Opening the Black Box of Transparency: An Analytical Framework for Exploring Causal Pathways from Reporting and Review to State Behavior Change

Transparency arrangements, in the form of regular reporting by nations and a review of the reported information, have become a backbone of international governance. They are often expected to bring about increased ambition and improved implementation to fulfill the aims of the multilateral agreement in which they are embedded. However, little is still known about how these arrangements result in such effects. In this article, we review compliance theories and use these to explain the various roles of transparency arrangements in changing state behavior. We distinguish between different compliance schools and show how they attribute subtly different functions to transparency. We examine these variations through the development of a framework made up of seven idealized causal pathways that offer plausible explanations for the mechanisms that allow transparency arrangements to induce state behavior change. We also illustrate how these pathways work in practice by providing several examples from existing multilateral transparency arrangements. In doing so, we seek to form a bridge between international regime theory, critical transparency studies, and empirical studies on the functioning of transparency arrangements in international governance.