Democracy Beyond Disclosure: Secrecy, Transparency, and the Logic of Self-Government The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37944996 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Democracy Beyond Disclosure: Secrecy, Transparency, and the Logic of Self-Government A dissertation presented by Jonathan Richard Bruno to The Department of Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Political Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2017 © 2017 Jonathan Richard Bruno All rights reserved. Advisor: Professor Dennis F. Thompson Jonathan Richard Bruno Democracy Beyond Disclosure: Secrecy, Transparency, and the Logic of Self-Government Abstract “Transparency” is the constant refrain of democratic politics, a promised aid to accountability and integrity in public life. Secrecy is stigmatized as a work of corruption, tolerable (if at all) by a compromise of democratic principles. My dissertation challenges both ideas. It argues that secrecy and transparency are best understood as complementary, not contradictory, practices. And it develops a normative account of liberal democratic politics in which (qualified) duties of transparency coexist with (qualified) permissions to act behind closed doors. The project begins with some history. I show that the language of transparency gained currency only in the last quarter century, and explain how its proximate sources promote three dubious assumptions—that disclosure should in principle be maximized, that it prevents misrule more or less automatically, and that its value is either instrumental, or rooted in a reductive notion of democracy as the rule of popular opinion. Against these assumptions, I sketch an alternative account of liberal democracy centered on the logics of representation, liberty, and equality. These three “logics of self-government” give rise to duties of transparency binding on public and private actors alike. Such obligations have bite, I argue, but they are not all-encompassing. Indeed, the same ideals of representation, liberty, and equality license concealment in a range of important contexts, including deliberation and dissent. Having made this case, I go on to explain how secrecy and transparency can form a “democratic dyad,” deepening rather than undermining the project of self-rule. iii Lastly, I address the limits of conventional transparency practices. Taken alone, disclosure is subject to a range of pitfalls, often failing to produce the results promised in transparency’s name. While my non-instrumental case for openness is not destabilized by this analysis, it does suggest that mandating disclosure is rarely enough. I therefore propose a series of adversarial practices to facilitate the checking of unjustifiable secrecy, and highlight the critical role of interpretation in efforts to make power intelligible. In the end, my dissertation offers a novel defense of secrecy and transparency that highlights rather than minimizes the hard work of political engagement. iv CONTENTS Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 1 Inventing Transparency, from Bentham to Big Data ........................................................... 15 A Traditional Value? .......................................................................................................................... 17 Before Transparency: The Meanings of Publicity ......................................................................... 25 The Pathologies of Publicity and the Post-War Right to Know ................................................. 51 Inventing Transparency: The Technocrat’s Dream ...................................................................... 63 2 Disclosure and the Logic of Self-Government ........................................................................ 74 “Accountable Without Doors For What They Say Within” ........................................................ 75 The Logic of the People—And Its Limits ...................................................................................... 82 The Logic of Representation ............................................................................................................ 90 The Logic of Liberty ........................................................................................................................ 105 The Logic of Equality ...................................................................................................................... 114 A Qualified Case for Transparency ............................................................................................... 120 3 Secrecy and Transparency: From False Choice to Democratic Dyad ........................... 129 Why Not Maximize Transparency? A Qualified Case for Secrecy ........................................... 131 A Dyadic Relationship ..................................................................................................................... 143 What Secrecy Can Do for Transparency ...................................................................................... 159 What Transparency Can Do for Secrecy ...................................................................................... 168 4 Ironies of Openness: Why Disclosure Fails ........................................................................... 177 Warnings ............................................................................................................................................ 180 Disclosure as a Tool of the Mighty ................................................................................................ 180 Disclosure as a Boon to Special Interests ..................................................................................... 186 Disclosure as a Driver of Distrust ................................................................................................. 190 Disclosure and the Difficulty of Knowledge ............................................................................... 196 5 The Struggle for Information—and Its Limits ..................................................................... 201 Ministries of Truth ........................................................................................................................... 202 Confronting Official Secrets ........................................................................................................... 203 Can Secrecy Stop Special Interests? ............................................................................................... 216 Interpretation, Acknowledgment, and Trust ................................................................................ 221 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 229 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................. 232 v Acknowledgments I am profoundly grateful to the people and institutions who made it possible for me to pursue this project; their support has made all the difference. Most broadly, I thank this incredible University for the opportunity it has given me to forge a professional life from my intellectual life. I recognize well what a rare gift that is, and hope never to take it for granted. Harvard has been a nourishing home in part because it has offered so many more particular homes—the Government Department, Dudley House, the Law School, the Ash Center, the Safra Center, the Center for European Studies, the Harvard Catholic Center, Lowell House. In these places, and among these dear friends and colleagues, I have been fortunate to make my dwelling. Besides the intellectual community they have offered, the Government Department, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation, and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics also provided generous material support. In the early days, when I was just starting out in political theory, many remarkable people in the Government Department encouraged and inspired me. I learned more, I think, from late-night conversations with my roommates Josh Cherniss and Emma Saunders-Hastings, than perhaps from anyone else at that time. Their wisdom and friendship buoyed me, and still does. Our wonderful companions in the theory graduate community—including Prithvi Datta, Sean Ingham, Matt Landauer, Yascha Mounk, Gladden Pappin, Sabeel Rahman, Lucas Stanczyk, Andrea Tivig, Don Tontiplaphol, and Bernardo Zacka—brought just the right sort of intellectual tumult, and a great deal of fun, too. I am lucky to count them as friends. Last but not least, the faculty were mentors and teachers of the very first order, who took me seriously as a political theorist long before I could do so myself. In particular, I cannot fail to