1. Promoting
government transparency, it is argued, allows countries cheaply and effectively
to discipline public officials and politicians through the threat of exposure.
FOI laws and, more recently, online transparency, will thus ‘clean up’ government.
2. The
avail ability of official information is only a necessary condition for
success. FOI will bring many universal benefits including increased transparency
and accountability. These would have further beneficial spin- off effects,
increasing public understanding and increasing.
3. FOI
works to resolve the pervasive problem of public choice theory, whereby
principals only have very imperfect information about what their agents are
doing. It could then deter ‘classic’ corruption activities from wasteful
spending and poor performance to personal enrichment.
4. The
future of transparency may lie with a fusing of existing FOI law with tech no
logy and the emerging Open Data movement. The Open Data movement aims to use
technology to enhance transparency, accountability and fight corruption
5. First it
needs to unearth the correct document or piece of information and that document
needs to be relevant, timely and of interest.
6. Second, FOI rarely works alone. FOI as an
accountability tool often forms part of a wider campaign, such as anti- corruption
in India or the ongoing exposure of clientelist practices in Ireland. This
lends the use of FOI momentum and means campaigns and groups can feed off each
other.
7. Third, FOI
exposure is frequently powered by journalists, NGOs, activists or, more rarely,
politicians, who can dedicate the time, resources and energy necessary to it,
sometimes against risk
My sentence: Though freedom of
information and Open Data may not have proven to decrease corruption, it is
still a great tool to maintain accountability for people in power. It is also a
great too l for the common people as it is something that they can use to claim
their rights.
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