History of Transparency. Visibility of politics in Germany and France 1890-1990

今天，透明度是一项政治要求，与民主、参与和问责制的进展联系在一起。目前的辩论往往没有反映两个重要方面：第一，寻求透明度既不是全新的，也不是一个超时间范畴。相反，它有一个历史，并根据社会和政治背景而有所不同。第二，透明度是非常矛盾的。由于几乎没有关于透明度的历史研究，我们将重点放在政治透明度的历史上。透明度并不是一个政治制度的稳定特征。相反，它被表述为一种要求，首先是关于获得信息的要求，这被认为是使政治变得“易读”的要求。该项目将集中于两个经验领域。首先，我们将分析大约在1890年至1970年之间的议会调查委员会的历史。其次，我们将研究世纪末的两起政党资金丑闻（弗里克-斯坎达尔和乌尔巴事件）。我们将试图回答以下问题：透明度何时成为一种有效的政治要求？提出了什么样的措施？谁是最重要的演员？应考虑哪些背景？透明度要求的结果是什么：它们是否增进了公众对政治进程的了解？它们是加强还是削弱了对政治进程的信心？作为一个概念框架，我们使用Heald开发的类别（透明度向上，向下，向外，向内）。我们将测试以下假设：对透明度的要求在世纪上半叶发展，最初集中在个别案件和政治家身上。到了1970/1980年代，对透明度的追求将越来越涉及整个政治制度，这一制度应系统地发展超越个案的透明度手段。如果这是准确的，那么有很多迹象表明，对透明度的要求并没有加强对民主进程的信任。然而，从20世纪80年代开始，新的政治行动者进入了透明政治的舞台，要求新的工具来对抗不透明。该项目旨在继续2011年申请人在腐败历史领域开始的密切合作。作为反腐败的反概念，透明度将补充申请人正在进行的研究，该项目将加强其国际研究网络。

Today, transparency is a political demand which is associated with the progress of democracy, participation and accountability. The current debate often does not reflect two important aspects: First, the quest for transparency is neither entirely new, nor is it a super-temporal category. Rather, it has a history and differs according to social and political contexts. Second, transparency is deeply ambivalent. As there are virtually no historical studies on transparency yet, we focus on the history of political transparency. Transparency is not really a stable feature of a political system. Rather, it is articulated as a demand, concerning above all the access to information, which is considered to make politics 'legible'. The project will concentrate on two empirical fields. First, we will analyse the history of parliamentary inquiry committees between roughly 1890 and 1970. Secondly, we will research two party funding scandals at the end of the 20th century (Flick-Skandal and affaire Urba). We will try to answer the following questions: When did transparency become an effective political demand? What kind of measures has been proposed? Who were the most important actors? Which contexts should be taken into account? Which were the outcomes of the demands for transparency: Did they enhance public knowledge about political processes? Did they strengthen or weaken the confidence in political processes? As a conceptional framework we work with the categories developed by Heald (transparency upwards, downwards, outwards, inwards).We will test the following hypothesis: Demands for transparency developed in the first half of the 20th century and was focused in the first instance on individual cases and politicians. By the 1970s/1980s, the quest for transparency would concern more and more the whole political system, that should systematically develop instruments for transparency beyond individual cases. If this is accurate, there is much to suggest that demands for transparency did not strengthen trust in democratic processes. Beginning with the 1980s, however, there are new political actors entering the scene of transparency politics, demanding new instruments against opacity.The project is intended to carry on the close collaboration the applicants have begun in 2011 in the field of corruption history. As a counter-concept against corruption, transparency will complement ongoing research of the applicants and the project will strengthen their international research network.