(Picture is a full-page editorial in today’s Folha de São Paulo – Brazil’s most widely circulated establishment newspaper) I started writing this piece on Bolsonaro’s first year in office in mid-September, just to make sure I wasn’t losing anything. It took forever to publish, but it was great to work with Michael, who added a Read more about Transparency under Bolsonaro – Personal Opacity, Bureaucratic Consistency[…]
One of my priority projects over the past few years has to do with protecting the identity of freedom of information (FOI) requesters. Identity obligations – such as including one’s real name and social security number – represent a minor detail is some laws that – we believe – can have a major impact on Read more about Protecting Identity[…]
Transparency for them, privacy for us! As its honeymoon draws to a close, the Bolsonaro government has revealed an insecure commitment to transparency. There are good reasons for feeling insecure. My research (here and here, and forthcoming book) has shown that few democratic regimes are as undecided about transparency as uncohesive minority governments, of which Read more about Transparency’s Gestation at 9 Months – Does Bolsonaro Deliver?[…]
Published in O Globo, authored by Gregory Michener & Irene Niskier. While President Jair Bolsonaro spoke in Davos, his Vice President, Hamilton Mourão, and Chief of Staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, perpetrated a small change in Brazil’s freedom of information (FOI) law that will amount to big negative effects for transparency, the federal public administration, and the Read more about Legality, Legitimacy and Logic – Why Expanding Secrecy Makes No Sense[…]
September 28th marked International Right-to-Know Day, which celebrates citizen’s right to know about what their government does and how it performs. But the right to know is more generally about transparency and, ultimately, the political ecology of information. Brazil’s access to public information law does have problems of compliance, implementation, under-investment and political commitment, as Read more about Brazil’s Information Ecology: Adrift at Sea, Stranded in Information Deserts[…]
So much has happened since I last wrote 6 months ago that I am rather embarrassed not to have captured some of the more savory parts of the Brazilian drama in writing. But the academic’s life, alas, is about publishing the sort of article that only a few experts read – in journals that take Read more about Transparently 2017[…]