At the roots of transparency: a public-ethics perspective

Abstract

In this essay I explore some of the semantic roots of the concept of transparency in order to identify a set of challenges for its present and future use as the founding principle of public administration. After a methodological premise showing sometimes evocative and elusive use of the term (§ 1), I concentrate on its etymology and fundamentally on the history of its denial, which since the dawn of western modernity has been a sort of guarantee for the exercise of power (§ 2). I shed light on certain defining historical features that help make transparency the fundamental principle that has legitimated judicial and political power since the second half of the eighteenth century (§ 3). This is the premise for identifying some of the challenges that still accompany its use and link it with other values and principles necessary for democratic coexistence (§ 4).