Against the Secrecy Bug: Promoting Internet Use to Further Accountability

Bureaucracies are inherently secretive. German sociologist Max Weber said that in the 1920s, long before the advent of television news conferences and the internet, in a time when journalism wasn't actually meant to be investigative. That is true for autocracies, but don't think democratic governments are immune to the secrecy bug. United States government agencies increased the use of privacy exemptions to deny federal Freedom of Information Act requests by more than 600 % between 1998 and 2002, according to a study by Jennifer LaFleur.

Especially in uncertain times - economically, militarily, and otherwise - governments like to argue that their citizens would happily surrender some (or many) of their civic rights (provided they have any to begin with) in order to increase their personal security. The rights to free speech and access to information are among the most vulnerable to such considerations. David Cullier from the University of Arizona and Suzanne Piotrowski from Rutgers University recently presented a study that looks at the relationship between information-seeking on the internet and support for access to government records. They find that people who use the Internet often to search for information are also likely to support access to government documents. This relationship holds even when taking into account gender, education, and political ideology (!) of the respondents. So it's not only Liberals crying for more transparency, conservative internet users make the same demand.

Although the authors can't make any definite statements about causality, they conclude that "perhaps people who use the internet for news and information are more likely to see the utility and benefits of access to government records ... By obtaining these records online, the perceived benefits may lead to increased efficacy, use and support for access." And since more and more people use the Internet, we can expect more public demand for access to information.

Cullier and Piotrowski list several policy recommendations. They maintain that e-government should be relevant to citizens, meaning that agencies should post information that is relevant to people, and they should do so proactively. They should make people aware of what's available online. Since the authors assume that the public's expectations of government transparency will increase as their use of the information increases, e-government needs more funding. There's also some danger in this hypothetic development because the digital divide between those who are educated and actively seeking for information and those who don't use the internet. Governments therefore need to target the latter group of citizens to promote the use of the internet for seeking information and strengthening personal efficacy.

So what does that mean for governance? It points us to another instrument for creating public demand for accountability. As the authors of this study point out, internet users are more supportive of access to information rights. Therefore - assuming that one indeed causes the other to some degree - we can suggest that promoting internet access (infrastructure) and use (media literacy) will contribute to creating this demand, which again, through the power of public opinion, will contribute to governments being more accountable to their citizens.

Photo credit: Flickr user Gideon Burton