The role of transparency in auditing

The concepts of auditing and transparency frequently appear in discussions about contemporary public-sector challenges, but the relationship between them rarely has been examined. This paper argues that transparency might be viewed as both an effect of auditing and a prerequisite for auditing. Broadly speaking, the former tends to be articulated more in the auditing literature-where transparency often justifies auditing-while the latter often appears in the transparency literature. By proposing a distinction between "raw transparency" and "refined transparency," this paper strives to increase conceptual clarity and establish a theoretical basis for various auditing activities.