8-18-2026 4:36pm

From Public Agenda

John Williams Editor

Most of us interact with government long before we ever think about the word transparency.

We receive a property tax bill. We notice a change in an assessment. A new development is approved nearby. The county adopts a budget. A road project costs more than originally expected. A public body makes a decision that affects our neighborhood, our business, or our family.

And sooner or later, someone asks a very reasonable question:

Why?

Why did my bill change? How was this value determined? Why was this project selected? Where is the money going? Who made this decision? What information did they consider?

Those questions are not evidence of hostility toward government. They are part of citizenship.

Government exercises authority on behalf of the public. It collects taxes, spends public money, administers laws, maintains records, assesses property, regulates activity, and makes decisions that can materially affect people’s lives. When we give institutions that much authority, we should also expect something in return: the ability to see and understand how that authority is being exercised.

That is where transparency begins.

But transparency is often misunderstood. It is easy to think that government becomes transparent simply by publishing a document, posting a budget online, or responding to a public-records request.

Those things matter. However, they are just not the whole story.

Being Able to Find Information Is Not the Same as Being Able to Understand It

Anyone who has ever tried to navigate a large government website knows the difference.

The information may be there. The harder question is whether an ordinary person can find it, understand it, and determine what it means for them.

That distinction appears throughout the scholarly literature on government transparency.

Kosack and Fung (2014) examined the relationship between transparency and governance and found that disclosure is most valuable when information can actually be used to address problems of governance and performance. In other words, transparency is not simply about releasing information. It is about making information useful enough for people to evaluate what government is doing.

Cucciniello and Nasi (2014) make a similar distinction between formal transparency and transparency that actually responds to citizens’ informational needs. A government may satisfy a technical disclosure requirement while leaving the public with little meaningful understanding of the decision being disclosed.

Consider a county budget.

A locality might publish hundreds of pages of financial tables, revenue projections, departmental expenditures, debt obligations, and capital plans. Technically, that information is available.

But suppose a resident simply wants to know why a particular tax burden is increasing.

Where should that person begin?

If answering that question requires working through several hundred pages of technical financial material, finding multiple supporting documents, and understanding governmental accounting terminology, we should ask whether disclosure has actually accomplished the broader purpose of transparency.

Although the document may be public, the rationale behind the decision(s) may still be difficult to see.

Transparency Gives Accountability Somewhere to Begin

We often talk about accountability as though it begins when something goes wrong.

It begins much earlier.

Accountability starts with the ability to know what happened.

A taxpayer cannot meaningfully question an assessment without understanding how the assessment was determined. Residents cannot evaluate a major expenditure without knowing what was spent and why. Citizens cannot judge whether a policy achieved its stated objective if they cannot see what the objective was, how success was measured, and what ultimately occurred.

This is one reason transparency matters so much in fiscal governance.

Yusuf et al. (2017) studied perceptions of fiscal accountability across seven local governments in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region. Their research considered government transparency, access to financial information, participation opportunities, responsible spending, financial reporting, and efforts to educate citizens about public finances.

There is an important lesson in that research for every locality.

Financial accountability cannot exist solely inside government.

Auditors, finance officers, administrators, and elected officials certainly have important responsibilities. But the public must also have enough meaningful information to evaluate how its money is being managed.

That means residents should be able to understand more than the final number appearing on a tax bill.

They should be able to understand how that number came to be.

The same principle applies when property is assessed, when a new revenue source is proposed, when debt is issued, when a capital project grows in cost, or when an economic development agreement commits public resources.

People may ultimately disagree about whether a decision was wise. Transparency does not eliminate disagreement.

It makes informed disagreement possible.

But Does Transparency Actually Increase Trust?

This is where the conversation becomes more interesting.

It is common to hear that transparency builds public trust. There is some truth in that idea, but the research suggests we should be more careful about how we say it.

Transparency does not automatically make people trust government.

Grimmelikhuijsen et al. (2013), in a cross-national experimental study, found that the relationship between transparency and trust is more complicated than simply providing more information and expecting greater confidence in government. What people already believe, what the disclosed information reveals, and the institutional context all influence how transparency affects trust.

Later experimental research by Grimmelikhuijsen et al. (2020) similarly found that simply reminding citizens about access to government information through freedom-of-information mechanisms did not necessarily increase trust.

At first glance, that might sound like an argument against transparency.

It is not.

It actually tells us something important about what transparency is supposed to do.

The purpose of transparency should not be to persuade citizens to trust government.

The purpose should be to give citizens enough information to decide whether that trust is deserved.

Sometimes transparency will reveal that government performed well. Sometimes it will show that public money was carefully managed, assumptions were reasonable, procedures were followed, and outcomes were consistent with what citizens were told.

That should strengthen confidence.

Other times, transparency may expose poor judgment, an ineffective program, an unrealistic projection, an inequitable practice, or even misconduct.

That may reduce confidence.

But that is not transparency failing.

That is transparency doing its job.

Recent research helps illustrate the point. Ripamonti (2024) found that meaningful disclosure, particularly financial and performance information and disclosure extending beyond minimum legal requirements, can improve perceptions of trust.

The distinction is subtle but important.

Government should not become transparent because transparency makes government look trustworthy.

Government should become transparent because trustworthy government should be willing to be examined.

Sunshine Alone Does Not Solve Everything

There is another caution worth discussing.

Transparency is powerful, but it cannot carry the entire burden of accountability by itself.

Simply releasing information does not guarantee that anyone will notice a problem, understand it, or possess the ability to do something about it.

Research on transparency and corruption makes this especially clear.

Schnell (2023) explains that transparency can help reduce corruption, but information must be meaningful, wrongdoing must be recognizable, and institutions must provide mechanisms through which misconduct can actually lead to accountability.

Bauhr and Grimes (2017) similarly demonstrate that the relationship between transparency and corruption depends partly upon what information becomes visible and whether disclosure can activate accountability.

Think about what that means in practice.

Publishing a contract is useful.

Making the contract understandable is better.

Providing information about how the vendor was selected adds context.

Showing amendments, cost increases, performance measures, and eventual outcomes allows the public to follow what happened after the contract was signed.

Maintaining audit processes, ethical safeguards, appeal procedures, public meetings, and independent oversight gives that information somewhere to go if a problem is discovered.

Transparency is therefore not the whole accountability system.

It is what allows much of that system to work.

There Is Also a Question of Fairness

This part of the transparency conversation deserves more attention.

Not everyone enters government with the same knowledge.

Someone who works in taxation may know which assessment records to request. An accountant may understand a government financial statement. An attorney may know how to navigate an administrative appeal. A developer may understand planning terminology. Someone who regularly attends public meetings may know exactly where to find supporting documents.

But what about everyone else?

Should understanding government require professional expertise?

When information is technically public but practically inaccessible, the people most capable of navigating government gain an informational advantage over everyone else.

That makes transparency an issue of fairness as much as administration.

Wu et al. (2017) found a positive relationship between government transparency and citizens’ perceptions of social equity, while also identifying the role that trust plays in that relationship.

That finding should make us think differently about accessibility.

Plain-language explanations are not a lesser form of government communication. Well-designed public dashboards are not cosmetic additions. Explaining how a tax, assessment, fee, or policy works is not simply good public relations.

These practices help reduce the distance between the people who understand government professionally and the people government exists to serve.

A resident should not need a degree in public administration to understand a public decision that affects their household.

So What Should Transparency Look Like?

Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking whether government has made information available, we should ask whether government has made itself understandable.

That is a much higher standard.

It means explaining consequential decisions before residents are forced to demand explanations.

It means presenting financial information in ways that taxpayers can reasonably follow.

It means showing assumptions, not simply announcing conclusions.

When a methodology determines an assessment, tax, fee, eligibility decision, or public benefit, people should be able to understand that methodology.

When actual results differ substantially from projections, government should explain why.

When a project changes significantly in cost or scope, the public should be able to follow those changes.

And when government gets something wrong, transparency should include acknowledging the mistake and explaining what will be done about it.

Pozen (2020) cautions against treating transparency as an automatic solution to every problem in public administration. Its effects depend on legal, institutional, political, historical, and cultural circumstances.

That caution is useful.

Transparency should never become another box government checks.

The goal is not disclosure for disclosure’s sake.

The goal is a government the public can see well enough to evaluate.

The Public Should Not Have to Guess

This brings us back to that simple question:

Why?

It is one of the healthiest questions a citizen can ask government.

Why did this change?

Why did we spend this money?

Why was this property valued this way?

Why was this policy selected instead of another?

Why did the outcome differ from what we were originally told?

A strong public institution should not fear those questions. It should be built to answer them.

Citizens will not always agree with the answers. That is neither unusual nor unhealthy in a democratic society. Reasonable people can examine the same evidence and reach very different conclusions about taxation, development, spending, regulation, and public priorities.

Transparency does not promise agreement.

It offers something more fundamental: the ability to understand enough to participate intelligently.

Government authority ultimately originates with the people. Public officials exercise it for a period of time. Administrators carry it out professionally. Institutions establish procedures around it.

But the public should always be able to see what is being done in its name.

That is why transparency is more than posting records online.

It is more than complying with a disclosure requirement.

And it is certainly more than a communications strategy.

Transparency is a discipline of public stewardship.

It says to the citizen: You should not have to take our word for it. You should be able to see for yourself.

For government worthy of public confidence, that should not be an uncomfortable proposition.

It should be the standard.

References
Bauhr, M., & Grimes, M. (2017). Transparency to curb corruption? Concepts, measures and empirical merit. Crime, Law and Social Change, 68, 431–458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9695-1
Cucciniello, M., & Nasi, G. (2014). Transparency for trust in government: How effective is formal transparency? International Journal of Public Administration, 37(13), 911–921. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2014.949754
Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Piotrowski, S. J., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (2020). Latent transparency and trust in government: Unexpected findings from two survey experiments. Government Information Quarterly, 37(4), 101497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2020.101497
Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Porumbescu, G., Hong, B., & Im, T. (2013). The effect of transparency on trust in government: A cross-national comparative experiment. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 575–586. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12047
Kosack, S., & Fung, A. (2014). Does transparency improve governance? Annual Review of Political Science, 17, 65–87. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-032210-144356
Pozen, D. E. (2020). Seeing transparency more clearly. Public Administration Review, 80(2), 326–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13137
Ripamonti, J. P. (2024). Does being informed about government transparency boost trust? Exploring an overlooked mechanism. Government Information Quarterly, 41(3), 101960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2024.101960
Schnell, S. (2023). To know is to act? Revisiting the impact of government transparency on corruption. Public Administration and Development, 43(5), 355–367. https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.2029
Wu, W., Ma, L., & Yu, W. (2017). Government transparency and perceived social equity: Assessing the moderating effect of citizen trust in China. Administration & Society, 49(6), 882–906. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399716685799
Yusuf, J.-E., Jordan, M. M., Franklin, A. L., & Ebdon, C. (2017). How much are citizen perceptions of fiscal accountability influenced by government transparency, information access, and participation opportunities? Public Finance and Management, 17(4).