Cultures of transparency : between promise and peril / edited by Stefan Berger, Susanne Fengler, Dimitrij Owetschkin and Julia Sittmann.

Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

"This volume addresses the major questions surrounding a concept that has become ubiquitous in media, political, civil society and economic discourse in recent years, and which is demanded with increasing frequency: transparency. How can society deal with increasing and often diverging demands and expectations of transparency? What role can different political and civil society actors play in processes of producing, or preventing, transparency? Where are the limits of transparency and how are these boundaries negotiated? What is the relationship of transparency to processes of social change, as well as systems of social surveillance and control? Engaging with transparency as an interrelated product of law, politics, economics and culture, this interdisciplinary volume explores the ambiguities and contradictions, as well as the social and political dilemmas, that the age of transparency has unleashed. As such it will appeal to researchers across the social sciences and humanities with interests in politics, history, sociology, civil society, citizenship, public policy, criminology and law"-- Provided by publisher.