Moving From Transparency to Proactive Transparency

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Michael R. Ford
February 28, 2025

Who would oppose transparency in government? There is a reason politicians and citizens of all ideologies frequently cite transparency as important, and cite a lack of transparency as a reason not to trust a government action or official. We all give up money and freedom to be part of a governed society, and have a reasonable expectation to know what the government is doing with that money and freedom. In the field of public administration, we teach that transparency is an important tool for building legitimacy and trust.

But, like so many governing concepts, it is easy for people to agree that transparency is good in concept, but very difficult to agree as to what transparency actually means, or, how and when transparency is an actionable governing concept. For example, I was watching the Sunday news shows recently and heard a talking head defend efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut off previously approved payments without the involvement of Congress on the grounds it was being done transparently. To paraphrase, the gentleman was arguing that because Elon Musk was tweeting DOGE’s actions after the fact, it was by definition transparent, and therefore ok.

I suppose there is some superficial transparency there. Of course, such an understanding of transparency ignores important questions, like: How were decisions on what to cut being made? Who was making the cuts? And, under what authority? What was the recourse or due process for those impacted by cuts to previously approved programs? What is the plan to ensure continuity of services after these swift changes? Someone asking those questions would argue the actions of DOGE are explicitly not transparent. In a broader sense, taking action outside of constitutional authority is not ok just because you announce it online. If I rob a bank I am still committing a crime even if I publicly announce I am going to do so (or just did).

Then there is the blatant political weaponization of the concept of transparency. When every policy action I dislike is deemed to lack transparency the term loses all meaning. Unfortunately, we are in an era where the language of good government is used to defend actions that elevate short-term political victories over long-term governing priorities. Rhetoric around deep-state corruption and fraud, which is assumed to exist with or without proof, suggests that government lacks transparency in ways that cannot be disproved due to that lack of transparency. The circular logic makes a concept core to democratic governance meaningless from a practical perspective.

So what can be done to define transparency? I continue to advocate for differentiation between the concept of transparency, and the concept of proactive transparency. Transparency can be understood as following the letter of the law, i.e., releasing data, schedules and making data available for those who ask. Under this understanding the burden is on the seeker of information to know what to look for and how to find it. This understanding of transparency can also result in government and political actors flooding the space with so much information void of context that no normal person can make sense of it. Thus we have technical transparency, but the absence of an objective common reality upon which to guide political and administrative decision-making. Thought it sounds contradictory, it is a way that technical transparency actually obfuscates government action in the eyes of the public.

Proactive transparency shifts the burden on government to make information available in a format and context (or formats and contexts) that can meet the public where they are at. The test of effective proactive transparency is whether something is understood by the intended audience or audiences. Proactive transparency is more than a set of actions, it is about creating a culture where every member of a government organization seeks to anticipate the questions and concerns of the public and produces answers to those questions before they are asked. It is also a culture that uses shared data across departments and governmental entities so as to establish one set of metrics available to all…there should never be a government official or politician stating that their internal metrics are telling a different story than what the data seen by the public reveals.

Moving from transparency to proactive transparency requires, like so many things in public administration, teaching it to our future leaders. Specifically we need to ensure all MPA graduates have a strong grounding in data visualization and data communication. The alternative, allowing transparency to be an amorphous buzzword prone to politicization, will further erode our democratic governing institutions.

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Author: Michael R. Ford is a professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he teaches graduate courses in budgeting and research methods. He frequently publishes on the topics of public and nonprofit board governance, accountability and school choice. He formerly served as an elected member of the Oshkosh, WI Common Council. 

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