A Dappled Sun

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9283083
AutoresAniket Aga (0000-0003-1074-3441, autor correspondente), Chitrangada Choudhury (0000-0002-4382-2069)
Ano2018
Volume38
Fascículo3
Páginas540-556
Data de publicação2018-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoComparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1089-201X • E-ISSN: 1548-226X
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/1089201x-7208856
OpenAlexW2907372239
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas29

This article explores how transparency laws reconfigure work practices and relations within the bureaucracy, and between bureaucrats and citizens. In a bureaucratic setup where a culture of secrecy looms large, India’s Right to Information (RTI) Act (2005), sometimes called the “sunshine law,” promised citizens unprecedented access to information. By tracing the journeys of multiple RTI requests within the largely understudied high offices of India’s federal government, we unravel how the new demands of disclosure intersect with entrenched bureaucratic norms and practice. We find that the act allows applicants a tenuous wedge into the everyday life of the state, including its uppermost echelons, precipitating a bureaucratic encounter. These encounters disrupt habitual modes of bureaucratic functioning by (1) allowing applicants the capacity to self-represent through the RTI request, a new, unusually autonomous kind of document; (2) forcing bureaucrats, who do not ordinarily engage with the public, to interact with applicants; and (3) concentrating decision-making authority and accountability in an individual, identifiable bureaucrat. Analyzing these practical disruptions, irrespective of the information they yield, suggests that the RTI Act proliferates bureaucratic encounters and politicizes secrecy. Individual bureaucrats get pitchforked into broader political struggles through their responses to requests

Accountability · Bureaucracy · Government (linguistics · Law and economics · Open government · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Secrecy · Sociology · Transparency (behavior · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Public Administration · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Water Governance and Infrastructure