Transparency in Global Change offers a rare educational experience of critical aspects of advanced modernity. Burkart and Leslie Holzner judiciously analyze our contemporary post-cold war, post 9/11 global situation as pitting the democratic ideal of the 'open society, ' based on trust and citizen engagement, against resistance to accountability and transparency from power structures favoring secrecy. The sweep of their work is not only enormous, covering the private and public sectors, but it is also balanced, since some degree of secrecy is a fact of social life, as Simmel long ago realized. All those interested in questions of governance in the global information age will benefit from reading this work. And hopefully they will be stimulated to become active agents for the 'open society.'-- "Edward A. Tiryakian, Duke University"
Transparency in Global Change offers an ambitious discussion of the value of transparency in societies undergoing processes of global change. Focusing on a broad range of nations across the world, and relying on a rich analysis of historical as well as contemporary developments, the authors deliver a powerful and provocative contribution to the study of globalization and the value of open societies. Exceedingly well written, this book will be useful to students and scholars interested in globalization, international studies, and public policy.-- "Mathieu Deflem, University of South Carolina"
A volume reviving the spirit of great sociologies past, this original, synthetic, and sympathetic sociology of global transformations invites us to cast aside old blinders and use the optic provided by transparency to recognize the trajectory, and potentials, of global governance and solidarities in the making. This sets a research agenda, and vision of scholarship in service to global publics, that should inspire.-- "Michael D. Kennedy, University of Michigan"