This edited collection examines the multi-faceted phenomenon of transparency, especially in its relation to social movements, from a range of multi-disciplinary viewpoints. Over the past few decades, transparency has become an omnipresent catch phrase in public and scientific debates. The volume tracks developments of ideas and practices of transparency from the eighteenth century to the current day, as well as their semantic, cultural and social preconditions. It connects analyses of the ideological implications of transparency concepts and transparency claims with their impact on the public sphere in general and on social movements in particular. In doing so, the book contributes to a better understanding of social conflicts and power relations in modern societies. The chapters are organized into four parts, covering the concept and ideology of transparency, historical and recent developments of the public sphere and media, the role of the state as an agent of surveillance, and conflicts over transparency and participation connected to social movements.
Author(s): Stefan Berger, Dimitrij Owetschkin
Series: Palgrave Studies In The History Of Social Movements
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 279
Tags: Social History, Social Movements, Public Sphere
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi
Contested Transparencies: An Introduction (Dimitrij Owetschkin, Stefan Berger)....Pages 1-32
Front Matter ....Pages 33-33
Transparency’s Trap: Problems of an Unquestioned Norm (Frieder Vogelmann)....Pages 35-54
The Fly on a Pane of Glass: Paradoxes of Transparency (Manfred Schneider)....Pages 55-67
Literature, Transparency, Ideology: Functions of Literature in Negotiating Transparency (Jens Martin Gurr)....Pages 69-94
Front Matter ....Pages 95-95
Communication Among Strangers: Concepts of the Public Sphere in American Newspapers of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Friedrich Jaeger)....Pages 97-118
Journalism and Transparency: A Mass Communications Perspective (Susanne Fengler, Dominik Speck)....Pages 119-149
Front Matter ....Pages 151-151
Intelligence, Mistrust and Transparency: A Case Study of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Constantin Goschler)....Pages 153-171
The ‘Traube Affair’: Transparency as a Legitimation and Action Strategy Between Security, Surveillance and Privacy (Christopher Kirchberg, Marcel Schmeer)....Pages 173-196
Front Matter ....Pages 197-197
Promises of Transparency, Promises of Participation: On the Ambivalent Rhetoric of the Occupy-Movement (Martin Butler)....Pages 199-210
The Dual Nature of Transparency: Corporatization and Democratization of Global Production Networks (Sabrina Zajak, Christian Scheper)....Pages 211-232
The Role of Transparency in Urban Planning Processes (Jan Polívka, Christa Reicher)....Pages 233-251
Back Matter ....Pages 253-271
