Graduate students Jude Joffe-Block and Brian Palmer-Rubin cover the ideas presented during the “Transparency and Accountability” session of the Futures Forum which included presentations by Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive and Juan Ernesto Pardinas from the Instituto Mexicano para la Competitividad.
Can a political system be described as democratic if its own citizens are unable to access official documents or even basic information about government processes? Analysts argue that “access to information” or “transparency” reforms are a key element of the second step of democratization, the ongoing political transformations that secure the rule of law and open up opportunities for greater political participation in fledgling democracies. In the last decade, these types of reforms have been adopted by several Latin American governments, transforming the relationship between agencies and the citizens they serve.
