透明之下的課責： 台灣民主治理中官民信任關係的重建基礎
陳敦源
《摘要》
透明化是民主課責的重要前提。在公共資訊不對稱的結構當 中，名義上的主人「人民」事實上只是被動、無知、與徬徨的被統 治者；近年台灣由於政府貪腐事件層出不窮，人民對政府信心低 落，結果是民眾緊縮民主授權的範圍與內容，讓行政部門行動益受 限制，減損主動為民謀福的能力；在層層的防弊制度下，行政部門 顯得更為「官僚」，而民眾的設限反應就更為激烈，形成「官民信 任關係的惡性循環」，讓民主治理（democratic governance）的可能 果效大打折扣。
本文藉由資訊經濟學（Economics of Information）的相關論點， 對「官民信任關係惡性循環」下的行政控制之原理與內涵進行反省，提出以下的四點結論，意圖化解我國民主治理官民信任的惡性 循環。第一，本文認為，課責是平衡民主（回應）與專業（責任） 的重要制度性安排，透明之所以是課責機制主要的元素，在於行政 程序控制能夠解決資訊不對稱問題，壓制政府不當作為，進而提振 民眾對政府的信任；第二，就公共資訊財產權歸屬問題上，寇斯定 理（Coase Theorem）讓我們確定公共資訊的「財產權」（property rights）應歸屬於人民，這也是許多包括政府資訊公開等法治建構的 倫理基礎，過去威權體制下文官體系「權力隱晦」的心態，應該據 此調整；第三，本文也指出，行政程序控制的效果，主要是「事先 的承諾」（pre-commitment）的政策工具設計行為，讓遊戲規則與 結果之間有合理的連結，保護民眾權益，這也讓我們看見傳統憲政 主義以分權制衡與言論自由為手段之外，公共行政所可能對民權維 護的積極貢獻所在；第四，本文也指出，因為課責者具備「策略回 應」（strategic reactions）的能力，行政程序公開的機制設計，還需 要更深入考量受監控者的策略行為，包括監控行動的隱密性、資訊 的關鍵性、完整性、與可理解性。
[關鍵字]：透明、課責、信任、民主治理、資訊經濟學
Accountability through Transparency: The Foundation of Rebuilding Trust between Government Officials and Citizens under Democratic Governance in Taiwan
Don-Yun Chen
Abstract
Democratic accountability requires transparency. After electoral democratization has been achieved in Taiwan, citizens have become the bosses of the nation. However, because of the problem of information (or professional) asymmetry in democratic governance, citizens are usually bosses in name only. People’s frustration over corruption in recent Taiwan has led the citizen-government trust relationship into a vicious cycle. It is urgent to rebuild trust by institutionally committing reforms which can place government activities under the sunlight or in a fishbowl. In this paper, the author utilizes the economics of information to analyze the reform efforts of promoting transparency through administrative procedural controls. The author concludes that: First, the central idea of administrative procedural controls is to solve the problems of information asymmetry between citizenry and government. Second, the moral ground for this reform is the idea that the property rights of government information belong to the citizenry. Third, the key effect of procedural openness is a reasonable linkage between the rules of the game and the ensuing results. Such a linkage is made possible by the designing of an information policy instrument with the nature of precommitment. Lastly, administrative procedural controls require responses to the problem of strategic reactions between those controlled personnel in the government and citizen controller outside of the government.
Keywords: transparency; accountability; trust; democratic governance; the Economics of Information