Transparency in the activities of government and public service agencies has become a democratic sine qua non, legislated by access to information laws in many countries. While these laws have increased the amount of information available to the public, it is evident that numerous public organizations still try to conceal information, although no public or private interest of any importance justifies such behaviour. This article will develop a typology of these forms of behaviour which will allow for a better understanding of the origins of such dynamics and pave the way for a better evaluation of the point of equilibrium between administrative privilege and transparency.
The exchange follows a negotiationThe exchange follows a political decision Public marketing :'.:.i F'g're 2,2 Bases of the development of public marketing Finally, Cousins (1990) and Grefle (1999) concentrate solely on how appropriate marketing tools can apply to public body dynamics. But are such tools relevant to the context and goal? Surprisingly, the more fundamental question ofpertinence does not arise in either researcher's investigation.Applying marketing concepts to the public sector is the result of mcrging developments in both marketing ancl public management (see Figure 2.2).Broadening the concept of marketing to include reinforcement of the relational aspect of the exchange plus the dynamic development of marketing tools and techniques enables non-commercial aspects of exchanges to be taken into account. These tools and conceptssystems for obtaining and hanclling information, cost-analysis systems, communication and distribution tools, etc. -may then be applied to the public sector.At the same time, the notion of public administration and its management models have evolved considerably over the last 20 years. The State has devclopcd its economic activities and services for citizensrequiring the use oftools, notably marketing tools, from the private sector.Concurrently, with the creation of agencies, many administrative units have been rendered partially autonomous, providing them with the opportunity to choose alternative approaches, diverging from the traditional public administration model. Some such agencies have developed hybrid management models that reflect the public nature oftheir organization. This has been achieved by developing exchanges of a more 2L ,., MARI
More than 80 access to information (ATI) laws exist worldwide. Their primary objectives are to increase transparency and accountability in government. Given the similarity in the components of ATI laws across countries, one could expect per capita usage of the laws to be roughly similar. However, comparing the number of requests in seven countries, we found that far fewer requests are being made in Switzerland and Germany than in Canada, Ireland, Mexico, India, and the UK and that, in contrast to these five, the number is not increasing. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with experts on the Swiss Law on Transparency (LTrans) and German FOI Law (IFG), we offer three primary explanations for the low use of the laws. The first is that few people are aware of the law in either country as a consequence of little promotion of the laws. The second is that people might have more interest in information held at the state or local level than at the federal level. The third is that other avenues to information in Switzerland reduce interest in using the LTrans and a culture of “ amtsgeheimnis”, or official secrecy, in Germany inhibits the administration from willingly disclosing information. We examine these hypotheses against the situation in the UK, where awareness of the FOI law is known to be high and the number of requests is high and has been on the rise for the past four years.
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