WE CHOOSE REPRESENTATIVES FOR A REASON:

The cult of transparency is a threat to democracy (Brendan O’Neill, 2/26/09, spiked)

‘Transparency’ is not the same thing as democracy. Democracy does not mean revealing every off-the-cuff comment made in committee meetings or rush-written ‘memo of concern’ sent between ministers; democracy is something more profound than that.

It is crucial that governments, political parties and institutions are able to hold frank and strictly private discussions of an issue before arriving at a public position. This is especially important when the issue is a stinkingly controversial one, such as the Iraq war: on such potentially heated matters it is imperative that ministers can interrogate every issue and concern internally before putting forward a clear line for rigorous public debate. Political leadership is not a Diana-style blurting out of unformed feelings, half-cocked concerns and snatched conversations; it must also involve working out in private what the public line should be, so that ministers can then take collective responsibility for it, and the rest of us can challenge it. Just as I would die of shame if the minutes of spiked’s sometimes expletive-laden morning editorial meetings were made public, so it is justifiable for the Cabinet to want to hold back its minutes, too; like spiked and other political outlets and institutions, the government should be held to account for what it says and does publicly, rather than for its tense, coffee-fuelled discussions behind closed doors.

What has a close-up view of every machination of government gotten us besides contempt for the governors? Where a supposedly more democratic means tends towards anti-democratic ends in practice we ought to reconsider it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2009 8:05 AM