India: “The Right to Information Act in India: The Turbid World of Transparency Reforms,” a doctoral thesis by Prashant Sharma, of the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “My thesis investigates the enactment of the Indian RTI Act in 2005 through a political economy lens, locating it within larger processes that have led to a global rise in similar legislation.”
Abstract
The enactment of the national Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005 has been produced, consumed and celebrated as an important event of democratic deepening in India both in terms of the process that led to its enactment (arising from a grassroots movement) as well as its outcome (fundamentally altering the citizen-state relationship). This thesis problematises this narrative and proposes that the explanatory factors underlying this event may be more complex than thus far imagined.
First, the leadership of the grassroots movement was embedded within the ruling elite and possessed the necessary resources as well as unparalleled access to spaces of power for the movement to be successful. Second, the democratisation of the higher bureaucracy along with the launch of the economic liberalisation project meant that the urban, educated, high-caste, upper-middle-class elite that provided critical support to the demand for an RTI Act was no longer vested in the state and had moved to the private sector. Mirroring this shift, the framing of the RTI Act during the 1990s saw its ambit reduced to the government, even as there was a concomitant push to privatise public goods and services. Third, the thesis locates the Indian RTI Act within the global explosion of freedom of information laws over the last two decades, and shows how international pressures, embedded within a reimagining of the role of the state vis-à-vis the market, had a direct and causal impact both on its content, as well as the timing of its enactment.
Taking the production of the RTI Act as a lens, the thesis finally argues that while there is much to celebrate in the consolidation of procedural democracy in India over the last six decades, existing economic, social and political structures may limit the extent and forms of democratic deepening occurring in the near future.
Aid Transparency: “Why Congress Should Care About the International Aid Transparency Initiative,” a blog post by George Ingram, a Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institute. “It is now time for Congress to become involved, by supporting the administration but also by pushing for more robust implementation,” Ingram writes.
Open Data/Supply Side Survey: The World Bank is conducting a 5-10 minute survey that seeks to shed some light on the demand for and use of open data and open financial data.
Interview: Countries that had dictators in power until very recently are now prominent when it comes to new Freedom of Information Acts says Fabiano Angelico, a specialist on transparency, in a Guardian interview.
Commentary: “Open Data has Little Value if People Can’t Use It,” by Craig Hammer, in the Harvard Business Review.It is part of a serieson scaling entrepreneurial solutions and benefitting society through technology and data. The full HBR.org series is available here.
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