Abstract
Governmental transparency, a metaphor commonly used to refer to a government’s willingness to disclose sensitive information to the public, has become a vital characteristic used to describe and measure the effectiveness of democracy. In The Transparency Fix: Secrets, Leaks, and Uncontrollable Government Information, Mark Fenster theoretically applies a communication perspective to examine the misperceptions, failures, and public dissatisfaction with institutional transparency within a democracy. The author fulfills this examination with a provisional overview of the administrative, legal, cultural, and social aspects of democratic governments. Fenster forms a clear hypothesis by expanding on the experiences of prominent bureaucratic officials and the failures that arise from hiding both republican and democratic governmental documents and actions by exploring the administrative, judicial, and legislative practices that have shaped democracy in the United States. The author’s primary purpose is to emphasize the need for transparency in democracy by examining government secrecy and information control, which influence the invisibility of bureaucrat processes. He achieves this through the use of historical examples of how governmental information has been disseminated legally and illegally.
Fenster’s monograph is comprised of eight chapters that cover topics such as democratic governments in Post-War, the innovations of transparency laws, the disclosure effects of the innovative laws, and the implausibility of information control. Specifically, Part I is comprised of three chapters outlining the liberation free and open government in the Post-War era, the inadequacies related to the innovations of transparency, and the limits of governmental transparency related to secrete states. Part II thoroughly examines uncontrollable states and the disclosure effects of government information. Here, the author emphasizes the governments’ inability to control and hide all sensitive departmental information in this section, which is imperative to understanding the dissatisfaction among the government with information leaks and the public desire for governmental accountability. Part III of the book concludes with two chapters that analyze the likelihood of transparency and failures of the informational fixes, along with the dissatisfaction of information breaches.
Although Fenster identifies the necessity of building trust between citizens, government officials, and practices within democracies, he highlights the improbability of effective democracies if required to be completely transparent. He justifies this assertion by exanimating the issues that have developed and occurred from governmental secrecy in Parts I and II of the book. The author supports his assertions for the governmental transparency by examining publicized official governmental leaks (e.g., WikiLeaks) with support of political theorists (e.g., Bentham). Fenster’s discussion of the political theorist to describe transparent government assists the reader in understanding the various perspectives that influence the public, which makes it difficult to appease all. This is a critical observation because Fenster emphasizes the historical awareness of problems that arise with governmental transparency that range from government officials overexposing sensitive information to the public and the public’s displeasure with the information disclosed to them. Nevertheless, the author emphasizes the need for a balance between secretive government practices and accountability with an examination of the public’s mistrust after the disclosure of sensitive information that has been released. The historical combination of these two sections provides insight into the complexities of governmental transparency and the need for stricter evaluations of democracies.
Fenster’s provisional investigation of transparency solutions is detailed in Part III. Here, the author highlights the ambiguity of transparency in appeasing the public through public leaks such as WikiLeaks. Further, the author’s findings heavily rely on discussing governmental transparency but disappointment among the public with recent leaks associated with the publics’ cybernetic dreams. However, Fenster’s examination is limited. Fenster includes communication theories to explore and examine governmental transparency rather than broadening the examination with thorough theoretical an interdisciplinary review. Nevertheless, the author effectively applies theoretical communication perspectives that critically assess historical and governmental constraints associated with information disclosure that has influenced the public’s perception of democracy. Fenster’s examination suggests that democratic transparency occurs when the public perceives that the government is accountable and unnecessary when the government has disclosed more information to the public than needed. Furthermore, his assessment aids in educating and creating discourse for potential remedies of the current issues that have emerged from governmental secrecy.
Overall, this book provides a thorough exploration of the need for governmental transparency within democratic governments. Fenster’s observations offer critical points that range from governmental accountability to protect governmental operations for the purposes of safeguarding the public. Additionally, the book highlights the common misnomers related to governmental transparency, which satisfies an educational gap in the literature. To that end, this book would be best suited for criminal justice undergraduate and graduate students because it can assist in clarifying the pervasive, complex problems within democratic governments that may not be commonly known or overlooked. As such, this book is sure to provoke an ample amount of discourse for seminar style criminal justice courses. Additionally, this book presents remedies for governmental transparency with a thorough historical review. Therefore, it would also be suitable for educating practitioners in constructing alternative solutions that may not be considered initially.