Full Disclosure

by Archon Fung

Governments in recent decades have employed public disclosure strategies to reduce risks, improve public and private goods and services, and reduce injustice. In the United States, these targeted transparency policies include financial securities disclosures, nutritional labels, school report cards, automobile rollover rankings, and sexual offender registries. They constitute a light-handed approach to governance that empowers citizens. However, as Full Disclosure shows these policies are frequently ineffective or counterproductive. Based on a comparative analysis of eighteen major policies, the authors suggest that transparency policies often produce information that is incomplete, incomprehensible, or irrelevant to the consumers, investors, workers, and community residents who could benefit from them. Sometimes transparency fails because those who are threatened by it form political coalitions to limit or distort information. To be successful, transparency policies must place the needs of ordinary citizens at centre stage and produce information that informs their everyday choices.

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2007

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the potential and pitfalls of organizational transparency. Features interesting cases.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A review of various targeted transparency policies and their core elements of success. The book analyzes 18 past policies to demonstrate the importance of user centered approaches to change decision making through greater information. The ultimate question is how do you embed new information into a users decision making process; requiring new information to be valued, acquired at a low cost, available when and where decisions are made, comprehensible, and connected to a perceived immediate or long-term gain. It would have helped if the book explored more areas of non-governmental intervention to drive market changes through greater transparency, rather than making government intervention a prerequisite.

[Alissa Thorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on targeted transparency policies in government. It gave a lot of context for the ways and reasons that transparency fails or succeeds in general. Additionally, for someone who is for transparency but against compulsory policies, it provided a really thought provoking perspective. Easy to read too.