The Pursuit of Absolute Transparency: Causes and Consequences of Chilean Anti-Corruption Reforms

Abstract

Chile is consistently ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in Latin America, and among the top 20% of countries evaluated by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Yet in the last decades, the country has been rocked by corruption scandals, and Chileans have expressed frustration with government efforts to curb corruption. These contradictory trends raise the question whether the country’s anti-corruption and pro-transparency reforms are having the intended effects. This article takes stock of Chilean pro-transparency reforms of the last 30 years, focusing on the Access to Public Information Act and the Lobbying Act, and explores why, despite introducing reforms that follow international standards, the country seems to have made little leeway in promoting transparency in the eyes of its citizens. I argue that Chilean reforms have fallen short on four accounts. First, implementation efforts have been uneven across institutions and levels of government, leading to mixed results. Second, laws that promote transparency have led to greater availability of data, however, fallen short of generating effective transparency due to low usability of data. Third, transparency measures have left significant gray areas and legal gaps that limit their effectiveness. Fourth, while the reforms have advanced data-driven transparency, they have not made power relations more transparent. The article takes account of these shortcomings, and concludes by linking them to the political processes that brought about these reforms.