Theorizing Full Transparency within Legislative Consultaion Procedures

With the breakthrough in information technology since the early 1990s pivoting in a maturing
global information network accessible for a broad mass of consumers called the internet, the
power information relays to its "owner" and the means and speed of its diffusion have been
revolutionized. In this context, looking at various societal actors, the issue of equal access to
and transparency of information triggered not only broad scientific research efforts, but again
placed the spotlight of public scrutiny on the issue of transparency of information in societal,
economical and governmental mechanisms of decision making and business conduct. Civil
society bombarding multinational enterprises with postulations to disclose supply chain
locations and their labor and environmental practices especially abroad conveys that not doing
so bears certain, if not even very lucrative, advantages for such businesses. With
governmental legislation setting the stage for businesses` profitability in many realms,
exerting "selfish" influence on national politics holds great allurement for business itself.
Fronting supranational joint efforts like the establishment of the OECD Financial Action Task
Force1 of the G-7 member states or the European Transparency Initiative2, business has ever
since the beginning of nation states found its way to interact with the mechanism ultimately
affecting their profitability in a regulatory or constraining way. Looking back at the financial
crisis of 2008, it becomes clear that nowadays business making use of their involvement in
shaping national policies has not declined at all. The multinational "Cash for Clunkers" law
and the failure of the "nutrition facts traffic light" law in Germany prove conclusive examples
of how "a passive transmission belt for corporate interest" (Stubbs 2006: 171) in form of
lobbyism successfully influences legislative outcomes which crucially benefit a certain
societal group. With a broad landscape of "industries of intermediaries" (Bac 2001: 95) which
offer not only the expertise but also the necessary connections to crucial hotspots of
legislative decision making, "Big Business" is successfully leveraging its` resources to
increase its power. Consequently civil society`s scrutiny in terms of where and to what extent
certain business actors are involved in legislative outcomes is vital to ensuring the common
good being put ahead of interests of certain societal elites.