Gregory Michener
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 801611 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Gregory Michener |
| PRENOMES | Gregory |
| SOBRENOME | Michener |
| ASSINATURA | MICHENER G |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Fundação Getulio Vargas |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6648-8649 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 22 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 125 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 22 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2015 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Transparency talk among candidates for public office
How common are invocations and promises of transparency and open government among candidates for municipal office? What factors drive ‘transparency talk’, and does this ‘talk’ translate into the ‘walk’ of transparency policy enactment? This study presents an inaugural mapping and descriptive analysis of transparency talk. Drawing on nearly 40,000 pledges from mayoral candidates across Brazil’s 5,571 municipalities, we analyse the effect of demogr…
Urban resilience in major events
Organizing major international events in Brazil poses significant challenges to urban public management, requiring coordination among multiple institutions and the use of advanced technologies to ensure security and service continuity. This study examines the role of the Operations and Resilience Center (COR-Rio) during the 2024 G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Based on a qualitative case study supported by institutional records, direct obs…
Resiliência urbana em grandes eventos
A realização de grandes eventos internacionais no Brasil traz desafios significativos à gestão pública urbana, exigindo articulação entre múltiplas instituições e uso intensivo de tecnologias para garantir segurança e continuidade dos serviços. Este estudo analisa a atuação do Centro de Operações e Resiliência (COR-Rio) na preparação e execução da Cúpula de Líderes do G20, realizada no Rio de Janeiro em 2024. A pesquisa, de natureza qualitativa e…
The global legislative ICT transparency index
Lessons From the Dissolution of Mexico's Information Commission
A much‐emulated information commission and a superstar within global transparency policy circles, Mexico's National Institute for Access to Information (the INAI) wielded practically unappealable decision‐making power over public information across the entire Mexican federation. In November 2024, the populist Morena regime formally dissolved the INAI. Looking beyond the tired tale of populist backsliding, the INAI's demise offers key lessons abou…
Compensatory collaborative governance
What happens when governments wield the capacity but lack the will to deliver public services that can mean the difference between life and death? During the COVID-19 Pandemic, federal governments in Brazil and the United States suppressed epidemiological data and spread medical misinformation. Undertaking a paired qualitative analysis, we show how ‘compensatory collaborative governance’ initiatives addressed unreliable federal transparency in Br…
Fostering sustainable production via the Amazon Fund collaborative platform
Motivated by the notion that collaboration is essential to achieving sustainable development, this research explores the impact of the Brazil‐based Amazon Fund Collaborative Platform in boosting sustainable production across multiple forest and agroforestry initiatives in the Amazon region. Collaborative platforms represent a relatively new concept, amounting to governance structures that facilitate the creation, adaptation, and success of multip…
To blow the whistle in Brazil
Given weak protections for whistleblowers in Brazil – a country with over one million federal civil servants and a well‐known history of corruption scandals – how common is whistleblowing? This study presents results from a survey completed by 652 federal civil servants in Brazil. Examining the incidence of wrongdoing, whistleblowing, and retaliation, as well as the role of gender and public service motivation (PSM), we find that women tend to re…
Transparency's impact on the professionalization of government
Freedom of information (FOI) laws are known to expose governmental weaknesses, but do they improve the structural workings of public administration, professionalizing governance? This study examines FOI's effect on a cornerstone of effective governance—bureaucratic hiring. Using coarsened matching methods to compare over 5400 municipalities in Brazil—approximately half possessing FOI regulations and half without—we identify significant reductions…
Transparency Versus Populism
This article theorizes and analyzes the relationship between populist leaders and government transparency. Employing a paired comparison of leaders in Brazil and the United States before and during the pandemic, it illuminates three interlocking tactics: (a) the weakening of transparency institutions, (b) erasure and suppression of transparency, and (c) corruption of transparency via misuse and misinformation. Populist efforts to subvert pandemic…
The remoteness of democratic representation
Democratic representation is increasingly remote from citizens. Many institutions exacerbate this remoteness, but the shrinking ratio of legislative representatives to citizens is perhaps the most obvious. Around the world, the number of representatives has not kept pace with growing populations. To what extent does this distance, between citizens and their elected politicians, explain our current democratic malaise? Relying on both quantitative …
Transparência interna
Muito tem sido escrito a respeito da transparência externa no setor público. No entanto, a transparência interna - a divulgação inter- e intra-governamental de informações - é comumente negligenciada como objeto de estudo. Subestimar a transparência interna é surpreendente, pois ela é um fator determinante para a coordenação de políticas públicas e para uma governança democrática de qualidade. O presente artigo analisa os custos de curto e longo …
Local compliance with national transparency legislation
Are governments complying with transparency? Findings from 15 years of evaluation
Googling the requester
Innovating upon previous field experiments and theories of identity‐based discrimination, we test whether public officials are using searches (“identity‐questing”) to profile citizens and acting on latent biases. Pairs of “institutional” and “noninstitutional” requesters send lower and moderate burden freedom of information (FOI) requests—providing no identity cues apart from undistinctive names, e‐mails, and ID numbers—to nearly 700 of Brazil's …
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
Gauging the Impact of Transparency Policies
To what extent do transparency policies generate positive impacts? This seemingly rhetorical question has become the subject of increasing contention, partly because of two research‐based biases. First, researchers have been blinded by metrics and method. Using tools that are often ill suited to gauging the gradual, diffuse, and indirect effects of most transparency policies, research has found—unsurprisingly—spotty evidence of impact. Transparen…
Comparing Resistance to Open Data Performance Measurement
Much is known about governmental resistance to disclosure laws, less so about multi‐stakeholder resistance to open data. This study compares open data initiatives within the primary and secondary school systems of Brazil and the UK , focusing on stakeholder resistance and corresponding policy solutions. The analytical framework is based on the ‘Three‐Ps’ of open data resistance to performance metrics, corresponding to professional, political, and…
A Great Leap Forward for Democracy and the Rule of Law? Brazil's Mensalão Trial
The Mensalão trial was Brazil's most important political corruption trial ever and an emblematic ex post accountability success. More than 28 individuals were convicted in relation to a legislative vote-buying scheme, many by the very officials they helped appoint. We relay the trajectory of the scandal cum trial, explain its successful prosecution and assess its implications. The article argues that the Mensalão has proved pivotal for Brazil's i…
Policy Evaluation via Composite Indexes
How Cabinet Size and Legislative Control Shape the Strength of Transparency Laws
Prevailing thinking surrounding the politics of secrecy and transparency is biased by assumptions regarding single‐party and small coalition governments. Here, the “politics of secrecy” dominates: Leaders delay or resist strong transparency and freedom of information (FOI) policies when they control parliament, and yield to strong laws because of imposition, symbolic ambition, or concessions when they do not. In effect, leaders weigh the benefits…
Assessing Freedom of Information in Latin America a Decade Later
More than 100 freedom of information (FOI) laws have been enacted worldwide, nearly half within the last 10 years. Yet these cross-domain, lynchpin transparency measures have received little scholarly attention. This article assesses the 16 FOI measures adopted across Latin America. Is secrecy being surrendered in a region marked by legacies of opacity? Why are some laws fulfilling their de jure potential in practice while others are not? This ar…
How Cabinet Size and Legislative Control Shape the Strength of Transparency Laws
Prevailing thinking surrounding the politics of secrecy and transparency is biased by assumptions regarding single‐party and small coalition governments. Here, the “politics of secrecy” dominates: Leaders delay or resist strong transparency and freedom of information (FOI) policies when they control parliament, and yield to strong laws because of imposition, symbolic ambition, or concessions when they do not. In effect, leaders weigh the benefits…
Policy Evaluation via Composite Indexes
Googling the requester
Innovating upon previous field experiments and theories of identity‐based discrimination, we test whether public officials are using searches (“identity‐questing”) to profile citizens and acting on latent biases. Pairs of “institutional” and “noninstitutional” requesters send lower and moderate burden freedom of information (FOI) requests—providing no identity cues apart from undistinctive names, e‐mails, and ID numbers—to nearly 700 of Brazil's …
Assessing Freedom of Information in Latin America a Decade Later
More than 100 freedom of information (FOI) laws have been enacted worldwide, nearly half within the last 10 years. Yet these cross-domain, lynchpin transparency measures have received little scholarly attention. This article assesses the 16 FOI measures adopted across Latin America. Is secrecy being surrendered in a region marked by legacies of opacity? Why are some laws fulfilling their de jure potential in practice while others are not? This ar…
Are governments complying with transparency? Findings from 15 years of evaluation
A Great Leap Forward for Democracy and the Rule of Law? Brazil's Mensalão Trial
The Mensalão trial was Brazil's most important political corruption trial ever and an emblematic ex post accountability success. More than 28 individuals were convicted in relation to a legislative vote-buying scheme, many by the very officials they helped appoint. We relay the trajectory of the scandal cum trial, explain its successful prosecution and assess its implications. The article argues that the Mensalão has proved pivotal for Brazil's i…
Local compliance with national transparency legislation
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
Comparing Resistance to Open Data Performance Measurement
Much is known about governmental resistance to disclosure laws, less so about multi‐stakeholder resistance to open data. This study compares open data initiatives within the primary and secondary school systems of Brazil and the UK , focusing on stakeholder resistance and corresponding policy solutions. The analytical framework is based on the ‘Three‐Ps’ of open data resistance to performance metrics, corresponding to professional, political, and…
Lessons From the Dissolution of Mexico's Information Commission
A much‐emulated information commission and a superstar within global transparency policy circles, Mexico's National Institute for Access to Information (the INAI) wielded practically unappealable decision‐making power over public information across the entire Mexican federation. In November 2024, the populist Morena regime formally dissolved the INAI. Looking beyond the tired tale of populist backsliding, the INAI's demise offers key lessons abou…
To blow the whistle in Brazil
Given weak protections for whistleblowers in Brazil – a country with over one million federal civil servants and a well‐known history of corruption scandals – how common is whistleblowing? This study presents results from a survey completed by 652 federal civil servants in Brazil. Examining the incidence of wrongdoing, whistleblowing, and retaliation, as well as the role of gender and public service motivation (PSM), we find that women tend to re…
Transparency Versus Populism
This article theorizes and analyzes the relationship between populist leaders and government transparency. Employing a paired comparison of leaders in Brazil and the United States before and during the pandemic, it illuminates three interlocking tactics: (a) the weakening of transparency institutions, (b) erasure and suppression of transparency, and (c) corruption of transparency via misuse and misinformation. Populist efforts to subvert pandemic…
Transparency's impact on the professionalization of government
Freedom of information (FOI) laws are known to expose governmental weaknesses, but do they improve the structural workings of public administration, professionalizing governance? This study examines FOI's effect on a cornerstone of effective governance—bureaucratic hiring. Using coarsened matching methods to compare over 5400 municipalities in Brazil—approximately half possessing FOI regulations and half without—we identify significant reductions…
The remoteness of democratic representation
Democratic representation is increasingly remote from citizens. Many institutions exacerbate this remoteness, but the shrinking ratio of legislative representatives to citizens is perhaps the most obvious. Around the world, the number of representatives has not kept pace with growing populations. To what extent does this distance, between citizens and their elected politicians, explain our current democratic malaise? Relying on both quantitative …
Compensatory collaborative governance
What happens when governments wield the capacity but lack the will to deliver public services that can mean the difference between life and death? During the COVID-19 Pandemic, federal governments in Brazil and the United States suppressed epidemiological data and spread medical misinformation. Undertaking a paired qualitative analysis, we show how ‘compensatory collaborative governance’ initiatives addressed unreliable federal transparency in Br…
Policy Evaluation via Composite Indexes
How Cabinet Size and Legislative Control Shape the Strength of Transparency Laws
Prevailing thinking surrounding the politics of secrecy and transparency is biased by assumptions regarding single‐party and small coalition governments. Here, the “politics of secrecy” dominates: Leaders delay or resist strong transparency and freedom of information (FOI) policies when they control parliament, and yield to strong laws because of imposition, symbolic ambition, or concessions when they do not. In effect, leaders weigh the benefits…
Assessing Freedom of Information in Latin America a Decade Later
More than 100 freedom of information (FOI) laws have been enacted worldwide, nearly half within the last 10 years. Yet these cross-domain, lynchpin transparency measures have received little scholarly attention. This article assesses the 16 FOI measures adopted across Latin America. Is secrecy being surrendered in a region marked by legacies of opacity? Why are some laws fulfilling their de jure potential in practice while others are not? This ar…
Comparing Resistance to Open Data Performance Measurement
Much is known about governmental resistance to disclosure laws, less so about multi‐stakeholder resistance to open data. This study compares open data initiatives within the primary and secondary school systems of Brazil and the UK , focusing on stakeholder resistance and corresponding policy solutions. The analytical framework is based on the ‘Three‐Ps’ of open data resistance to performance metrics, corresponding to professional, political, and…
A Great Leap Forward for Democracy and the Rule of Law? Brazil's Mensalão Trial
The Mensalão trial was Brazil's most important political corruption trial ever and an emblematic ex post accountability success. More than 28 individuals were convicted in relation to a legislative vote-buying scheme, many by the very officials they helped appoint. We relay the trajectory of the scandal cum trial, explain its successful prosecution and assess its implications. The article argues that the Mensalão has proved pivotal for Brazil's i…
The Information-Gathering Matrix
Scholarship on transparency and freedom of information (FOI) conveys an overwhelmingly “political” narrative. Most uses of FOI, however, are private and nonpolitical in nature. This article explores the gap between the literature and empirical reality by means of an “Information-Gathering Matrix,” a framework for conceptualizing the motivations, uses, and impacts associated with FOI. Following a broad literature review, case studies illustrate th…
Gauging the Impact of Transparency Policies
To what extent do transparency policies generate positive impacts? This seemingly rhetorical question has become the subject of increasing contention, partly because of two research‐based biases. First, researchers have been blinded by metrics and method. Using tools that are often ill suited to gauging the gradual, diffuse, and indirect effects of most transparency policies, research has found—unsurprisingly—spotty evidence of impact. Transparen…
Googling the requester
Innovating upon previous field experiments and theories of identity‐based discrimination, we test whether public officials are using searches (“identity‐questing”) to profile citizens and acting on latent biases. Pairs of “institutional” and “noninstitutional” requesters send lower and moderate burden freedom of information (FOI) requests—providing no identity cues apart from undistinctive names, e‐mails, and ID numbers—to nearly 700 of Brazil's …
Transparência interna
Muito tem sido escrito a respeito da transparência externa no setor público. No entanto, a transparência interna - a divulgação inter- e intra-governamental de informações - é comumente negligenciada como objeto de estudo. Subestimar a transparência interna é surpreendente, pois ela é um fator determinante para a coordenação de políticas públicas e para uma governança democrática de qualidade. O presente artigo analisa os custos de curto e longo …
Local compliance with national transparency legislation
Are governments complying with transparency? Findings from 15 years of evaluation
Transparency Versus Populism
This article theorizes and analyzes the relationship between populist leaders and government transparency. Employing a paired comparison of leaders in Brazil and the United States before and during the pandemic, it illuminates three interlocking tactics: (a) the weakening of transparency institutions, (b) erasure and suppression of transparency, and (c) corruption of transparency via misuse and misinformation. Populist efforts to subvert pandemic…
The remoteness of democratic representation
Democratic representation is increasingly remote from citizens. Many institutions exacerbate this remoteness, but the shrinking ratio of legislative representatives to citizens is perhaps the most obvious. Around the world, the number of representatives has not kept pace with growing populations. To what extent does this distance, between citizens and their elected politicians, explain our current democratic malaise? Relying on both quantitative …
Fostering sustainable production via the Amazon Fund collaborative platform
Motivated by the notion that collaboration is essential to achieving sustainable development, this research explores the impact of the Brazil‐based Amazon Fund Collaborative Platform in boosting sustainable production across multiple forest and agroforestry initiatives in the Amazon region. Collaborative platforms represent a relatively new concept, amounting to governance structures that facilitate the creation, adaptation, and success of multip…
To blow the whistle in Brazil
Given weak protections for whistleblowers in Brazil – a country with over one million federal civil servants and a well‐known history of corruption scandals – how common is whistleblowing? This study presents results from a survey completed by 652 federal civil servants in Brazil. Examining the incidence of wrongdoing, whistleblowing, and retaliation, as well as the role of gender and public service motivation (PSM), we find that women tend to re…
Transparency's impact on the professionalization of government
Freedom of information (FOI) laws are known to expose governmental weaknesses, but do they improve the structural workings of public administration, professionalizing governance? This study examines FOI's effect on a cornerstone of effective governance—bureaucratic hiring. Using coarsened matching methods to compare over 5400 municipalities in Brazil—approximately half possessing FOI regulations and half without—we identify significant reductions…
Lessons From the Dissolution of Mexico's Information Commission
A much‐emulated information commission and a superstar within global transparency policy circles, Mexico's National Institute for Access to Information (the INAI) wielded practically unappealable decision‐making power over public information across the entire Mexican federation. In November 2024, the populist Morena regime formally dissolved the INAI. Looking beyond the tired tale of populist backsliding, the INAI's demise offers key lessons abou…
Compensatory collaborative governance
What happens when governments wield the capacity but lack the will to deliver public services that can mean the difference between life and death? During the COVID-19 Pandemic, federal governments in Brazil and the United States suppressed epidemiological data and spread medical misinformation. Undertaking a paired qualitative analysis, we show how ‘compensatory collaborative governance’ initiatives addressed unreliable federal transparency in Br…
Transparency talk among candidates for public office
How common are invocations and promises of transparency and open government among candidates for municipal office? What factors drive ‘transparency talk’, and does this ‘talk’ translate into the ‘walk’ of transparency policy enactment? This study presents an inaugural mapping and descriptive analysis of transparency talk. Drawing on nearly 40,000 pledges from mayoral candidates across Brazil’s 5,571 municipalities, we analyse the effect of demogr…
Urban resilience in major events
Organizing major international events in Brazil poses significant challenges to urban public management, requiring coordination among multiple institutions and the use of advanced technologies to ensure security and service continuity. This study examines the role of the Operations and Resilience Center (COR-Rio) during the 2024 G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Based on a qualitative case study supported by institutional records, direct obs…
Resiliência urbana em grandes eventos
A realização de grandes eventos internacionais no Brasil traz desafios significativos à gestão pública urbana, exigindo articulação entre múltiplas instituições e uso intensivo de tecnologias para garantir segurança e continuidade dos serviços. Este estudo analisa a atuação do Centro de Operações e Resiliência (COR-Rio) na preparação e execução da Cúpula de Líderes do G20, realizada no Rio de Janeiro em 2024. A pesquisa, de natureza qualitativa e…
The global legislative ICT transparency index
Political science (18 obras) · Law (14 obras) · Corruption and Economic Development (11 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Business (9 obras) · Transparency (behavior (9 obras) · E-Government and Public Services (8 obras) · Economics (8 obras) · Politics (8 obras) · Public Administration (7 obras)