alloa

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2022-03-31

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 9462703256

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The paradoxical logic of transparency and mediation Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media – it is ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that does not call for more transparency. But what does this word actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the paradoxical logics of transparency and mediation? This Obscure Thing Called Transparency gathers contributions by international experts who critically assess the promises and perils of transparency today.