The end of secrecy

• Main Author: FLORINI, Ann
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1998
• Subjects: Government; Environmental regulation; Corporations; Environmental pollution; Pollutant emissions; Nongovernmental organizations; Business structures; Inventories; Sovereignty; Governance; Political Science; Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2320; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3577/viewcontent/EndofSecrecy_1998.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Two standards of behavior are slugging it out around the world. Advocates of well-established norms such as corporate privacy and national sovereignty want to hide information from prying eyes, while promoters of transparency tout it as the solution to everything from international financial crises to arms races and street crime. Just what is transparency? Put simply, transparency is the opposite of secrecy. Secrecy means deliberately hiding your actions; transparency means deliberately revealing them. This element of volition makes the growing acceptance of transparency much more than a resigned surrender to the technologically facilitated intrusiveness of the Information Age. Transparency is a choice, encouraged by changing attitudes about what constitutes appropriate behavior.