"The Surprising Logic of Transparency" by Bernard I. Finel and Kristin M. Lord, in International Studies Quarterly (June 1999), Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 350 Main St., Malden, Mass. 02148.

Transparency is a popular buzzword among the international relations cognoscenti these days, reassuringly suggesting, in this age of Matt Drudge and Cable Network News, that an open society’s abundance of available information gives peace a better chance. ’Tain’t usually so, declare Finel and Lord, professors of political science at Georgetown University and George Washington University, respectively.

They examined seven international crises, from the War of 1812 to the Sino-Soviet border dispute of 1969—all cases in which neither side wanted war, though in four cases, it came anyway. With the exception of World War I, on which the impact was unclear, Finel and Lord found that "transparency" often worsened the crisis. In one case, it appeared that a lack of transparency allowed an easing of tensions.

Take the 1967 conflict between "transparent" Israel and opaque Egypt, which led to a short war in June that neither wanted. Israel’s openness to outside observers did no favor to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. He seemed "overwhelmed by the ‘noise’ of Israeli domestic politics," the authors say. "Due to press reports that emphasized the more belligerent statements made by Israeli leaders, media reports that highlighted divided domestic opinion about how to respond, and Nasser’s consequent presumption that he could safely draw out the crisis for political gain, transparency exacerbated rather than mitigated the pressures for war." Nasser had so much information, in short, that he could "see whatever he wanted and confirm existing misperceptions about Israeli intentions."

Nor is informational "noise" necessarily less problematic just because the government trying to penetrate it is a democracy. In an 1898 conflict between Britain and France over territory in the Upper Nile Valley, "the fact that both states had relatively transparent governments and free presses" may well have provided "more room for misperception and not less," the authors say. The press in each country "routinely reported unauthorized views" and played up belligerent statements, while downplaying conciliatory ones. Fortunately, the key policymakers on both sides "were able to insulate themselves from the pressures produced by transparency," and kept up secret diplomatic exchanges. But "without transparency," say Finel and Lord, the crisis "might never have occurred in the first place," or at least been settled sooner and with less acrimony. As it was, war was finally avoided only because France was willing to accept "a humiliating defeat."

Like democracy itself, transparency may be, on balance, a good thing, the authors believe. Nevertheless, they say, the fact remains that, particularly in an international crisis, "more information is not always better."