as per ck's comments on yesterday's post, allow me to try to further deepen the comparison of 18th c. FOI and late 20th c./contemporary FOI, especially in terms of "social imaginaries/ideologies/problems".
here is a quote by FOI expert Thomas Blanton on the Swedish law from a 1995 conference speech:
The first freedom of information law in the world actually pre-dates, came
before, both the French and the American Revolutions, so so much for all
that philosophical history I just gave you.
Sweden, in 1766, passed a Freedom of the Press Act, which legalized the
publication of government documents, and provided for public access to
government documents. 1766. The reason was not Jean-Jacques
Rousseau. The reason was real politik. Sweden enjoyed an extended
period of parliamentary rule between about 1718 and 1772. And the new
majority party in 1766 wanted to see the documents which the previous
government had kept secret. Two hundred years later the United States
passed its Freedom of Information Act for very similar reasons.
However, another FOI scholar, Stephen Lamble, argues the opposite, that the Swedish FOI was, in fact, inspired by Enlightenment ideas, not of Rousseau or any other famous philosopher, but by the Finnish clergyman Anders Chydenius. In 1765, Chydenius authored "The National Profit" promoting absolute free trade throughout Sweden, parallel ideas on free trade and markets to Adam Smith which actually preceded "The Wealth of Nations" by 11 years. At that time, Chydenius was already a member of the Swedish Parliament and the leading proponent of the Freedom of the Press/Information Access Law.
If we examine FOI from the perspective of ideas and philosophy, a connection appears evident in the tradition of the Enlightenment. Again, let me return to Blanton's speech however, where he states:
In my research for this presentation, I came across what was, for me, a
very surprising statement from a very highly placed Japanese source on
the subject of open government and the need for open government, and I'll
discuss that in a moment. And the reason I was surprised by that statement
is that, up until now, I have always understood the idea of freedom of
information to be a product of the rationalism and liberalism of the
enlightenment, and particularly the ideological trend from the French
Revolution on the rights of man, and the American Revolution on the checks
and balances against government power.
...
The quote was, "Open deliberation shall be carried out, and all affairs of
state shall be disposed of in conformity to public opinion." This was the first
of the five imperial oaths uttered by the new Japanese emperor, on 14th
March, 1868, at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. Now, is this Meiji
freedom of information?
So, the more focused question is whether any conceptual/philosophical reference to accountability constitutes "Freedom of Information" or if FOI is the product of more specific historical conditions?
Without discounting the cultural side of meanings and ideas, I want to argue for the latter and suggest conditions unique to late 20th century America, as compared to 18th c. Sweden. After all, the Swedish law did not inspire the American law. Lamble argues in another essay that "US legislation was originally based on Swedish statutes" (2003: 51), but presents no solid evidence of this basis, other than a footnoted reference to Rowat (1979) [a matter requiring further research, I know]. In recent interviews with FOIA experts, this linkage was refuted. Further, I have found no evidence in my research.
If Blanton is correct and both the Swedish and American laws are the result of realpolitik, then this would imply that FOI laws are highly specific to a political climate. This is fine, but it doesn't explain the proliferation of FOI in the late 20th c. and not in another era of history.
The next obvious distinction is the nature of, really the emergence and proliferation of, bureaucratic government administration in the 19th century. While bureaucracy had already emerged in specific locales throughout history, its development in the 18th and 19th century was unique in its scope and coherency amongst like-minded Western nations, then transmitted to those nation's colonial outposts.
Before going any farther, I should return to ck's recommendation comment for anthropological analysis: "you need to be able to clearly articulate what the *goal* of FOIA is-- and whether the people behind it in the Swedish, the American or the Polish case constitute a kind of ethical/political (as in polis, aristotle) community which understands this goal and seeks to achieve it--whatever it is."
If this is the case, then the ideological similarities suggest a common goal, while the realpolitik interpretation suggests different goals. The bureaucratic interpretation, especially as it articulates to democratic ideals, could suggest an international community, particularly one that is facilitated by recent technological developments.
...
Posted by michael at 3 lutego 2005 16:45For some reason, as I was reading these past few entries, I could not get what one of my informants told me a few nights back out of my head; roughly in translation that "democracy is not agressive. It does not go ahead and amake a bunch of laws from the onset. It creates them as preventative measuress as problems arise, or when it is somehow attacked and endangered." She was saying that about the new American policy that connects safety at home to freedom in other countries, and I was asking her about American policy in Iran back in '53 (with nationalization of oil industry) and now. She is very "French" and she has also been encouraging me to read Hobbes and Locke and Rosseu and Montesquie and Adam Smith and those guys very carefully in order to understand my subject; so in that context, it was interesting for me what she said; it sort of sounded like she went from democracy as one single universal thing that looks the same at different times and places to something that changes according to time and place; sort of from a concept or a value system to a practical process; like the values are the same, but you only make them into laws when something happens. Anyhow, I don't know if this is at all related to your discussion about how FOI became a law in the Swedish democracy and then the American democracy, about the moral and/or legal, but I've been reminded of it. Or it might just be too obvious an observation.
Posted by: nahal at 4 lutego 2005 9:04ok, so what exactly does this mean that you are thinking:
"So, the more focused question is whether any conceptual/philosophical reference to accountability constitutes "Freedom of Information" or if FOI is the product of more specific historical conditions?"
From my reading, this is not an either/or question. Something can have both a conceptual or philosophical basis or motive _and_ be historically specific. So this is why Foucault, and Rabinow as anthropological interpreter, insists on the relationship between an apparatus/dispositif and a problematization. Or to put it in less technical language: the historically specific component of your research, the "assemblage" of laws and politicking and people and documents and technologies can be seen as a concrete way to engage with, respond to, or activate the philosophical/conceptual problem--which you seem to be arguing is based in enlightenment ideals of a free press. Realpolitik is always local strategym but I think Nahal's comment is on to something, which is not that democracy is _purely_ reactive, but that it is not a single, concrete thing. Different configurations of laws, voting, representation etc. can still be called "democracy" because they are in more or less obscure ways, still connected to the *goal* of democracy as a philosophical problem. This does not mean the problem of democracy is universal--far from it. it just means that it is larger in scope and longer in time than the particular cases 1766/1966 that you are looking carefully at.
capito?
ck
Posted by: ck at 4 lutego 2005 10:46i have been totally schooled by professor ck. but then, that's his job. thanks! another post in response v. soon.
Posted by: michael at 4 lutego 2005 13:03Count me in with ck: causes are not mutually exclusive. Technology? Sweden in 1766 may have been in responding, in part, to the printing press, but America may have been responding, in part, to the rise of the Xerox machine. An argument motivated by secrecy about document access might take the ostensible form of "If we let you do it, everyone will want to do it, and it will be just too expensive - really, it's just your selfish imposition on the taxpayers we serve." This argument is weakened by increasing economies in reproduction of information.
Yet even this ever-weakening excuse is contingent on the notion of citizen access to information being even a *potentially* legitimate claim on the services of the state. Where does that come from? Thus do ideas (such as "democracy") also enter as a kind of solvent. Your Chydenius might have been in a position to exploit both ideological/moral AND technological opportunities, to incite a new "assemblage". And perhaps he could argue from markets seen as democracies as well as from democracies seen as markets. That is, if one can argue that the price system provides a kind of transparency in competitive markets, and that this is "fairer" and more legitimate in some real sense, then couldn't one argue that citizen access to government records (as "text manufactures" became ever cheaper with the printing press) also provides a kind of "price transparency" for government services?
The crucial difference: the market's hand is invisible because ... there is no hand (or no single hand, operating consciously under a single owner.) However, a state's relative invisibility of operation is part of a true apparatus - the situation requires some breach of the bureaucratic "black box" to create a space within which some more market-like assemblage can form. And there's where realpolitik enters: the ideas might be an enabling solvent, and the information technology might be an enabling component for the assemblage, but only power politics can create a strong enough counter-interest to the established order to break through.
Posted by: Michael Turner at 5 marca 2005 7:11