The complex relationship between transparency and accountability: A synthesis and contribution to existing frameworks

Abstract

Accountability and transparency are of growing importance in contemporary governance. The academic literature has broadly studied the two concepts separately, defining and redefining them, putting them into various frameworks, and sometimes mistakenly using them as synonyms. Curiously, the relationship between the two concepts has been studied only by a few scholars with preliminary approaches. This theoretical article focuses on both concepts, attempting first to describe them, taking into account the various evolutions in the literature and recent developments, and also the first attempts to link the two concepts. In order to show a new approach linking the concepts, theoretical situations in which the concepts are linked are portrayed, demonstrating the need to reconsider the relationship between transparency and accountability. Consequently, a new framework amending the most recent approaches is presented, theoretically delimited and exemplified through practical cases.

Keywords

Accountability answerability from public bodies public governance public management transparency

Introduction

In contemporary society, the prevalence of accountability and transparency has been growing, presenting challenges to administrations. The two concepts, widely studied individually by prominent scholars, are nevertheless still often used as synonyms by some actors or falsely linked by others. Often presented as the holy grail of ‘good governance’, accountability and transparency were first conceptually analysed together in articles by Fox (2007), Hood (2010) and Meijer (2014). All three scholars confirm that the relationship is more complex than expected. The two concepts seem to be interrelated by various conceptual links. How can they be measured together or used as factors of ‘good governance’?

A few decades ago, accountability was a rarely used word with a relatively restricted meaning (Dubnick, 1998). The term now crops up everywhere in the service of all manner of analytical and rhetorical tasks and carrying most of the major burdens of democratic governance. Accountability is an important part of a public manager’s job, as public managers operate in webs of accountability (Page, 2006), where they are held to account by a large number of internal and external parties, such as ministers, governmental bodies, internal and external regulators, financiers and owners, customers and stakeholders, and also the media and politicians (Schillemans, 2015). A large number of authors have investigated the problematic, ambiguous and multidimensional nature of accountability and focused on its effects.

Sometimes considered as a dimension of accountability, transparency is the source of much controversy. Gaining popularity through a normative prism, transparency is now increasingly justified by the results it is supposed to produce – increased trust, reduced corruption, etc. (Etzioni, 2010). The obsession and focus on government abuses, the strengthening of democracy and the emergence of new technologies have transformed the concept into a key element that wins almost unanimous support. Beyond simple access to information and disclosure of administrative data, transparency will be considered in this paper as a multidimensional concept, its two main dimensions being active (voluntary release of information by the government) and passive transparency (referring to the requests submitted by citizens in order to get information).

This article addresses the relationship between accountability and transparency by exploring all identified theoretical possibilities, illustrating them with practical cases in various countries. It starts with an overview of theoretical considerations and inventories the ways they have so far been combined in the literature from a conceptual perspective. It then turns to theoretical situations in which the concepts are linked, based on the most recent approaches and pointing out the shortcomings identified. Lastly, it proposes some amendments to the existing frameworks and illustrates new situations through practical cases.

Theoretical considerations

Transparency

Transparency is nowadays considered as a key tool of good governance and a prerequisite to any democratic regime. According to Joseph E. Stiglitz, judicious use of transparency has the power to create a virtuous circle where legitimacy, citizens’ participation and trust could together lead to a dynamic political change (Worthy, 2010). Reforms aimed at promoting a more transparent administration are therefore supported by most governments. In spite of this global praise for transparency, practitioners and scholars still hold different definitions of the term. Some of them focus their attention on access to information, more specifically on Freedom of Information (FOI) laws (Michener, 2011), while others are concerned with the issue of new technologies and particularly e-government (Bertot et al., 2010). Finally, some scholars prefer to concentrate on the effects of transparency, which is supposed to generate greater trust, more participation, a more efficient administration (Pasquier, 2014) and less corruption.

More recently, the widespread interest in the term has raised many questions about how to tackle transparency conceptually (Hood, 2007). First of all, transparency (and accountability) push governments to adopt a more open functioning, making them vulnerable to public scrutiny. Bauhr and Nasiritousi (2012) thus understand transparency as ‘the release of information that is relevant for evaluating institutions’. Like many other contemporary attempts to define the concept, these authors have a top-down perspective, bringing transparency closer to the notion of disclosure. However, other scholars insist on the citizens’ point on view, highlighting the fact that both the administration and the citizens are part of the process. Taking this perspective, Cotterrell (2000) affirms that ‘transparency as a process involves not just availability of information, but active participation in acquiring, distributing and creating knowledge’. Keeping this aspect in mind, Grimmelikhuijsen and Welch (2012) have proposed one of the most recent and exhaustive definitions of transparency, which takes into account both state-citizens relations and the notion of evaluation mentioned above. They state that ‘transparency is the availability of information about an organisation or actor allowing external actors to monitor the internal workings or performance’. Transparency would therefore include both the state’s and the public’s perspectives on the release of and access to information (active and passive transparency), the participation of citizens in the process, and consequently their capacity to evaluate the functioning of the authorities.

In terms of frameworks, several have already been suggested to measure transparency. Since transparency is a multifaceted and polysemous concept, frameworks focus on different aspects (Heald, 2012; Rawlins, 2008; Van Dooren et al., 2012).

Other authors (see Meijer et al., 2015, forthcoming) propose a distinction between the administrative and political realms. In terms of politics, the framework focuses on democracy (participation), the constitutional state (laws) and the learning process (public debates). The administrative side includes efficiency, integrity (corruption) and resilience (risk management). Moreover, Kaufmann and Bellver (2005) have built an index in order to compare the level of transparency among states. In terms of applied research, a PhD thesis has explored the relationship between transparency and trust through an experiment (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012).

In spite of the general praise for transparency, the concept also has limits. In theory, a philosophical debate sets those who conceive transparency as an intrinsic value against those who wonder about the ethical limits of the process. If transparency is indeed presented as the opposite of the secret, is it not also a form of indecency and indiscretion? From a practical perspective, it is sometimes suggested that full transparency may lead to unintended consequences and create a ‘culture of suspicion, low morale and professional cynicism’ (O'Neill, 2002).

Accountability

Accountability is one of several concepts that have long been central to the theory and practice of public administration (Chan and Rosenbloom, 2010). The concept is conventionally taken as the central problem in the Anglo-American public administration literature (Hood, 2010). Indeed, despite the growing regularity with which this term is used, its meaning remains elusive (Koppell, 2005). Either seen as a virtue or a mechanism, depending on administrative traditions and academic perceptions, accountability can be studied by means of various approaches, as O'Kelly and Dubnick (2014) underline such as principal-agent theory (mechanism), institutionalist theories (function), social or cultural psychology (behaviour) or moral theory (relationship).

For the sake of this article, we will restrict the meaning and scope of accountability to the definition developed by Hood (2010), according to whom accountability broadly denotes the duty of an individual or organisation to answer in some way about how they have conducted their affairs. In this case, accountability is based on the idea of power transmission and delegation and always consists of at least three stages or elements (Bovens, 2007):

The actor is obliged to inform the forum about his or her conduct (information phase);

The forum can question the adequacy of the information or the legitimacy of the conduct (debating phase);

The forum may pass judgment on the conduct of the actor (consequences phase).

This relationship approach from Bovens (2007) limits the ever-expanding sense of the concept. Although some authors have taken another road to analyse and assess, Bovens’ classification (2007) followed by Lindberg’s (2013) have chosen to separate accountability types by the source of control, the nature of the forum, the nature of the actor, the nature of the obligation, the strength of control and the direction of the mechanisms. These classifications have evolved over the years (Bovens, 2007; Lindberg, 2013; Romzek and Dubnick, 1987). They offer a way to conceptualise accountability in the light of specific parameters. However, they merely provide practitioners with theoretical foundations to work on and are useless for managing stakeholders efficiently. Most academic articles have contributed to defining or redefining the concept as well as enriching the literature, but overlook the fact that accountability has become so strategic as to be included in the organisational routine as an operational objective among others. Some new conceptions such as ‘market accountability’ (Bode et al., 2015) have also emerged over the years in an attempt to grasp what accountability really means for public services today.

Accountability, like transparency, contains its own theoretical and practical limits. On the theoretical side, accountability is often attached as a technical part to a contract describing the obligations of both parties (Sinclair, 1995). The reality is nevertheless not so rational and accountability in general discourse is not so structured as the wording of contracts would suggest. A narrator is also considered as incapable of accounting for every action he performs because some are unknown even to himself (Messner, 2009). On the practical side, accountability practices may lead to problems of efficiency (Halachmi, 2002), lack of innovation (Dubnick and Frederickson, 2011) or contradictory objectives (Christensen and Lægreid, 2014).

Linking the two concepts

In the early 20th century, transparency and accountability were not automatically linked. Regarding transparency, Brandeis (1913) is frequently quoted in both general and academic literature for his opinion that ‘sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant; electric lights the most efficient policeman’. But at the time, his chief preoccupation was opaque practices in the banking and finance sectors and heavy industry, and he was not primarily concerned with the lack of accountability of democratic government.

Today, however, transparency and accountability are used together repeatedly (Sasaki, 2010). Taking a normative point of view, the two concepts are often associated with each other because nobody stands against them (Bovens, 2007). For instance, the mission of the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI) is summed up in these words: ‘T/A Initiative is a donor collaborative committed to strengthening democracy and development through empowering citizens to hold their governing institutions to account’.¹ Statements of this kind raise the question of the true nature of the relationship between the two concepts. The next section will answer the question.

From a legal point of view, demands for more access to state information – which would turn into FOI laws – were already being made in the United States in the 1960s. These demands arose out of citizens’ suspicion towards the federal administration, which was not considered accountable at that time (Wald, 1984). The rationale behind the movement in favour of greater transparency is underpinned by the fact that opposition parties, media and interest groups will force government to disclose more information and therefore become more accountable (Roberts, 2002). Some scholars have studied the effects of FOI laws (Worthy, 2010), while others have focused on the implementation of FOI laws and their impact on transparency and accountability (Kirtley, 2006). Publicness of the decision-making processes and decisions themselves has sometimes led officials to be more cautious about the way they work and to record fewer discussions and debates (Riddell, 2014). In this sense, practices can be at odds with the theoretical beneficial effects.

From a conceptual point of view, transparency may reinforce so-called ‘horizontal’ accountability, which means accountability from the administration towards citizens and other stakeholders. It follows a growing trend towards ‘horizontalization’ in government, in which administrations have opened up and moved closer to citizens (Michels and Meijer, 2008). Transparency thus plays a supporting role in strengthening this type of accountability. It also produces indirect effects on ‘vertical’ accountability – in the hierarchy between organisations, elected representatives and the government. Through their access to data, citizens can be aware of administrative practices and denounce dysfunctions. They thus have an opportunity to send signals to the authorities concerned and activate the vertical accountability chain. Citizens are then considered as potential whistle-blowers. According to Heald (2012), vertical transparency, particularly when applied downwards, following the principal-agent principle, is accountability-focused. In this sense, rulers are accountable for their stewardship to those ruled. When going upwards, on the other hand, vertical transparency is more concerned with managerial issues. Heald (2012) goes on to say that the timing of transparency also affects accountability. Transparency in retrospect, as opposed to transparency in real time, closes the accountability window after a certain period of time, therefore making it less intrusive for a reporting organisation. The differentiated effects of these two kinds of transparency on accountability show how both concepts may be determined by the context and institutional tools. Transparency and accountability are thus involved in an ambivalent relationship, and one cannot postulate a positive association in all cases at this stage (Hood, 2010).

In the literature on the matter, the link between transparency and accountability is tackled in different ways. Nevertheless, a common issue stands out: the supposed effects of transparency on accountability are more often evoked than observed empirically (Hale, 2008; Meijer, 2014). Although greater transparency should generate greater accountability, it seems particularly difficult to prove that it does without taking other factors into account (Auld and Gulbrandsen, 2010). A consensus seems, however, to exist regarding the nature of the link. In most articles, authors treat transparency as a dimension of accountability (Bovens, 2007; Koppell, 2005). That is, it increases the number of things that are made visible, increases the number of ways in which things are made visible, and in doing so encourages greater openness. In contrast, some others, such as Gray (1992) tend to favour a relationship in which the development of accountability increases the transparency of organisations.

According to Mulgan (2012), open government practices and FOI laws represent crucial prerequisites for any accountable institutions concerned by these political and legal measures. Following Bovens’ approach, transparency appears to be a necessary but insufficient condition of accountability. The relationship between both concepts encounters at least two major challenges. One is the implication that information is not only disclosed, but also processed well and fully understood. The other is that transparency rarely leads to consequences for institutions or administrations which disclose information. Thus, limiting accountability to a simple function of answerability (the capacity of the administration to give an answer) without providing for sanctions in case of reprehensible behaviour may diminish the controlling power of accounting agencies (Schedler, 1999). However, several authors do not include consequences (i.e. sanctions) in their definition of accountability, arguing that they do not necessarily covariate (Bartolini, 1999).

Three scholars have studied the relationship between transparency and accountability in greater detail. In the first existing theoretical perspective described in this article, Fox (2007) argues that one should first determine what kind of transparency and accountability is at stake. He identifies two different degrees of transparency (opaque and clear) and of accountability (soft and hard). Opaque transparency means disclosure of information, whereas clear transparency exposes the behaviour of the actors. Hard accountability – compared to soft – includes the possibility of imposing sanctions on actions considered objectionable. Going beyond disclosure of information, production of such information on the behaviour of an actor calls for an answer from the latter, who becomes accountable: ‘the capacity to produce answers permits the construction of the right to accountability’ (Fox, 2007). Therefore, clearer transparency and softer accountability provoke a phenomenon of institutional answerability. According to him, this is where the theoretical link between the two concepts lies, as he claims that ‘clear transparency is a form of soft accountability’. Based on these theoretical divisions, he describes three categories:

Dissemination and access to information: In this case, accountability is not solicited and the relationship remains in the transparency sphere (opaque and clear);

Institutional ‘answerability’: In this case, transparency is clear and a relation with soft accountability is established;

Sanctions, compensation and/or remediation: In this case, transparency is not solicited and the relation remains in the accountability sphere (Table 1).

Table 1.

Fox’s framework (2007).

The second author to have addressed the question more specifically is Hood (2010). In his view, three types of relations between transparency and accountability can be identified. In the first, called ‘Siamese twins’, he notes that most documents, especially normative ones, make no distinction between the two concepts. When an administration does not release information to the general public, some sort of accountability without transparency sometimes occur internally. At the same time, some organisations promote transparency, but are not subject to any kind of accountability (e.g. transparency international). In both cases, transparency and accountability are never distinguished and used interchangeably. The second type is called ‘matching parts’. In this kind of relationship, transparency and accountability work hand in hand, contributing together to good governance, but are in principle considered separable (as opposed to the ‘Siamese twins’ approach) and considered complementary. Finally, the third possible combination – the ‘awkward couple’ – assumes that there are tensions between the two concepts. This is especially relevant with regard to content, as pointed out by O'Neill (2006). She argues that disclosed datasets are not always understandable to the reader. Therefore, the nature of the information published has an influence on the behaviour of an agent and on how he can effectively be held accountable. As a result, an administration may appear transparent (if transparency is understood as wide dissemination of information) but cannot be held accountable because of information overload, or lack of clarity. In this sense, both concepts can sometimes be at odds and generate low expectations with respect to good governance. Hood (2010) eventually considers that the three relations vary according to the way transparency and accountability are viewed. However, these worldviews (fatalist, hierarchist, egalitarian, and individualist) are not addressed here (Table 2).

Table 2.

Perspectives on transparency and accountability, adapted from Hood (2010).

The last author dealing with the relation is Meijer (2014). In his book chapter, he starts by saying that the instrumental value of transparency is most often connected with accountability, acting as a prerequisite for the information phase of any accountability process. According to him, measures that strengthen openness in government may increase accountability to formal institutions and to all other stakeholders, including civil society organisations, the media and the people. To challenge the commonly held view that transparency facilitates accountability, he proposes three directions and draws eight lessons from his analysis. The three directions refer to a direct route (increased transparency from government towards the public would facilitate horizontal accountability), an indirect route (a third party such as the citizens, when sending a signal – the fire alarm metaphor – may reinforce vertical accountability) and an inverse relation (the need for accountability may be reduced thanks to a higher level of transparency). The main lessons drawn from his analysis point out the low usage of information by citizens to hold public authorities into account, as opposed to a more extensive usage made by the media and other stakeholders, like interest groups. In this sense, media and stakeholder accountability through transparency can be considered a reality, while citizen accountability remains an illusion (Table 3).

Table 3.

Perspectives on transparency and accountability, adapted from Meijer (2014).

Amending and merging the existing frameworks

We now focus on the amendments needed in the various existing frameworks in order to take into account all the theoretical possibilities. Each theoretical possibility will be exemplified through a practical case observed. It seems, at first sight, that Fox’s (2007), Hood’s (2010) and Meijer’s (2014) frameworks have already listed all possible theoretical linkages between the two concepts. But, as it will be demonstrated, the relationship appears to be rendered more complex by a few additional factors.

For instance, the categories proposed by Fox (2007) are not sufficient to describe all theoretical situations available. His framework has neglected to take into account a parameter that considerably modifies the relationship between the concepts: the content of information, which may either be compromising or non-compromising. This parameter has a major impact on accountability as well as on its relationship with transparency. As there is no precise definition of compromising information in the academic literature, we will therefore propose our own definition of the term. According to the Oxford dictionary, to compromise means ‘to bring (somebody/something /yourself) into danger or under suspicion’.² Compromising information includes of course reputation issues, but there may be no consequences in terms of accountability, in the sense that people to be held into account have no responsibility. If the media publish an article about the imbalance between men and women within the administration, no individual can be blamed for the situation, although the reputation of the administration may be damaged. With respect to transparency, however, the content of information influences the way information is communicated to the public. The definition also includes the notion of ‘weak’ position (as a result of the release of compromising information) raised by the Collins dictionary.³ We thus propose the following definition: compromising information is information contained in data and documents released by the administration that brings it under suspicion, or causes political embarrassment, and may place it in a position of weakness in relation to its citizens. As such, compromising information may refer to potential dysfunctions of an administrative agency, or inappropriate behaviour. In all cases, citizens have a right to know, but processes are sometimes too complex, and individuals’ identities may be protected for privacy reasons. These issues are seriously taken into account before communicating compromising information, showing that this parameter has a major influence on transparency and accountability. In this case, compromising information is based on the administration’s perspective. Citizens’ perceptions, which may be biased by mistrust in public organisations, are not considered here.

As explained above, the content of information seems to play a role in the relationship between accountability and transparency. Indeed, in some situations, simple access to information is sufficient to provoke some sanctions (without going through an answerability phase). A scandal at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) is a typical example. In January 2014, two newspapers (Tages-Anzeiger and Bund) uncovered a big corruption scandal thanks to the Swiss law on transparency (Ltrans). The SECO had awarded more than 40 public mandates to private enterprise without going through the traditional public bidding system. Shortly after access was granted to some compromising documents, one of the managers affected by the scandal chose to resign. This example should have been a typical example of ‘institutional answerability’ in which transparency would have required some actors to provide justifications and enter an accountability process. However, a simple request to access some documents was sufficient to provoke (self-inflicted) sanctions. In this case, the nature of the information involved has played an important role, influencing the type of relationship between accountability and transparency. The disclosure of information can lead to a remediation process, which can also take place before the disclosure itself. The INSIEME project (explained below) is an example of this situation.

Starting in 2001, the INSIEME project was designed to merge two IT systems (direct federal taxes and value added tax) of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA) considered too divergent and outdated into one new system. After an initial contract was cancelled in 2007, the project was finally abandoned two years later, leading to a loss of more than CHF 115 million. After the information was revealed, Finance Minister Evelyne Widmer-Schlumpf suspended the director of the FTA and asked her legal department to carry out an investigation. Therefore, when the SECO (responsible for FTAs actions) identified the dysfunctions within its organisational structure, it took various measures in order to face the disclosure of information that would inevitably happen at some point. The remedies employed in this case were multiple and took place internally in order to prepare the disclosure of information that would happen later on.

These examples prove that Fox’s framework has to be amended to integrate the content of information as a new parameter. In both cases, it played a crucial role in the relationship between accountability and transparency. In order to redesign and adapt Fox’s framework (2007) and get closer to the practical reality and theoretical possibilities, the section below presents both concepts in the light of some recent work and proposes a redefinition. Categories set up in Fox’s framework (2007) will be slightly altered.

First, transparency and its classification need to be redefined. The categories presented by Fox (clear and opaque) appear not to be based on a precise definition and remain vague. Although he mentions proactive dissemination and demand-driven access to information as factors of differentiation, the study of the relationship between transparency and accountability depends heavily on the perspectives adopted about both concepts. In this paper, we adopt the definition of transparency by Grimmelikhuijsen and Welch (2012) presented above. This definition leads to the exclusion of the opaque transparency category. The nature of transparency also has an impact on the relationship. In other words, the way in which information is released, coupled with the content of the information (compromising or not) leads to different kinds of accountability. Consequently, this article fundamentally distinguishes two types of transparency:

Active transparency involves the voluntary dissemination of information. In such cases, the government decides to proactively release information by itself.

Passive transparency refers to the constrained release of information, usually following a request submitted by citizens through FOI laws. The administration is forced to disclose data that were not available to the general public beforehand.

This distinction is central in a recent article by Meijer et al. (2012), who see active and passive release of information as part of what they call intentional access to information, a category that is different from forced access to information (primarily via whistle-blowers).

Second, accountability and its categories also need some redefinition and re-categorization. The concept has been divided into many different groupings in the academic literature. Mostly treated either as a mechanism or as a virtue, accountability has traditionally been classified according to its relational definition. This division in Bovens’ article (2007) highlights three different phases: information, debating and consequences. Fox’s original framework (2007) puts forward two types of accountability: soft and hard. A classification based on Schedler’s article (1999) would appear to be better suited to the practical realities observed above. This article splits accountability into two categories:

Answerability can be defined as the ability to ensure that officials in government are answerable for their actions. It could be conceptualised as a discursive activity in which the officials called to account are obliged to respond to questions from inquirers. These questions might be designed either to uncover a dysfunction or to insure that the mission the officials were entrusted with was carried out properly.

Enforcement contains the idea that the actors called to account – the officials in the case of public accountability – are not only required to explain themselves but can also be punished if their behaviour has been inappropriate. Enforcement here could be synonymous with rewarding good and sanctioning bad behaviour.

The framework presented below integrates the content of information as a new parameter that differentiates and refines situations and also takes into account the redefinition of both transparency and accountability. The original categories put forward by Fox (2007) have been modified to obtain a deeper analysis of the relationship, leading to the creation of the following categories:

Dissemination and responsibility: This category involves only active transparency, which implies that the administration’s responsibility is a form of implicit answerability. For instance, a general press release is considered as a typical example of this first category. This form of active transparency is used to communicate non-compromising information to a wide audience and does not entail any kind of accountability of the public organisation other than the responsibility of disclosing the information.

Institutional answerability: Involves passive transparency and accountability in the form of answerability. This situation concerns any instance of the use of a transparency law for which a public entity has to be answerable, without creating any enforcement in the case of accountability. Being non-compromising, the information unveiled has merely provoked comments and explanations.

Access to information and sanctions: Involves passive transparency and accountability in the form of enforcement. The content of information is compromising. An example of this situation was given above through the SECO case. Transparency, through the use of a FOI law, happens before accountability. Transparency and accountability are here combined to produce good governance, in a situation described by Hood (2010) as predominant in the literature, because it is appealing to both academics and practitioners.

Disclosure and remediation: Involves active transparency and accountability in the form of internal answerability and enforcement. The content of information is compromising. In this case, the temporal sequence is modified and accountability happens before transparency. This situation has been exemplified above through the INSIEME case, in which the problem was solved internally, before informing the public (Table 4).

Table 4.

A new approach to accountability and transparency

Based on this new framework, one may also question the relevance of the cases provided by the authors in the model developed by Hood (2010). First of all, according to the ‘Siamese twins’ scenario, transparency and accountability are not separable and can be used as quasi-synonyms. This kind of relationship echoes the first category described in the framework above, called dissemination and responsibility. In this case, disclosure of information and accountability is considered almost equivalent, as ‘transparency in the sense of openness is itself a way of answering for the conduct of an individual or organization’ (Hood, 2010). In the same vein, the second category of the new approach presented above, labelled institutional answerability, also rests on the fact that both concepts are interpreted as one thing. For Hood (2010), ‘accountability in the sense of answerability necessarily implies the answerers sharing information with those to whom they are answerable’.

However, the two concepts can always be separated. On the one hand, there can be some sort of transparency without accountability, as mentioned by Meierhenrich (2008) regarding the case of the former apartheid regime in South Africa. In these cases, dissemination of information can create low expectations in terms of good governance, as a government claims to be transparent but cannot be held accountable to the bulk of the population. At the same time, transparency without accountability may also lead to high expectations of good governance, as information shared by the government has been approved by the parliament and may be subject to public scrutiny in any case. On the other hand, there can also be some kind of accountability without full transparency. According to Hood (2010), most civil servants are primarily answerable to ministers, without general disclosure to the world at large. Moreover, accountability is not necessarily disabled if information is only available after the event. This last assumption fits with the INSIEME case, where comments about the situation were communicated only when the case had been fixed. In the approach presented in this article, such a situation corresponds to the disclosure and remediation categories that have been set up. At the same time, this way of resolving a case draws criticism about the democratic aspects of the process. As mentioned in the first part of this article, transparency and democracy seem to work hand in hand, transparency having gradually come to be considered as consubstantial to any democratic regime (Florini, 2004). In this sense, the situation described above provokes legitimate reactions.

In the ‘matching parts’ scenario, Hood (2010) explains that accountability and transparency are separable, but need to be associated in order to produce good governance. This view, often implicit in the literature, is appealing to both academics and practitioners. Philosophically, such a perspective is in accordance with Bentham’s views on publicity (Bentham, 2001 [1791]). He believed that public accounts make corrupt dealings more likely to be exposed, which will in turn have an effect on the behaviour of individuals. Even though Hood’s ‘matching parts’ interpretation (2010) is subject to criticism, especially because of the idealistic combination of the two concepts, this situation occur in reality. The SECO case seems to fit into this category, as the use of the Ltrans has led to sanctions, and both transparency and accountability have contributed to good governance. Based on this ascertainment, the ‘matching parts’ interpretation and our categories, made up of access to information and sanctions, seem to overlap.

The ‘awkward couple’ scenario does not fit very well with Fox’s (2007) framework and the new approach presented in this article. However, it is crucial to mention that considering cases where there may be some tension between transparency and accountability, leading critics of the previous interpretation will affirm that both concepts do not necessarily lead to better governance. From this point of view, a defensive posture may reduce the opportunity to generate real answerability in an effective dialogue. This argument echoes the limits of transparency developed in the theoretical considerations on the concept. An example of the ‘awkward couple’ is to be found in a recent article by Ferry et al. (2015). At the local level, the authors show how bottom-up mechanisms (including greater transparency) have shifted transparency and accountability from the ‘matching parts’ to the ‘awkward couple’ scenario. In their view, there is a growing pressure to publish raw data, in a process supposed to enable citizens to exercise downward accountability. However, citizens often lack the skills and experience to analyse the available data, leading to a mismatch between transparency and accountability (Ferry et al., 2015).

Turning to Meijer’s (2014) analysis, some lessons drawn by the author match with the categories created in the new framework presented in this article. For instance, he argues that ‘proactive transparency has limited value for accountability’. This lesson can be applied to the first category, where dissemination actually implies no such form of soft or hard accountability according to Fox’s (2007) terminology, but an implicit form of answerability in which responsibility is assumed through the proactive disclosure of information. For this reason, Meijer (2014) affirms that accountability is limited, because governmental bodies are able to communicate what they want to and in the way they want to, maintaining a large margin of manoeuvre. Although FOI laws potentially allow citizens to explore the nature of information in detail, secrecy prevails in certain sectors, especially where security issues are involved. This assessment leads Meijer (2014) to say that transparency is limited and not applicable in practice to all domains of government activity.

Consideration of the SECO case shows that not only does it come close to Hood’s (2010) ‘matching parts’ approach, but is also related to Meijer’s (2014) two first lessons, which assume that citizen and media accountability can be attained through transparency (even though media accountability is much more often a reality than citizen accountability). The involvement of two Swiss newspapers in the disclosure of compromising information, following a request via the Ltrans, tends to prove this argument.

According to Meijer (2014), media accountability may also lead to political accountability, in the sense that the media can work as ‘fire alarms’. The case is not addressed in this paper, as whistleblowing acts are excluded from the definition used here. However, we do agree that such acts can lead to remediation or sanctions. The most famous example is the Watergate scandal, characterizing Meijer’s ‘indirect route’. It would be interesting and certainly relevant to test whether there is a relationship between the nature of the information revealed and the type of accountability applied in the case of forced transparency.

Finally, one of the main ideas exposed espoused by Meijer (2014) does not conflict with the framework developed above, as examples have shown that media accountability is way more frequent that citizen accountability. On the contrary, it fits with the categories created, especially ‘access to information’ and ‘sanctions’, when FOI laws are used. Moreover, he goes on to say that conditions under which transparency and accountability are combined matter the most, supporting our view that both concepts are interrelated in different schemes and should be carefully studied according to the issues addressed.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that transparency and accountability have been widely studied, defined and placed into various frameworks, their relationship is still difficult to establish and theoretically grasp. The attempts of Fox (2007), Hood (2010) and Meijer (2014) have revealed themselves to be first stepping stones towards a better understanding of a very complex phenomenon that can be approached from various angles. In this paper, the three frameworks have been commented and partially modified according to new criteria. Taking into account the limits of the concepts, the framework produced in this article has attempted to take into account the various aspects described by the three authors while enriching it with new theoretical and practical insights. Following a selected review of literature and the introduction of a new parameter (the content of information), we have been able to demonstrate the flaws in the existing models and exemplify them with diverse cases. Focusing on the new framework designed in this article, it becomes apparent that introducing this new dimension leads to a more refined and precise analysis of the relationship between transparency and accountability. This framework helps academics and practitioners understand how the two concepts interact depending on a forgotten parameter. The relationship between transparency and accountability is constantly redefined according to the context and institutional settings (including individual behaviour of decision-makers) and could be better understood through the categories developed in this framework.

The introduction of additional parameters could also lead to new classifications. Other factors, either internal or external, can have a potential influence on the framework and transform it significantly. For instance, transparency and accountability can vary according to the prevailing political regime (Warren, 2014), and this may affect the relationship between the two concepts. The political context may also exert an influence, depending on the timing. If people working in the administration are facing a forthcoming election, their behaviour may change, leading to the release of information or sanctions that would not necessarily happen under other circumstances. Finally, the degree of citizens’ trust can also affect accountability, showing that transparency is not the only factor impacting the level of accountability (Greiling, 2014). Moreover, Fox (2007) also mentions in his article that potential shame of organisations, due to the rise of transparency, may reduce the need for accountability. This last argument deals with reputational issues. All these factors could improve the framework presented above and lead to promising research.

Consequently, it is clear that alternative frameworks, based on other definitions of transparency and accountability or other parameters of differentiation, do exist and may undermine the amendments and progress made in this article. Bearing in mind that this article deals only with certain specific cases, it would be interesting to broaden the field of analysis and try to apply this new approach to other cases in different countries and contexts. However, cultural and contextual differences would appear to make aiming for universal definitions and measures of the concepts extremely difficult. We would like to emphasize here the fact that there is a necessity to systematically examine how both concepts interact, at least as a first step beyond the normative point of view which positively associates transparency and accountability at all times, as exemplified by the SECO case. This reminds us that such cases do exist, but are not representative of all situations where both concepts are combined.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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