MEDP – Mitigating Endemic Democratic Problems

Dear Darth Bane,

I agree with you that issues concerning transparency are definitely in the realm of how much can be shown without risking security, profit, etc. What I meant to say concerning transparency is that it is an endemic problem because of the struggle to gain more transparency in government. Most often, calls for transparency are made when issues of corruption and accountability arise. Relational analysis of those terms showed that they are most often in conjunction with each other: in other words, whenever someone or something is acting on one, they are usually acting on the others as the terms are inter-related.

As for your other points, could you please explain them a bit more? I’m rather daft and have a hard time unraveling certain styles of writing. If you could please address the following in further detail?

1. Putnam’s Fish Bowl Effect
2. The differentiation between business and public transparency
3. Not forcing the right to vote…what kind of vote and by whom?
4. Restrictions on voting…tutors, etc.

I understand your call for ‘non-profits’ to be subsidized and provided with information so as to start grassroots campaigns, this is a common want. In fact, a lot of NGOs and MNOs as well as academics (like Dr. Moses Duruji from the University of Nigeria) are pushing to have grassroots programs fed by easy access to government and industry information.

The issue of the degree of transparency is not particularly difficult. Ultimately, it is up to the plural citizenry to define how much government, etc need to reveal. The act of actually establishing a general consensus of transparency and actually achieving that is much more difficult. International standards set by MNOs like the IPU, CCD, and UN are useful in this respect because these standards provide a basic level to achieve and build on. Currently, the degree of transparency in countries that practice a style of democracy is an indirect nexus of calls from a large variety of different interest groups, and supranational pressure from bodies like the UN.