Which SUVs are most likely to rollover? What cities have the unhealthiest drinking water? Which factories are the most dangerous polluters? What cereals are the most nutritious? In recent decades, governments have sought to provide answers to such critical questions through public disclosure to force manufacturers, water authorities, and others to improve their products and practices. Corporate financial disclosure, nutritional labels, and school report cards are examples of such targeted transparency policies. At best, they create a light-handed approach to governance that improves markets, enriches public discourse, and empowers citizens. But such policies are frequently ineffective or counterproductive. Based on an analysis of eighteen U.S. and international policies, Full Disclosure shows that information is often incomplete, incomprehensible, or irrelevant to consumers, investors, workers, and community residents. To be successful, transparency policies must be accurate, keep ahead of disclosers' efforts to find loopholes, and, above all, focus on the needs of ordinary citizens.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Packed with ideas and information, Full Disclosure is, by far, the best book to date on the problem of public transparency. The authors offer a host of indispensable lessons for citizens and policymakers in diverse domains, including education, pollution, national security, and health care. At the same time, Full Disclosure is an important contribution to democratic theory -- and a great read to boot."
Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School
"Sunshine may indeed be the best disinfectant, in Louis Brandeis' words, but only if we know when, where, and how to shine the light. That is exactly the task that Full Disclosure sets itself. This is an important book at an important time, for everyone from mayors to senators to secretary generals."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
"The authors have done us all a good service by offering sound analysis and ideas on how to make public policy transparent and accessible for all citizens. As the country heads into the 21st century, more transparent governance is just what we need."
Tom Daschle, Former Senate Majority Leader
"Governmental transparency efforts inform the public about additives in the food we eat, dangerous criminals in our neighborhoods, and the financial support of our political leaders. Full Disclosure offers several important lessons that will help give citizens easier access to vital information through the creation of better, more meaningful transparency policies."
Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
"Superb...This rich, carefully researched, well balanced, and readily accessible study shows us that good governance, with legislators at the local, state, or national levels in the lead, is surely difficult but far from unattainable. This is hard-nosed scholarship demonstrating, as the authors themselves discovered, that pragmatism about both policy expectations and policy results should prevail among political leaders and citizens alike."
Brian J. Cook, Clark University, Perspectives on Politics
"Full Disclosure provides a wide-ranging and systematic analysis of targeted transparency in the United States...The book makes two key contributions: it clarifies the factors that determines whether policies are effective and it suggests that transparency measures are now entering a new phase when they can be even more useful to the public than in the past."
Paul Starr, The American Prospect
"It is a fantastically researched and excellently written....I suspect it is destined to become the definitive book in the area, and i recommend it to academics..."
Jay P. Shimshack, Political Science Quarterly
"A major contribution to our understanding of targeted transparency as a policy...Fung, Graham and Weil have provided a compendium and reference resource for thinking about how to structure transparency in the new governance..."
Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
"Full Disclosure is a guide for policymakers, complete with the requisite "10 principles for an effective transparency policy" guide. It ought to make citizens wise to the tricks that commonly turn transparency policies into little more than symbolism."
Lee Drutman, San Francisco Chronicle
"In their thoughtful and constructive book, Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency, Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil provide an in-depth assessment of government mandated disclosure policies intended to reduce the costs to consumers created by imperfect information."
Clifford Winston, Brookings Institution, Journal of Economic Literature
Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School
"Sunshine may indeed be the best disinfectant, in Louis Brandeis' words, but only if we know when, where, and how to shine the light. That is exactly the task that Full Disclosure sets itself. This is an important book at an important time, for everyone from mayors to senators to secretary generals."
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
"The authors have done us all a good service by offering sound analysis and ideas on how to make public policy transparent and accessible for all citizens. As the country heads into the 21st century, more transparent governance is just what we need."
Tom Daschle, Former Senate Majority Leader
"Governmental transparency efforts inform the public about additives in the food we eat, dangerous criminals in our neighborhoods, and the financial support of our political leaders. Full Disclosure offers several important lessons that will help give citizens easier access to vital information through the creation of better, more meaningful transparency policies."
Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
"Superb...This rich, carefully researched, well balanced, and readily accessible study shows us that good governance, with legislators at the local, state, or national levels in the lead, is surely difficult but far from unattainable. This is hard-nosed scholarship demonstrating, as the authors themselves discovered, that pragmatism about both policy expectations and policy results should prevail among political leaders and citizens alike."
Brian J. Cook, Clark University, Perspectives on Politics
"Full Disclosure provides a wide-ranging and systematic analysis of targeted transparency in the United States...The book makes two key contributions: it clarifies the factors that determines whether policies are effective and it suggests that transparency measures are now entering a new phase when they can be even more useful to the public than in the past."
Paul Starr, The American Prospect
"It is a fantastically researched and excellently written....I suspect it is destined to become the definitive book in the area, and i recommend it to academics..."
Jay P. Shimshack, Political Science Quarterly
"A major contribution to our understanding of targeted transparency as a policy...Fung, Graham and Weil have provided a compendium and reference resource for thinking about how to structure transparency in the new governance..."
Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
"Full Disclosure is a guide for policymakers, complete with the requisite "10 principles for an effective transparency policy" guide. It ought to make citizens wise to the tricks that commonly turn transparency policies into little more than symbolism."
Lee Drutman, San Francisco Chronicle
"In their thoughtful and constructive book, Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency, Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil provide an in-depth assessment of government mandated disclosure policies intended to reduce the costs to consumers created by imperfect information."
Clifford Winston, Brookings Institution, Journal of Economic Literature
Book Description
Full Disclosure is the first analysis of national and international transparency policies-including car safety ratings, nutritional labels, campaign finance disclosure, and toxic pollution disclosures-that aim to reduce serious public risks and improve critical services. Full Disclosure explains why some transparency policies succeed while others fail.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By J. Zheng
Format:Hardcover
"Full Disclosure: Perils and Promise of Transparency" (Fung, Graham, and Weil 2007) is undoubtedly a first-rate book on a regulatory tool that is dynamic in nature. The authors acknowledge the promising, but sometimes perilous transparency(information disclosure) tool as a complement to the existing standards and market based policies in order to redress certain policy problems. The authors nicely interplay the factors of politics, economics, and cognitive powers of varying stakeholders to analyze the development and sustainability of existing and future domestic and global transparency policies. This book is not only a page turner, but a power analytical framework for analyzing the effectiveness and efficiency of a given transparency policy, the likes of financial disclosure laws and the global reporting of infectious diseases.
The authors present their arguments and evidence in a concise and understandable format which will allow ordinary citizens with little or no understanding of economics and governance to find this book a powerful guide and hopefully; after reading, become active participants in the movement for greater transparency in both the public and private sectors. Thus, this is a win-win book for both citizens and policymakers alike.
Lastly, the authors critically examine the advances in information technology like that of the Internet and related technologies such as instant messaging, online blogs, and online book reviews (here), which led to the rise of a third generation transparency systems that differs from the right-to-know and targeted transparency policies, the first and second generation transparency policies, respectively, because of the collaborative information sharing aspects of the new system.
On a side note, this book is right in time as there is a current debate on the medical care quality and cost disparity in the state of Massachusetts, US, which underscores the importance of transparency policies to improve a service quality that have might long term health care impacts for patients. All in all, this one of a kind book will serve as a guide for many generations to come.
With regards to Joel M. Kaufman May 8th, 2007's comment on the authors' limited awareness of corruption at different government agencies, it is possible that the previous commenter did not take into account the multi-layered definition of the politically correct term: "diverging interests of policymakers and other stakeholders of information disclosure," which the authors have reiterated on numerous occasions using similar phrases.
The authors present their arguments and evidence in a concise and understandable format which will allow ordinary citizens with little or no understanding of economics and governance to find this book a powerful guide and hopefully; after reading, become active participants in the movement for greater transparency in both the public and private sectors. Thus, this is a win-win book for both citizens and policymakers alike.
Lastly, the authors critically examine the advances in information technology like that of the Internet and related technologies such as instant messaging, online blogs, and online book reviews (here), which led to the rise of a third generation transparency systems that differs from the right-to-know and targeted transparency policies, the first and second generation transparency policies, respectively, because of the collaborative information sharing aspects of the new system.
On a side note, this book is right in time as there is a current debate on the medical care quality and cost disparity in the state of Massachusetts, US, which underscores the importance of transparency policies to improve a service quality that have might long term health care impacts for patients. All in all, this one of a kind book will serve as a guide for many generations to come.
With regards to Joel M. Kaufman May 8th, 2007's comment on the authors' limited awareness of corruption at different government agencies, it is possible that the previous commenter did not take into account the multi-layered definition of the politically correct term: "diverging interests of policymakers and other stakeholders of information disclosure," which the authors have reiterated on numerous occasions using similar phrases.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What information sends clear signals to consumers and voters so they can make good decisions, and what is just more noise? Fung, Graham and Weil have carefully analyzed a range of what they call "targeted transparency" systems - from orange terror alerts to school performance ratings to soup labels - to identify the features of the systems that work. Although generally written for governmental policy makers, it's important reading for anyone who cares about a local, state, or federal issue and wants government to do a better job of informing citizens.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The issue of transparency is not new. The history of concealment, secrecy and disclosure is part of the modern history of this nation and the globe. However, given financial debacles beginning with the Great Depression, including Enron, World Com, and the banking financial crisis there is much to understand. Full Disclosure redefines transparency in terms of politics and economics and is tremendous for understanding the issues that effect everyone's life.
