Paradoxically, it is at a time when transparency is hailed as a key to good governance and economic efficiency, and when national states and transnational agencies are implementing new laws to allow citizens access to information, that a series of crises and scandals have revealed the extent to which use of the concept can be problematic and, arguably, even fraught. Since Jeremy Bentham first introduced the concept of transparency in the language (1789), few societal debates seem to have sparked so much interest within the academic community, across a variety of disciplines and using different approaches and methodologies.
Since the academic debate is still developing, it is too early to identify clear new directions or draw preliminary conclusions. It is likely, however, that the current reappraisals of the concept of transparency – alongside others such as accountability and also privacy - will be instrumental in providing an effective response to the new challenges brought about by globalisation and the need to define a more robust relationship between nations, market and citizens. Indeed, one striking fact about modern political discourse on the subject is the lack of historical reflection about the birth and the development of the concept of transparency, both as a principle and as applied in practice. Accordingly the aim of this special issue of Histoire & Mesure is to contribute to historicising the concept of transparency by exploring the ways in which control and communication operated in early-modern European polities.