This year, the annual global conference on transparency research was organised by HEC Paris. Approximately 100 researchers convened to discuss issues of transparency research in a multitude of contexts, varying from the local to the European and even global level, from activist to government perspectives, and from democratic to technocratic views on designing transparency policies.
A number of the many papers that were presented and discussed at the conference which took place between 24-26 October are available online, and have been reposted by DemocracySpot. Looking at these papers, the blog comments:
[…] when it comes to research, transparency is treated less as a matter of technology and formats and more as a matter of social and political institutions. And that is a good thing.
Indeed, the maturing transparency research community spent a large portion of its time discussing institutional aspects of transparency policies such as the rationales, incentives, and power dynamics that underlie them. Intriguingly, these aspects, and the discourse in which they are embedded, vary immensely when comparing the role of transparency in places like Paraguay, Brazil, the United States, or the EU.
Next year’s conference is set to take place in Lausanne, Switzerland. Details about this conference will likely follow in spring 2014.
