Defining and Clarifying ‘Transparency’ and ‘Corruption’

February 7, 2023

At Iran Open Data, we have been working to make resources about open data and access to information available to open data advocates in Iran. The following blog post from the Transparency Lab report titled ‘Transparency, Corruption and Accountability in Iran’ is one of the resources we have made available in Persian as well. 

Transparency

Despite its importance and wide-ranging usage in political and economic reports, scholarly literature, international regulations and conventions, the concept of transparency is not always explained or defined in the related literature. A common interpretation of transparency comes from Lindstedt & Naurin, who define it as ‘the release of information about institutions that is relevant for evaluating those institutions’. The most comprehensive definition of transparency is to be found in a 2007 document produced by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) entitled ‘What is Good Governance?’. This report defines transparency in the following terms:

Transparency means that decisions taken, and their enforcement are done in a manner that follows rules and regulations. It also means that information is freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by such decisions and their enforcement. It also means that enough information is provided and that it is provided in easily understandable forms and media. 

In what follows, we will proceed from this definition and expand it slightly to take account of the fact that, in Iran, rules, regulations and legislation more generally can also be untransparent or are themselves a source of ambiguity. Our working definition of transparency for the purposes of this report will thus be redefined in the following manner:

Transparency means that decisions taken, and their enforcement are done in a manner that follows rules and regulations, which themselves are clear and unambiguous. It also means that information is freely available and directly accessible to those who will be affected by such decisions and their enforcement. It also means that enough information is provided and that it is provided in easily understandable forms and media. 

Corruption

Like the concept of transparency, corruption is not always defined in the corresponding literature either. The United Nations’ Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), for instance, vividly portrays the implications and the impact of corruption, but does not define the concept itself as such. One of the most concise and widely referred to conceptualizations of the term is provided by Transparency International (TI), which defines corruption as: 

‘The abuse of entrusted power for personal gain’.

This pithy yet powerful definition of corruption can be applied to both the public and the private sectors, especially in relation to financial corruption. As such, the definition is probably adequate to examine most ‘regular’ polities around the world. However, in the case of the IRI and other similarly authoritarian political systems, this definition needs to be adjusted in three key respects to provide the appropriate conceptual backdrop for fruitful research:

First of all, the power held by authorities in such states is not always ‘entrusted’; in the Islamic Republic the highest office is held by a non-elected figure, the Supreme Leader. Accordingly, many of the most influential positions of power in the country, such as military leaders and the head of the judiciary, to name but two, are directly and undemocratically installed by this figurehead. 

Second, in highly ideological entities such as the IRI, corruption might not always be motivated by ‘personal gain’, but could be geared towards entrenching the power of the political establishment, or for factional gain. 

Finally, in countries like Iran, laws and regulations themselves can contribute to the flourishing of corruption by embedding it structurally. Whilst a level of structural corruption might be present in any given political system, it is far more visible in ‘closed societies’ like Iran. 

As such, it is necessary to modify Transparency International’s definition to arrive at our own working definition that can do justice to the particular dynamics of the Iranian system. This working definition reads as follows: 

‘The legal or illegal abuse of power for personal or factional gain, or for the entrenchment of the political establishment’s power’.

Our focus on the state

It should be noted that transparency is also prominent in the private sector, and corruption by no means only originates from the state. However, for the purposes of this research, our main focus will be on the Iranian state: not only does the state play a pivotal role in every aspect of public life and civil society in Iran, but it also does so in the private sector. This is especially true in the financial sector, but also in other fields, which are closely intertwined with the state and state institutions. 

What is more, corrupt behaviour that is generally associated with the private sector – like money laundering – cannot be separated from state institutions in Iran. A full understanding of the issues related to transparency and corruption in Iran therefore necessitates getting to grips with these questions in relation to the state. With that in mind, we will commence our investigation by assessing the relationship between Iran’s legal system, and state transparency and corruption.