Parliamentary Transparency: Does it Improve Behavior, Trust, and Policy?

For more than twenty years, development practitioners, scholars, and international donors have been promoting transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More and accountability as the cornerstones of democracy. Recognizing the democratic values of improved trust, better policy, reduced corruption, and enhanced public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio..., international and domestic actors have promoted applying transparency tools, such as access to information, open meetings, and disclosures, within legislative bodies to advance these principles.

Through the wave of accountability discourse, citizen’s expectations for transparency have become the norm. Citizens want greater transparency and accountability, but the tools being applied are not sufficient; there is a need for additional actors, such as civil society organizations dedicated to monitoring parliaments or media, and additional emphasis on the identification and disclosure of information that is meaningful for people to truly hold their parliamentarians
accountable. Notably, while transparency alone is not enough to reach the democratic ideals of trust, participation, and better policy, in some cases, it might have negative impacts, such as opening the door to undue influence of special interests or lobbyists.

The goal of this state-of-the-evidence review by Laura Neuman is to distinguish and highlight research on topics relevant to legislative transparency and to foster its use by Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) stakeholders, including parliamentarians/legislators, civil society organizations, and media development donors. The defining question for the review is, “What are the benefits of legislative transparency?” To reach that point, one must begin by exploring which—if any—of the various legislative transparency mechanisms being applied are the most effective in achieving the benefits.