HEC Paris has just hosted the 3rd Global Conference on Transparency Research, and they have made the list of accepted papers available. Judging from the amount and quality of papers from this year’s and last year’s conference in the Netherlands, it seems that, despite its short history, the conference is likely to become the place for transparency research (to further establish itself as the global reference in that domain, maybe the conference organizers could consider a 4th conference in a developing country).

As one goes through the papers,  it is clear that unlike most of the open government space, when it comes to research, transparency is treated less as a matter of technology and formats and more as a matter of social and political institutions.  And that is a good thing.

This year’s papers are listed below:

• Hannes Meissner: “Functioning , Effects and Perspectives of Transparency Initiatives  – The Example of Azerbaijan“
• Luis Emilio Cuenca Botey & Laure Célérier: ‘Participatory Budgeting: a Bourdieusian Interpretation‘
• Tsvetelina Yordanova: ‘Transparency in Foreign Policy and International Relations‘
• Maarten Hillebrandt: ‘A Map without a Compass? Evaluating the Transparency-Democracy Fit in the Council of the EU‘
• Silvana Fumega: ‘Opening the Cities: Open Government Data in Local Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay – Buenos Aires Preliminary Report‘
• Leopold Ringel: ‘The Uneasy Relationship of Organizations and Expectations of Transparency – A Theoretical Framework‘
• Carolyn Ball: ‘Indicators of Transparency and Trustworthiness in Nonprofits – Should we trust Nonprofits?‘
• Omar E. Hawthorne: ‘Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index: “best flawed”measure on Corruption?‘
• James H. Irving & Kimberley J. Smith: ‘Off-balance Sheet Arrangements, Transparency and the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis‘
• Robert Podolnjak & Đorđe Gardašević: ‘Great Expectations: The New Croatian Freedom of Information Act‘
• Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen & Jyldyz Kasymova: ‘A tale of empowering versus informing: a qualitative comparison of environmental transparency in New Jersey and the Netherlands‘
• Albert van Zyl: “Greasing the Wheels of the Accountability System: How Civil Society Organizations close the Gap between Transparency and Accountability“
• Claudia Cappelli, Renata Mendes de Araujo & Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite: “Managing Transparency guided by a Maturity Model“
• Jenny de Fine Licht:”The Effect of Transparency in Decision Making for Public Perceptions of Legitimacy in different Policy-areas“
• Ezekiel Mbitha Mwenzwa: “Transparency and Accountability in Kenya: A Review of the Institutional Framework for Public Service Delivery“
• Michelle Gallant: “Lawyers and Money Laundering Regulation: Testing the Limits of the Secrecy in Canada“
• Mark Aspinwall: “Transparency and rule of Law: Conceptualizing the relationship“
• Albert J. Meijer: “The History of Transparency: Analysing the Long-term Socio-Political Construction of Transparency in the Netherlands“
• Oana B. Albu & Mikkel Flyverbom: “Categories and Dimensions of Organizational Transparency“
• Frankie Schram: “The relationship between the protection of privacy, the processing of personal data and the FOI-legislation in Belgium“
• Laurent Bibard: “On Transparency and the Common Good: A Temperate Approach“
• Mark Fenster: “Transparency as a Theory of Communication“
• Lars Thøger Christensen & George Cheney:  “Peering into Transparency – Ideals Proxies and Organizational Practices“
• Abiola O. Makinwa: “Transparency and Corruption: Bypassing the Compromised State“
• Sandrine Baume: “Does Transparency Engender the Confidence of the Governed? A Contribution to Political Thought“
• Milena Mihaylova: “Implementation of the Concept of Transparency by EU Institutions: Access to documents“
• Prashant Sharma: “Turbid Transparency: The Making of the Right to Information Act in India“
• Rodrigo Mora Ortega: “Strategic Litigation on Access to Public Employees’ e-mails in Chile: putting things right?“
• Atina Krajewska: “In Search of the Holy Grail of Transparent and Coherent Global Health Law“
• Megan Donaldson: “Transparency and the Construction of a Global Public: Formal Transparency Policies in the Multilateral Development Banks“
• Benjamin Greer & Jeffery G. Purvis: “Human Trafficking Corporate Supply Chain Transparency: How best to legislatively approach disclosure“
• Imelda Maher: “Transparency and Networks: Accounting for Governance in the Competition Sphere“
• Benjamin Worthy: “David Cameron’s Transparency Revolution?
• Mikkel Flyverbom & Christina Garsten: “The sway of (big) data – calculations and advocacy in the name of transparency“
• Alon Peled: “Effective Openness – The Role of Open Data 2.0 in a wider Transparency Program“
• Gregory Michener and Benjamin Worthy, “From Fishing to Experimentation: Transparency as Information Gathering – A Typology and Framework for Analysis“
• Harmen H. P. Groenhart: “From Punishment to reward: Shifting perspectives on public media accountability“

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Also read:

The Uncertain Relationship Between Open Data and Accountability

Does Transparency Lead to Trust? Some Evidence on the Subject