Veronika Janyrova
It seems we have found an effective recipe against the crisis of confidence and democracy. Greater transparency should restore lost confidence in democracy, political institutions and politicians. So at least the line of argument of Austrian civil society.
In fact, public transparency and democratic participation seem to have become a survival issue for modern democracies, as the lack of transparency of political decisions and processes favors public corruption, mismanagement and mismanagement - at the national level (Hypo, BuWoG, Telekom, etc.) as well as at international level (see Free trade agreements such as TTIP, TiSA, CETA, etc.).
Democratic co-determination is also only possible if information about political decisions is available. For example, David Walch of Attac Austria states in this context: "Free access to data and information is an essential prerequisite for participation. Only a comprehensive right to information for all guarantees a comprehensive democratic process ".
Transparency globally
With its call for greater transparency, Austrian civil society is part of a highly successful global movement. Since the 1980 years, more than half of the world's states have adopted freedom of information laws to give citizens access to official documents. The stated goal is "to strengthen the integrity, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and legitimacy of public administrations", as can be seen, for example, from the corresponding Council of Europe Convention of 2008. And for the other half of the states, including Austria, it is increasingly difficult to legitimize the maintenance of antiquated official secrecy (see info box).
Transparency and trust
Nevertheless, the question remains whether transparency actually creates trust. There is some evidence that transparency creates mistrust. For example, there is a slight negative correlation between the quality of the information freedom legislation, such as the Canadian Center for Law and Democracy (CLD), and the (non) trust in political institutions, as rated by the Transparency International Corruption Index ( see table). Toby Mendel, Managing Director of the Center for Law and Democracy, explains this surprising relationship as follows: "On the one hand, transparency increasingly brings information about public grievances, which initially causes mistrust in the population. On the other hand, good (transparency) legislation does not automatically imply a transparent political culture and practice. "
Today's dealings with politicians also raise doubts about the mantra "Transparency creates trust". Although politicians have never been so transparent to citizens, they are met with an unprecedented level of mistrust. Not only do you have to be wary of plagiarism hunters and shitstormers, you also have to face interviews with police-tube-like interviews when they change their minds. What causes this increasing transparency in politicians? Will they get better?
That too is doubtful. It can be assumed that in every utterance they anticipate possible hostile reactions and thus continue to cultivate the art of saying nothing. They will make policy decisions away from (transparent) political bodies and misuse them as public relations tools. And they will flood us with information that lacks any informational content. The hostile treatment of politicians also raises the question of which personal qualities such a person has or must develop in order to withstand this pressure. Philanthropy, empathy and the courage to be honest are rare. It is increasingly unlikely that reasonable, enlightened, citizen-bound people will ever go into politics. Which caused the distrust spiral to turn a little further.
The look of the scholars
In fact, numerous voices now also warn against the unwanted side effects of the transparency mantras. Political scientist Ivan Krastev, Permanent Fellow at the Institute for the Sciences of Humanities (IMF) in Vienna, even speaks of a "transparency mania" and points out that "showering people with information is a tried and tested means of keeping them in ignorance". He also sees the danger that "injecting large amounts of information into the public debate will only make them more involved and shift the focus from citizens' moral competence to their expertise in one or the other policy area".
From the point of view of philosophy professor Byung-Chul Han, transparency and trust can not be reconciled, because "trust is only possible in a state between knowledge and non-knowledge. Confidence means building a positive relationship with one another despite not knowing one another. [...] Where there is transparency, there is no room for trust. Instead of 'transparency creates trust' it should actually mean: 'Transparency creates trust' ".
For Vladimir Gligorov, philosopher and economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), democracies are fundamentally based on mistrust: "Autocracies or aristocracies are based on trust - in the selflessness of the king, or the noble character of the aristocrats. However, the historical verdict is such that this trust was misused. And that is how the system of temporary, elected governments emerged, which we call democracy. "
Perhaps one should remember in this context a basic principle of our democracy: that, the "checks and balances". The mutual control of state constitutional bodies on the one hand, and the citizen against their government to the other - for example by the possibility to vote them out. Without this democratic principle, which has made its way from antiquity to the Enlightenment into Western constitutions, separation of powers can not work. Living mistrust is therefore nothing foreign to democracy, but a seal of quality.
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
