Visions of vision: governments, companies, activists and how they deal with visibility, transparency and surveillance

In recent years, the demand for more transparency and less surveillance is omnipresent. This demand implies that surveillance and transparency have no overlap. While surveillance has been extensively researched by scholars such as Foucault, Ganascia and Mann, transparency is more often invoked that defined. This study investigates several attempts at transparency from a wide variety of fields and elaborates on their advantages and disadvantages. It is argued that there are structural differences in various attempts at transparency. Nevertheless, transparency is not inherently good and can easily be turned into a system of surveillance

Conclusion

Based on the Baconian imperative that "knowledge is power", the drive for transparency gathers up ever-more speed. Especially in politics and economics, transparency has become a widely used catchphrase. Transparency is supposed to alter information asymmetries, improve market efficiency and establish a more inclusive and fair political praxis. While transparency is hoped to alter power relations, and thus to be a revolutionary or at least a reformative tool, surveillance is the privilege of those already in power, and thus regarded as a reactionary tool.        The studies in this joint volume have investigated this dichotomy by looking at various actors in regard to their possibility to change or cement existing power relations, symmetries, improve market efficiency, and establish a more inclusive and fair political praxis. While transparency is hoped to alter power relations, and thus to be a revolutionary or at least a reformative tool, surveillance is the privilege of those already in power. Each contribution, in its unique way, took a skeptical stance towards potential power shifts induced through societal or behavioral changes. This book examined a multitude of societal actors and the power relations between them. Although all contributions highlighted very different subject matters, some common themes emerged. These common themes ought to be highlighted in this final section. Moreover, this final chapter allows us to briefly summarise the central themes and most important finding of each article.        The first contribution treats surveillance and transparency as two sides of the same coin in the sense that both are attempts at changing behaviour by increasing the visibility of actors. Zeijl examines several attempts at transparency from a wide variety of actors. He argues that transparency, as it is currently put in practice by governments and companies, is more lip service than real concern with accountability and openness. Zeijl claims that these attempts at transparency are influenced by the logic of surveillance and therefore consolidate already existing power relations. While there are alternative ways of constructing transparency, they all have possible adverse effects that cannot and should not be easily cast aside. Therefore, one needs to critically assess what the exact benefits of transparency are in order to reach a balanced judgement on whether these possible adverse effects are worth the risk. Since transparency is more often invoked than defined, it is absolutely crucial to pay attention to the structure that transparency is supposed to assume, its organisation, its agents, and its potential impacts. Otherwise, transparency becomes a metaphysical catchphrase to graze (political) support rather than a real concern for accountability and openness

Acknowledgments

From January to June 2015, eleven students from the Bachelor Programmes Arts and Culture and European Studies participated in the course Transparency in Perspective at Maastricht University. This course was organised in the context of the Maastricht University Research Based Learning Project (MaRBLe), and was supervised by Dr. Nico Randeraad. This book includes shortened versions of the original papers of the students who have participated in the course. We would like to thank the organisers of the MaRBLe project, our external advisers, and in particular Dr. Nico Randeraad, for their support throughout the entire research process

Introduction

"Scientia potentia est" – knowledge is power. Many people seem to read this phrase, attributed to Francis Bacon, as a mission statement. If knowledge is power, then it is easy to understand why people demand more transparency and why at the same time surveillance increases. Transparency and surveillance are means to acquire knowledge and information. For centuries, governments have been surveilling their people to ensure that they behave according to their wishes

I Spy with my little eye - Full Copy

"Scientia potentia est" – knowledge is power. Many people seem to read this phrase, attributed to Francis Bacon, as a mission statement. If knowledge is power, then it is easy to understand why people demand more transparency and why at the same time surveillance increases. Transparency and surveillance are means to acquire knowledge and information. For centuries, governments have been surveilling their people to ensure that they behave according to their wishes. Similarly, the people are demanding more transparency with regard to the activities of their governments in order to hold their governments accountable for their actions. However, it needs to be understood that the argument that transparency only empowers people and automatically leads to societal betterment is amounting to mere oversimplification. Potential shifts in power relations depend on the sort of power, as well as on its direction and magnitude. Therefore, power in this joint volume needs to be understood as a very flexible term with many contingent forms. Each form of power and of power relations needs to be seen in the individual and divergent context of each contribution