Transparency and Openness

Over especially the past two decades, international organizations (IOs) have become increasingly transparent and open to non-state actors. How can this development be explained? What are the principal patterns in IO transparency and openness? How does transparency and openness impact on the accountability, effectiveness, and legitimacy of IOs? These are questions that are gaining increasing attention in scholarship on IOs, and the purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of this emerging field of research. The central arguments of this chapter are four-fold. First, research on transparency and openness has largely developed in response to real-world developments in global governance. As IOs have undergone a revolution in transparency and openness, scholars have sought to understand the origins of this transformation and its implications. Second, multiple theoretical approaches to the study of transparency and openness have evolved in parallel. A particular feature of the ev...