The Triumph of Transparency Standards: Europeanization or Redefinition of Politics?

Abstract

Transparency has arguably been elevated as a principle of good government across Member States. Over the last ten years, public integrity has been ushered on many EU states’ regulatory agendas, as governments tried to reform campaign finance rules, to regulate lobbying and to promote ethical conduct in public life. Transparency rules were adopted to meet the demands of political and social movements, and to restore citizens' trust in political institutions. Many observers argued that domestic transparency standards were established in response to international efforts initiated by international institutions—like the OECD or the Council of Europe—and taken up by the European Union. Member states would thus have “downloaded” policy initiatives and tools elaborated in international and European fora. France, for instance, set up a register of interest groups a few years after the European Union. The issue of conflicts of interest in the European Commission at the end of the 1990s arguably led to the establishment of codes of conducts in many Member States. This panel invites contributions which explore the role of the EU in the establishment of national transparency policies across member states. To what extent is it relevant to talk about the Europeanization of transparency standards, and, if so, in what sense? Are domestic transparency reforms a result of EU initiatives? Or a product of processes of convergence of national policies? Or a manifestation of broader international dynamics which would take European-specific shapes and formats? This panel welcomes contributions which will draw our scholarly attention to the concrete practices of actors and groups in charge of implementing transparency rules, rather than to the ex post narratives of actors who advocated them. The political sociology perspective, attentive to who policy actors are (their social backgrounds and professional careers) and to what they do (their practices) seems particularly suited to such an approach. It provides new insights on processes of Europeanization, by analyzing them as processes of circulation of political practices, and by looking at how they concretely transform national political and bureaucratic cultures. The objective of this panel is to gather contributions that analyze the emergence and implementation of transparency standards with the tools and concepts of political sociology. Instead of focusing on policy narratives and/or on assessing policies’ impacts, its contributions will look at how rules are being put into practice and how concepts can become real. They will show how transparency policies shape concrete political and administrative practices. Focused on a variety of policy areas and initiatives related to transparency (preventing conflicts of interest, fighting against corruption, regulating lobbying, protecting whistleblowers, drafting ethical codes etc.), they will analyze how transparency policies gradually re-define both the rules of the political game and the boundaries of the political field. One of the main hypotheses that this panel would like to explore is indeed that these new instruments contribute to redefining the relationship between the State and society or between politics and the economy.

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