論透明倫理的倡議與落實：新制度論的觀點

On Advocating Transparency as Implementable Ethics: A Perspective from New Institutionalism

隨著新公共管理在1980年代的興起，傳統人民與政府之間信任授權的責任關係，逐漸被不信任為核心的課責關係所取代；這種新的課責關係研究，大多取道代理人理論為之，討論擁有政策專業知識的統治階層，如何受到外控機制的制約。然而，這樣的討論在制度設計上犯了過度簡化與樂觀的謬誤，原因是該理論對外控機制的運作成本該由誰來負擔的問題缺乏對策；其中，特別是產生於究責者與被課責者之間的外控成本函數，會受到公共政策領域的專業不對稱問題的重大影響，使得究責者無法落實立意良善的資訊公開法律，並且導致政府資訊公開的落實，大部份尚需仰賴新聞媒體以選擇性爆料的方式來推動。這正是本文所要處理的核心：透明課責的「執行困境」議題。
本文從近年興起之公共價值研究風潮當中，應用制度設計來落實透明課責的概念，從新制度論中代理人理論與寇斯交易成本的理論出發，討論公共行政過程中關於資訊的財產權歸屬問題，並從中引申「透明」是一種公共資訊財產託管的狀態。因此，被課責者應將「金魚缸法則」當作一種行政倫理的要求，也就是將落實透明倫理，當作制度性課責設計的基礎目標。本文從前述的論述中，開展出政府設計透明倫理落實，應該要注意的五個制度性元素：（1）民主課責是一個三層的「監控民主」問題；（2）需要處理隱含「責任規避」的兩階段「道德危機」；（3）制度設計問題存在「中間人困境」；（4）應注意「專業不對稱」與「資訊不對稱」之間的差異；（5）公共政策「資訊財產權」應歸屬民眾而不是執政者。
本文最後，提出三類透明機制的設計：（1）「文官體系向民眾提供關於政治上司決策資訊的機制」；（2）「政務人員向民眾提供有關文官體系績效資料」的機制；（3）「向第三者展示政治與專業爭議解決的公開機制」，在這三種資訊透明機制的整體建構之下，民主治理當中因為「專業不對稱」而產生的「兩種道德危機」的問題，才有可能解套，而透明課責的理想，才能得以實現。

With the rise of New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s, the trust relation between the citizen and government was gradually replaced by the accountability relationship under distrust. In the past, this new relationship is usually studies through the Agency Theory, the ruling policy expertise are under the supervision of the citizen via an external control mechanism, designed to resolve the problem of information asymmetry. However, such discussions are excessive simplified and overly optimistic, because the costs of external control caused by professional asymmetry will undermine the law of information disclosure. Unless we design a way to internalize transparency as ethics, we will encounter a problem of“implementation deficit”and make accountability through transparency merely a“cheap talk.”
In this paper, based on the recent studies of public value, authors will utilize the institutional design approach to implement transparency. From the agent theory and the transaction cost, this paper discusses institutional attributes of information as the so-called“gold fish principle.”Five institutional elements are presented: (1) democratic responsibility is a three-story“overhead democracy”problem; (2) the need to deal with the two-stage“moral hazard”problem implied possibility of“blame-avoidance”; (3) the problem of“middle men’s dilemma should be dealt with; (4)designers should pay attention to the differences between“professional asymmetry”and“information asymmetry”; (5) public policy“information property rights”should be attributed to the people, not the ruler.
Finally, this paper concludes with three areas of transparency to be applied to: (1) the information about political bosses''; (2) the performance information of the civil servants; (3) A dispute information between political and professional agents with a third-person involvement. By using the above institutional elements to design the overall transparency areas, governments with professional asymmetry led to two level of moral hazard problem can be solved via an implantable ethics of transparency.