Transparency and Multi-Layered Governance

Abstract

Transparency is often seen as conflicting with the consociational type of government since expectations of openness and visibility are difficult to reconcile with a continuous search for trust, compromise and consensus. The pay-off of consociationalism – stability in a context of high social fragmentation – thus seems to imply that transparency has to be sacrificed. As compromise, consensus and a search for mutual trust are also essential features of multi-layered governance where various public authorities and private actors at several territorial and institutional levels interact, similar problems can be expected. Just as under consociationalism, decision-making procedures under these forms of governance are often complex and opaque. Although complexity and opaqueness of decision-making procedures could be considered to facilitate the search for compromise, they limit transparency. But, as absence of transparency undermines democratic control by the people or parliament, an interlinked question ultimately relates to the democratic legitimacy of such multi-layered governance systems. This panel addresses questions of transparency under multi-layered forms of governance (whether regional, national, international or transnational). Contributions – both theoretical and empirical – are welcome that deal, among others, with questions of transparency in federal states, EU-politics, development cooperation, international regulatory regimes or trade negotiations.

Title	Details
Regulation beyond Borders: Explaining Variation in Transparency of Transnational Regimes	View Paper Details
Creating Publicity Under Constraints. Expert Interventions in Cases of Collective Defense	View Paper Details
Is Transparent Policy-making Irreconcilable with Direct Democracy and Consensus Government?	View Paper Details
Legitimacy through transparency, at what cost?	View Paper Details
The Security Exceptions to Transparency in the Compound EU Legal Order	View Paper Details