Is Transparency to No Avail? Committee Decision-Making, Pre-Meetings, and Credible Deals

Otto Swank () and Bauke Visser

No ECO2008/18, Economics Working Papers from European University Institute

Abstract: Transparent decision-making processes are widely regarded as a prerequisite for the working of a representative democracy. It facilitates accountability, and citizens may suspect that decisions, if taken behind closed doors, do not promote their interests. Why else the secrecy? We provide a model of committee decision-making that explains the public.s demand for transparency, and committee members. aversion to it. In line with case study evidence, we show how pressures to become transparent induce committee members to organize pre-meetings away from the public eye. Outcomes of pre-meetings, deals, are less determined, more anarchic, than those of formal meetings, but within bounds. We characterize deals that are self-enforcing in the formal meeting.

Keywords: Committee decision-making; reputational concerns; transparency; pre-meetings; deliberation; self-enforcing deals; coalitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lab and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Working Paper: Is Transparency to no avail? Committee Decision-making, Pre-meetings, and Credible Deals (2007)
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