Right to Information in Neoliberal Governance

Biju. B. L | Vol. 1(1) 2011: 95-111 | Indian Researcher

Governance stands for the political conditionality which is essential to manage the tribulations faced by a market facilitating state. But in the contemporary times when the social struggles against neoliberal policies are gaining currency governance is publicized as a scheme that helps to empower marginalized and downtrodden people. Actually, does governance intend to create inclusive political space and tools for social control over market and market facilitating state? Or is it helpful to reconstitute the existing political and social spaces in favour of the unfettered market? Emphasis on governance is widely acknowledged as a result of the declining enthusiasm of the reformists about the self-regulatory power of market and the potentials of free market to realize inclusive development. But silence of the reformists about the exploitative nature of free-market provokes us to perceive governance differently. Is the idea of the reformists about corruption, underdevelopment and marginalization sufficient to grapple with the crises of the people who are gradually being deprived of control over the dominant means of economic and ideological production? Assimilation of civil society and empowerment of the marginalized through promulgating new civil/political rights are the suggested remedies, but how do the reformists conceptualize the forms of authority which are violating these rights? As governance pluralizes the authority, what is its implication for the rights of citizens which are traditionally defined vis-à-vis the authority, mainly the state? A critical exploration of the current propositions of the reformists shows that they are pushing forward governance not as a solution to the real problems inherent in the economic foundations of neoliberalism. In addition to this, the invulnerability of neoliberal economic rules to social justice is obscured in their proposal for governance. Hence governance serves only as a means to reproduce or diffuse free market in the society.

In the early phase of neoliberalism description of the free market as being capable of maximizing individual freedom and accelerating democratization was sufficient to popular consumption. But changing prescriptions in the reformists’ proposals since the late 1990s are contributed by a number of factors, for instance, the spread of global movements against reforms, abnormalities in the implementation of neoliberal policies in the economies in transition, the economic fiasco of East Asian Tigers and the ethnic challenges faced by political liberalism in the newly formed democracies.1 While theoretical arguments of neoliberals in the period of structural adjustment was confined to prioritization of market over state, management of social tribulations assumed greater significance in recent times. Incorporation of civil society and reconfiguration of the political and institutional framework of the market facilitating state have become essential components of governance. International donor agencies are absorbing the presumptions of associational democracy in the design of governance.²

Governance, in other words, aims at rightsizing the already down sized welfare state. Usually, it redefines the previous meanings given to development and human rights. Governance seems to be enlarging the purview of human rights and legitimizes social networks in civil society as the means for the people to accomplish rights. Addition of new rights to the existing corpus of human rights is a feature of governance. Interpretation of rights as suitable to the neoliberal economic framework is a fashion of current academic research and projects of the reformists. Though the reformists try to combine diverging lines of economic liberalism and political democracy, as usual the meaning and implementation of certain rights make their task the most exhausting.

Interpretation of rights by reformists is different from not only the anti-reformist criticism but also from classical liberal traditions. For example, definition of the newly incorporated rights in governance does not follow the conventional juxtaposition of rights vs. authority. It amply proves that in governance where the rights are interpreted as not sacrosanct, natural and political, but only negotiable through a discursive interaction at the societal sphere mainly between the private business, community organisations and voluntary organisations that constitute the civil society. It leaves human rights agenda unsettled and pointless, since in the new discourse of human rights identification of violator of rights is quite ambiguous.

Compared to the definition of rights as natural and inalienable in classical liberalism current definition is a harmer to popular political struggles to achieve human rights. It is important that the reformists hardly perceive human rights as natural. Human rights violations are perceived as natural. Reasons for violations are either procedural flaws or gaps in communication rather than structural. This flawed conception and lopsided analysis of the reformists gave way to easy suggestions and solutions to the predicament of the exploited and marginalized people. It leads human rights in a mess in governance. Never do the reformists relate issues of human rights to the changed role of state and gaining primacy of market over democracy. Hardly do they see this in sequence to the operation of neoliberal policies for more than three decade. Interestingly, the new interpretation of human rights is helpful to tackle with the current social movements which are raising human right issues. However, the new semantics of rights is not fortifiable before constructive criticism. Actually governance is the dilemmatic paradigm offered by the reformists who are trying to co-opt the agitating people into a new base in the current context in which the old sink of welfare state to contain social protests is only a memory.³ It is worth analyzing if governance intends to rescue the rights from the general plight in liberal democracy i.e., degeneration of the idea of freedom into a mere advocacy of free enterprises and rejection of human emancipation. Particularly, reformists are fond of those rights which shall be used as catalyst to free market. Freedom of information, which indirectly presupposes free flow and exchange of information among the society as well as between state and citizens (or the political enterprise of market facilitating state and its customers?), is taken as a case to analyze the utility of rights in governance to encourage market.

Governance in Social Research: A Critical Introduction

The tone and tenor of discussions about economic policies and administrative reforms related to development underscore the shifting position of academic critics from radicalism to ‘third way’ in the post cold war. This line of thought, which attempts to blend ideas of ‘cultural pluralism’ and ‘market rationality’, has been internalized as a tough commonsense by both the practitioners of reform and the majority of analysts. In fact, this is related to moderation of reductionist criticism following the dismal fate of Soviet Marxism. It finds reflections in theorizations of globalization also. For example, a majority of critiques are hesitant to describe globalization as economic (capitalist) globalization. Hence it is interpreted as a process contributing to trans-nationalization of social struggles and greater civil society activism.⁴ Truly, diverse studies focusing on these transformations conducted by both the cohorts and critics of neoliberal globalization are contrary to each other since each group attempts to conceptualize these developments so as to fit their ideological prescriptions. While the critics aim at radical reorganization of globalization, the cohorts give emphasis to modification of the neoliberal reform packages so as to manage the discrepancies between market facilitating state and social demands. Explanation of globalization process in these two opposite ways is helpful to comprehend the shifting thrust from deregulation of market to the new design of governance.

Washington Consensus briefly narrates the neoliberal principles that outlined the structural adjustment programmes since mid-1970s. But, Post Washington Consensus has made interesting changes in the verbalization of reforms since the late 1990s.⁵ Governance, the linchpin of reforms in the 21^st century is seemingly integrating the views of moderate criticism of the transformationists as well as self criticisms of the reformists about the structural adjustment. Post Washington Consensus put forward a triangular framework for the future reforms in which society, market and state constitute the three poles. Actually it brought social sphere into the design of reform and gradually modulated the earlier discussions which were surrounding state vs. market for a long period.

Three explanations are available to specify the reasons underlying Post Washington Consensus. First group describes it as a contribution of self criticism and self adjustment by the reformists. This group of scholars also opines that ineffective management of structural adjustment by the governments of the economies in transition is a reason for not fulfilling the expectations. Therefore, they find governance very therapeutic. Second view designates the new consensus as the triumph of social struggles against neoliberalism. Third argument considers Post Washington Consensus as not a rupture from neoliberalism, but an attempt to carry on the second generation of reforms in a new format. According to this perspective, governance is a new discourse which is suitable to maintain the neoliberal economic policies with greater legality and endurance.⁶ Arguments that seldom consider Post Washington consensus as a U-turn in the neoliberal reforms seem to be more convincing since the consensus actually brought together the elementary principles which were scattered across the reform packages in 1990s under the new banner of ‘governance’.

It is true that each of theses arguments is grounded in different reasons. But the third one is greatly different from the other two mainly because it questions the eclecticism of reformists and the exoneration of the success of social protests by the transformationalists. It claims that though moderation of open advocacy for market and tall talk about distribution and democracy are important in the reforms today, neoliberalism remains its default mode. Despite the icing of institutional reforms the core of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) of the World Bank retains the same macro economic fundamentals of structural adjustment i.e., free trade, deregulation, privatization and commercialization of land and resources. Thus the increased focus of reformists on institutional reorganization of political authority and increasing concern for new human rights are useful to remove certain socio-political obstacles to the effective implementation of structural adjustment policies.

The reformists’ understanding of development and democracy is vulnerable to criticism on many counts. First, in the proposals of governance the discrepancies between capital accumulation and social justice are largely abstracted. Reformists are unmindful of the nonconformity of neoliberal economic policies, which guarantee unfettered accumulation, to realize distributive justice. Therefore, though governance proposals are seemingly generous about democratization, there is absolutely no remark about reconsideration of the neoliberal financial rules that had already been in force at the national and international level, and has been proved ineffective to reduce income and related social disparities.

Second, conventional preoccupation of liberalism about the autonomy and competence of political mechanisms to bring about development without reorganization of the socio-economic relations in a judicious manner remains as the logic of governance also. Does the description of development in governance conceal the fundamental contradictions between the socio-economic demands of the marginalized people and the dominant neoliberal order i.e., free-market capitalism and the macro economic policies of the state? The reformists seem to imagine about the potentials of socially embedded governance to ensure egalitarian distribution of benefits including resources despite the states retain the same neoliberal economic policies.

Thirdly, the syntax and semantics of governance rightly reveals the ideological prescription of the reformists. For instance, it describes the downtrodden people as excluded and marginalized, and not as exploited and oppressed.⁷ Current proposals for governance increasingly detach the developmental issues of the marginalized from the impact of structural adjustment. It may not be required in many regions where the governments adopted it very recently. But, why the study reports of International Donor Agencies on the need for governance omit any reference to the impact of earlier reforms on the marginalized people in countries where structural adjustment policies were implemented earlier, for instance Latin America and East Europe?

In fact, the oversight of human consequences of structural adjustment is a reason that prevents from understanding the relation between the socio-economic issues of underdevelopment and the sprouting neoliberal economy. It is necessary to set the course of governance for the future on democratic lines. But, lack of any empirical enquiry in the studies conducted by the international agencies to establish or nullify the above correlation also cast doubt about the interpretation of governance as a resultant of self-criticism and moderation of neoliberalism.

Importantly, a series of studies conducted by the World Bank give emphasis on the necessity of civil liberties for economic development, which in turn is used to foster the liberal view of democracy and development and to intensify political reforms initiated under the cover of governance. In fact, quasi-political and quasi-economic administrative networks, for instance Local Self Government institutions actually have room for the marginalized and exploited people. But the NGOs are designated to guide the people to practice market driven development programmes on participatory lines.⁸ Thus even though principles of governance, for instance, decentralization, participatory development, greater sensitivity to the community development and absorption of civil society as stakeholder in the implementation (not in their formulation!) of neoliberal programmes are seemingly progressive, the reforms’ veiled justification for free-market foster the doubts about the efficacy of governance to realize empowerment of the marginalized and the process of democratization which it envisages for future. Therefore, it shall be apprehended as a mechanism to wither away politicization of the social protests of the market’s rejects.

Significant still, the reformists’ idea of network society is highly useful to prevent the marginalized from direct claim to political power. The thread that runs through these programmes is distinctively a neo-capitalist project that uses the liberal language of participation and empowerment as a strategy to marginalize political contestation. Propaganda of governance is the culmination of rejection of majoritarian politics. Reformists consider majoritarian democracy as not liberal, since it may impede the economic growth. Hence the promotion of ideas about consensual democracy and the consociational state are very much related to the organisation of society for development as a network of social groupings or stakeholders in the market.

Neoliberal principles in the Washington and Post Washington Consensus show subtle differences in appearance. Market facilitating state, which was described as having no alternative in the North and forced upon the South as seemingly crisis-driven, was the objective of structural adjustment programmes. Contrary to this, legitimacy to the strange conflation of neoliberal macro-economic principles, liberalization of trade, privatization and social justice is the goal of second generation reforms through governance. But in final objectives and foundational principles both are intertwined. Through governance reformists aim at developing a socio-political framework to cultivate synergic relations between the dejected people and the market facilitating state.

Usually, the diabolic mix of principles of free market, democracy, development and human rights in governance intend to force the marginalized people to presume that the drafts of international agencies, mainly donor institutions are benevolent and democratic. It shows that donor agencies are successful to advance a new socio-political and developmental discourse in favour of deepening and redeployment of political machinery of the ‘market facilitating state’. However, this thread of analysis shall be fruitfully used to discern the operational framework of the governance vis-à-vis human rights and empowerment.

This introductory section intends to raise certain questions about the prevailing academic analysis about the neoliberal governance today. Proliferation of literature about the marginalized groups and studies on the micro level development experiments is prominent themes of current social studies. It sufficiently replaced Marxian class analysis to a great extent as the critical framework of development studies. It rightly helps to pluralize our philosophy to grapple with the complex social relationship based on diverse identities that can not be reducible to class polarization alone. But in the current conjuncture of neoliberal discourse on governance such studies have an unforeseen utility, rather than being a corrective to “Marxian fallacies” alone.

Obviously social diversity is an interesting area of liberal schools since the cold war period. Actually, it aims at nullifying the Marxian studies and political programmes that were mainly focusing on the class polarization. In the post-cold war period also, the research and projects funded by the IMF, World Bank and several western foundations confirm that the cultural identities are wedded to development reforms. In a big way, efforts of these studies were highly helpful to sensitize subaltern issues not only in the academic discussions but also in the development and governance. Inclusion of subaltern development and environmental concerns in governance is largely a consequence of this. But does it mean transformation of neoliberalism on subaltern lines? Does it make any shift in the market fundamentalism? If not, how the international agencies, which are the chief designers of governance, are accommodating the subaltern questions into their governance proposals today?

Significant is the way in which the neoliberal packages make use of theoretical postulates, which are alternative to them. Accommodation of the subaltern population into development does not mean re-modification of reforms on the basis of the principles of subaltern theories. But, the current course of governance shows that it blurs the line of demarcation between the alternatives suggested by the subaltern critics and market fundamentalism of neoliberalism. It is a prevailing trend of analysis, especially in the Indian academia, mainly those who are treating civil society as a greeting due to the neoliberal reforms.⁹ On the positive side, it encourages academic dialogues and abandons ideological obscurantism in analyses to develop a pluralistic approach to development studies giving way to post-development analyses.

In fact, in development/democratization debates academic focus has been shifted from class to identity, community, environmentalism and gender as well as from issues of exploitation, oppression etc to exclusion and marginalization. However, cooption of these new social bases of protest into the neoliberal governance actually creates confusions about the identical and contradictory points between neoliberal ideologues and the scholars of identity politics. Even though the communitarians are optimistic about certain spaces in neoliberal design for development and governance, for instance, community-wise empowerment, indigenous knowledge, decentralization, gender concerns, environmental management etc. since they can be appropriated as effective counter gaps to foster resistance, visibility of the same themes in the neoliberal proposals gives a general impression that reforms in general and governance in particular are lenient to the subalterns. In addition to this, the terminological consensus and lesser concern of the new social movements to comprehend the process of capitalist globalism¹⁰ create an impression that neoliberal governance is all inclusive, and democratic.

A significant point is: to what extent the critical studies’ philosophies about social struggles influence the design of analytical frameworks widely used to discuss governance? Moderation of criticism on the part of designers of academic frameworks from the above based on non-class perspectives produce further decline of critical potential in the research studies at the middle and lower stratum of the academia. In micro studies conducted by the widespread research institutions neoliberal metaphors are widely used without any critical review. This is partially due to the comparative advantage of neoliberal reformists to disseminate their ideas more effectively than the critics through the dominant means of academic socialization and communication.¹¹ It causes wider disproportion between the critical views of communitarians and the neoliberals in the ideological production, at least in research practices. The happenstance between cultural parochialism with neoliberalism is a major reason for advancing governance by incorporating cultural identities.

A large number of research studies at the micro level which have stronger predilections for inclusive democracy and human rights shall be viewed against this above said background. Given the discrepancies in the arena of popularization of ideas of the establishment and critical perspectives the studies are bereft with theoretical clarity to contextualize their studies on development, decentralization and participatory governance in the current settings of de-regulated market and subsequent changes in the socio-economic base. Besides this, such analyses fail to explain the linkages of neoliberal governance with the societal tribulations emerging from the economic changes. Usually, most of them following the neoliberal line situate the issues of marginalized groups against the state alone and hopefully narrate decentralization and governance. They are predisposed to the commonsense that political power is isolated from the socio-economic settings. Hence they are covertly supportive to the continuity of neoliberal reforms since they intensify the legitimation crisis of the welfare state.

Secondly, depiction of administrative problems simply as ‘troubles faced at the level of execution’ is a weak point of the prevailing micro studies. Therefore, the policy failures to ensure distributive justice since the experimentation of neoliberal policies rarely invoke an analysis about the structural reasons to advance alternatives. Rather these studies support the view that the prevailing policies shall be substituted by another choice pulled out from the shell of the same neoliberal philosophy that supports the same economic policies. Predilections for micro level research without understanding the history and ideology of the reformist proposals divest the critical role of social sciences. Micro studies mistake the basic impulses of current reforms, for instance democratization, transparency, empowerment, self regulation, self-help, capabilities, network society, civil society, social capital, participation, good governance etc. as pristine ideas untainted by ideology, politics and structural compulsions of the dominant players in the globalizing economy.

For more than a decade experiments to reform governance have been aiming at not only institutional changes but also modification of state/society relationship as well as redefinition of citizen’s rights. Governance as a strategy to democratize the society, especially in South through introducing economic constitutionalism has been gaining momentum in the period of post-Washington consensus.

It is true that a defect of the above arguments is economic reductionism. But, the critics of economic reductionism are suffering from elusory perceptions about economic structure and governance. I agree that situation of free market and governance in a cause and effect relationship alone would not give sufficient explanatory framework to assess the practical dynamics of governance and evaluate its ideological underpinnings. Hence, the causation shall be extended to study how the emerging idea of governance accomplishes legitimacy. More importantly, the argument is not only for establishing a causal connection between governance and neoliberal economics but also for the contextualization of governance in the neoliberalism.

Governance: The New Discourse of Neoliberal Politics

Currently, a wide variety of actors – international aid agencies, civil society groups and transnational capitalist class – are pressing for reforms in governance. Massimo De Angelis from a critical political economy perspective interprets governance as a discourse to manage and promote that social stability which is fundamental for capital’s accumulation in the current phase of problematic accumulation of capital vis-à-vis emerging social conflicts. Simplification of governance as a contribution of globalizing capitalism is not sufficient to explain the way in which it is promulgated in different geographical parts. However, it points out the gap between the real cause and the bogus reasons to execute governance. In an appealing democratic language, official documents of UN and World Bank describe governance as a solution to many problems, such as state authoritarianism, bureaucratic corruption and underdevelopment. Recent proposals for governance in developing countries mainly highlight these issues.¹² But they make use of these issues to gain approval for ‘neoliberal state’, ‘responsive, efficient and economic bureaucracy’ and ‘competitive and growth oriented’ economic policies. It raises doubts about the actual drive behind governance and prompts us to examine whether it is more favorable to democracy or market. In fact, neoliberalism tries to resolve the juxtaposition of free market and democracy. But a valid question is; what is the course of this process? Does governance aim at marketisation of democracy and society or democratization and socialization of market?¹³

Governance is also criticized as a means to construct legitimacy and as an instrument to mange and resolve the emerging conflicts that impede neoliberalism. For example, governance intends to reorganize the functions of the state through encouraging NGOs’ participation and administrative decentralization.¹⁴ Actually neoliberalism’s support to enhance political inclusion is a means to contravene the forces contributed by the economic and social exclusion. Viewed thus, participation of NGOs gives a feeling among the public that the neoliberal state is plural and inclusive; and decentralization of ‘market-facilitating state’ helps free market’s permeation to the local levels as well as it enhances market-friendliness of the local people. Actually suggestions for governance show alternation in the reformists’ confidence existed during 1970s to1990s about the self regulating capabilities of free market. Ronald Munck also contends that in the recent phase of neoliberalism there has been a shift from privatization issues to good governance as ‘political conditionality’. Therefore, governance is characterized as the necessary precondition for democracy and rights. Tall talk about freedom of information by the neoliberal circles is to be viewed against this backdrop.

Governance and Freedom of Information

Freedom of information is central to the governance reforms. As a multi-layered and participatory process, governance is to be realized through ‘informed interactions’ between various stakeholders besides the conventional government apparatus, for instance, bureaucracy, political executive and legislature. Significantly, facilitation of free information is considered as an important task of governments that adopted neoliberal policies. In the neoliberal reform package, right to information has multiple functions: a regulatory tool for the government; a means for emancipation of citizens; and a catalyst of exchange in the market. Nevertheless, directives from global agencies as well as the freedom of information legislations underline the potentials of freedom of information to ensure administrative transparency, efficiency, citizen participation and immediate state’s responses to citizen’s demands. It gives an impression that free flow of information is playing a crucial role in democratization of state.

Freedom of information is supposedly evolving from a moral indictment of secrecy to a tool for market regulation, more effective government and economic growth.¹⁵ But the global push towards open government is coterminous with the increasing privatization of wealth, monopolization of knowledge by patent regime, widespread inequality and deprivation of citizens’ entitlements by both the market and the market-friendly governments. Ironically, very little emphasis is given on the discrepancies between the norms of transparency and the unique confidentiality of the neoliberal market and moral justification to business secrets. Interestingly, while the neoliberal proposition gives primacy to the flow of information in the citizen-state relations, the legal framework of FOI legislations shows ambivalence to deal with private agencies.¹⁶ Quite often, the mainstream views about freedom of information often express this dilemma in various forms.

Largely, the philosophical presumption of neoliberalism about the potentials of market economy to realize democratic practices is debatable. A few fundamental questions assume relevance in this respect. Most important are: How do we perceive right to information in the contemporary time and space of neoliberalism? Is the concept of ‘network society’ is a corrective to the political/developmental issues of developing countries? Are the freedom of information laws are cultural relativist or Universalist? How do the contextual differences mirror in the existing freedom of information legislations? Do the neoliberal schemes to reshuffle state-market relationship, contravene or complement citizen’s right to information? Does the freedom of information enables the citizens to review the functioning of all forms of authority (rather than political alone) which are the violators of their other essential rights? What are the obstacles before a neoliberal state to enforce right to information and principles of free market simultaneously? Equally important, can the right to information as construed today be an effective restraint on free market? In this paper the author tries to raise a critique against neoliberal notion of freedom of information exposing logical contradictions of its arguments, flaws in the empirical evidence and doubts about the relevance of its model for citizens’ rights and democratization.

Information: Neoliberal Economic Functions

There is a lot of propaganda about the function of information in our times. An extreme view identifies free flow of information as indistinguishable from globalization. It forces James. B. Rule to exclaim, ‘What trend is more distinctive of our times than the dramatically changing social role of information? What social force promises more far reaching consequences than continuing innovation in that role?’¹⁷ Explanation of globalization as ‘time-space compression’ due to the acceleration of communication was floated by Mannuel Castells and Giddens. Though there is a consensus about the significance of information, its actual function is quite debatable. In fact, the primacy of information is a defining character of post-Fordist capitalism. The surge in ICTs was described as the ‘third industrial revolution’. It was confined to the capitalist countries during 1970s. But outside Europe and America ICTs came after the liberalization of trade in consumer products and capital flows. Many countries of the moderately industrialized world were actually dragged into the bandwagon of information revolution since late 1980s. The developing countries which have high skilled and relatively cheap labour force became a favorable location of the ICT companies and the governments of developing countries provided a consumer market for the ICT products.

However, the surge in ICTs can also be viewed as necessary of globalizing capitalism. Peoples holding this perspective, both critics and cohorts of neoliberalism, regard information as a distinct form of capital.¹⁸ Identical features of information capital and finance capital, for instance intangibility and mobility, are subsequently explored in considerable detail. Needless to say ICTs accelerated the global flow of finance capital to realize post-Fordist capitalist development. Information occupies a crucial role in the globalizing capitalism and the socio-political organisation of neoliberal democracy. Following section analyzes the important functions of information in the increasingly globalizing capitalist economy

Coordinator of ‘Decentralization’

Post-Fordist industrialization gives emphasis to decentralization of production, marketing, and management in multiple ways. Firstly, effective channels of communication and unhindered flow of information are of great imperative to the post-Fordist capitalist management, which has steadily spread out its organisation on global scale, both vertically and horizontally. Thus, the success of further expansion and penetration of capitalism depend on continuous and uninterrupted flow of information from centre to units and across the chains of production, consumption and marketing.

Secondly, post-Fordism is a unique system of decentralization which envisages a procedural framework for devolution and greater autonomy of the units as suitable to equip the existing centre to hold greater command and control. It shall also be noted that Fordist management was replaced by Post-Fordism not by abolishing centres of coordination and control. It may be noted that decentralization in management in Post-Fordism seldom envisages de-concentration of resources and power. In fact, by decentralization it only implies the creation of a procedural framework within which only limited devolution under fixed coordination of units ought to take place. Even though it provides functional autonomy to the units, or lower tiers, chances for using the autonomy as counterproductive to the basic dynamics of the system are cautiously averted. Therefore, the decentralization has to be organized in such a manner that it would not radically alter the centralizing dynamics of capitalist economy, for instance, persistent concentration of accumulated surplus.

Therefore, Post-Fordism provides for free flow of information to accelerate flexible accumulation and concentration of surplus. In fact, the similarity between free flow of information and decentralization ‘proper’ is accidental. Ironically, people view free flow of information tantamount to decentralization and therefore extol its libratory potentials because they overlook the unique way of concentration of wealth and power in Post-Fordism.

To be precise, information channels are essential to maintaining capitalism as centralizing system as well as to impart uniformity in action across the middle and bottom levels. Contrary to the commonsense, the flow and proliferation of information at a dramatic pace reduces the time gap and therefore aborts proper rethinking and detailed deliberations essential to democratic decision making in politics. But for the contemporary capitalism, flow of information including the technological mechanisms to help quick delivery, instant confirmation and feed back is far more effective than any other form of organizational techniques aiming at regimentation and disciplining. In other words, the political economy of information revolution best compliments the capitalist ethos of Post-Fordism. Rapid development of information technology and propaganda about information revolution are essentially intertwined.

The potential of the flow of information to bring about decentralization ‘proper’ in the current environment is quite debatable since it rarely aims at de-concentration of wealth and power. But in the opinion of ‘Techno-globalists’, decentralization would become a reality only through liberalizing the flow of information with the help of ICTs.

Rectifier of Malfunctions

Besides facilitating the growth of capitalism in the Post-Fordist managerial lines and providing mechanisms of effective regulation so as to ensure flexible accumulation and concentration of wealth, free flow of information serves globalization of market economy in various other ways also. The Post-Fordist management of global capitalism based on decentralized production and widespread marketing and consumption chains poses greater challenges to accurate and precise choice/decision. Uninformed or misinformed choices lead to erroneous decisions and cause market failure. Viewed thus, the free and authentic information is one among the crucial externalities of the globalizing market economy. This complexity actually elevates information to the status of a rectifier in the global market.

Information as a Production Segment

Since early 1970s such theses appeared in the West which depicted the spurt in information technology as third industrial revolution. While spread of information industry at the global level was sufficient to weaken state monopoly in developed countries, concerted attempts by ‘techno-enthusiasts’ were needed to pervade its currents into the developing countries due to the lack of familiarity with free market in their previous mode of economic development. It was realized by the end of 1990s and Information industry was well entrenched as the engine of economic growth of a number of developing nations. The growth of service sector, of which ICTs and infotainment are a leading component, actually exemplifies the potentials of information and allied technologies to establish a separate domain of production in the global economy.

Politics of Information

The primacy of political/administrative use value of information in the contemporary debates is historically related, and structurally connected to the significance of information in the globalizing economy. Importance of information in the post-Fordist management and emergence of information as a chief production segment in the world economy contributed to its popularity in administrative reforms that aim at reorganization of political structures. Here, the attempt is to sensitize discussions about application of information technology and wide propaganda about freedom of information as citizens’ right in relation to the impact of post-Fordism on the political framework.

It is widely accepted that since mid-1990s the neoliberal policies aimed at securing institutional reforms which is summarized as reforms in governance. Ideas about the application of Information technology in governance are a central theme of these debates today.

It seems that such endeavours aim at approving its primacy in the economic sector through providing it a legitimate role in state-citizen relationship. It is rightly following the guidelines of Washington consensus which stipulates that transparency and efficiency ought to be the guiding principles of neoliberal governance. Consequently, the status of information was elevated to further heights. Washington consensus stressed on the informational and institutional requirements necessary to achieve full market efficiency. Efficiency of market can not be assured in the absence of free flow of information. Thus, North writes that from the view point of New Institutional Economics, individuals typically act on incomplete information and with subjectively derived models are frequently erroneous. Thus, from a critical posture it can be argued that the information revolution satisfies the economic requirements of the post-Fordist economy. And it finds strong reverberations in the political/administrative spheres as part of readjustment of polity in accordance with economy.

The notion of information has undergone drastic changes since its inception into the programmes of economic and political restructuring since the 1970s. There exists a techno-centric view of information rights. It promotes e-governance as a solution to corruption. Secondly, a reductionist view of corruption as a state centered/ bureaucracy centered event overwhelm the current debates about FOI. Therefore, it pays little attention to the structural linkages of corruption with facilitation of capitalism, for instance, privatization of common property resources. Market economy discriminates people and concentrates wealth. But this is considered as natural and impersonal. This logic derives from the theorists of neoliberalism, for instance Hayek who justified market’s discrimination of talented and untalented people since this is done by invisible market mechanism. Freedman also expresses the same view when he says that the capitalism works on the basis of invisible hands of market which do not make a personal discrimination like the state and democracy. Hence, the neoliberals do not consider the structural exploitation in the capitalist economy as instance of corruption.

Conclusion

FOI seldom follows the communitarian view of rights. In fact it follows the libertarian principles to a large extent. Interpretation of rights from crude- individualism is another serious drawback of FOI. It can be used as an instrument by citizens collectively.¹⁹But current interpretation of FIO does not provide the right as collective entitlement.

Significantly, it depoliticizes the usage of the right as a collective force against the market facilitating state. Private agencies are excluded from its purview. Ironically the right to information is debated in different Western democracies against revealing of information by the state to market. So protection from freedom of information is a serious issue in the western democracies. The purpose of revealing information may be detrimental to the individuals’ secrecy and privacy. In a highly ‘mediated’ society the freedom of information shall be used to promote the manipulative consumption by the media industry. On the other hand, the market players can also secure protection from disclosing information citing business secret and right to patent. More than a controversy about technical jargons of legal framework FOI poses questions about the inconsistencies about the right at the theoretical level as well as the societal contexts in which we apply it. But before making any clarification about these points Information rights were implemented in several states mainly due to the pressure from donor agencies in terms of conditional aid and the new governance agenda put forward by post-Washington consensus.

Lack of communitarian view in the dominant debates of FOI considers citizens as customers of right and treats the government as single provider. Mostly it is used against the bureaucrats and therefore it accomplishes the de-legitimisation of state by fulfilling the neoliberals’ political objective. But does the right which is formulated to suit the definition of right against state fully become a democratic right since the state underwent a reform for governance. Since authority of governance is plural which includes both private and public partners in addition to the voluntary groups how can freedom of information be defined as a right of the citizens against the state and public authorities alone? It indirectly points out the dilemma of liberal philosophy of rights which defines rights against the arbitrary state and the social majority. It seldom gives scope to define the right against the market and private business firms. But a theoretical and empirical investigation would prove that the market and neoliberalism are the violators of human rights of various sorts. Rights, like freedom of information has the potentials to become an empowering political right if the neoliberal hegemonic idea of governance is properly revisited. It is possible through radicalizing the concept of governance by transforming it into an arena for the marginalized and exploited sections to use the available rights as a critical anti-thesis against the neoliberal foundations of governance and by identifying the free market and the private authorities as more dangerous violators of free knowledge for political emancipation.

Endnotes

1. It can be interpreted as change only in a minimum sense. Therefore, governance shall be considered as the third phase of neoliberal discourse. Also see; Massimo De Angelis, ‘Neoliberal Governance, Reproduction and Accumulation’, http://www.commoner.org.uk/07deangelis.pdf accessed on June 2007
2. Paul Hirst, ‘Democracy and Governance’, http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/ pdf/0-19-829514-6.pdf accessed on June 2007
3. Remember the criticism of Kevin Cox about welfare state as an attempt to find out a balance between the accumulation fund of the capital and consumption fund of the labour. See Kevin Cox, “Globalization, Class Relation and Democracy’, http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/kcox/Cox2.pdf accessed on June 2007
4. Ronald Munck, ‘Globalization, Deconstruction and Beyond’, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 6, November, 2002, pp. 24-31.
5. K. Jayasuriya and Kevin Hewinson, ‘The Anti Politics of Good Governance: From Global Social Policy to a Global Populism?’, SEARC Working Paper, No. 59, January 2004, http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/ apcityunpan024768.pdf
6. Massimo de Angellis, op.cit
7. It accomplishes great legitimacy since the critics of globalization like Ulrich Beck and transformationists like Giddens equate the problems of globalization related to risk. Recession of class, exploitation and oppression from their review of challenges of globalization indicate the shift in criticism from political to apolitical categories.
8. See Anwar Shah and Sana Shah, ‘The New Vision of Local Governance and the Evolving Roles of Local Governments’ in Anwar Shah (ed.), Local Governance in Developing Countries, Washington DC: World Bank, pp.1-46. For a criticalreview of social capital as the catalyst of market-friendliness in current programmes of decentralization and participatory development see John Harriss, Depoliticizing Development: World Bank and Social Capital, New Delhi: Leftword, 2001.
9. But the openness of civil society to subaltern representation is still doubtful.
10. EM Woods, ‘Globalisation and the State: Where is the Power of Capital?’ In Alfred Saad Filho (ed.), Anti-Capitalism: A Marxist Introduction, New Delhi: Viva Books, 2007.
11. Vinay Bahl, ‘ Situating and Rethinking Subaltern for Writing Working Class History’ in Arif Dirlik, Vinay Bahl and Peter Gran History (eds.): History after the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies, Maryland: Rowman andLittlefield Publishers, 2000.
12. The Eleventh Plan vision of inclusive growth, reducing poverty and bridging the various divides that continue to fragment our society can only be achieved if there is a significant improvement in the quality of governance. There are many different definitions of good governance but it is generally agreed that good governance must be broadly defined to cover all aspects of the interface between individuals and businesses on the one hand and government on the other. See, http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/11th/11_v1/ 11v1_ch10.pdf accessed on October 2009.
13. Even the documents of UNDP seldom address the risks of marketisation of society and polity vis-à-vis rights of the citizens. Without mentioning about it the document confirms that the management of state is mandatory to resolve the problems of rights violation. A vital need of the time is to understand the ways in which the market facilitating state is a violator of human rights. Though it partially admits problems of corruption as a continuing issue in spite of heavy efforts to downsize the state, the relationship between privatization and corruption is neglected from the review. See: UNDP Annual Report, ‘Democratic Governance Group.
14. Principles highlighted in the Washington Consensus have systematically reorganized the policy frame work of the state.
15. Thomas Blanton, ‘ The World’s Right To Know’, Freedominfo.org, The Online Network of Freedom of Information Advocates,http://www.freedominfo.org/ documents/rtk-english.pdf accessed on June 2008.
16. The World Bank only recently initiated steps to implement freedom of information in the organisation.
17. James B. Rule, ‘Towards Strong Privacy: Values, Markets, Mechanisms and Institutions’, The University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, Spring 2004, pp. 183-225.
18. Free communication is important to develop social capital which is explained as a resultant of enhancement of interactions at the community level.
19.  Attempt of the MKKS in India to use the freedom of information to secure right to wage was an example to use this as a collective right for social justice. But the national legislation for freedom of information in India does not envisage this right as a communitarian entitlement.