The transparency syndrome in global change: A sociological concept paper

Abstract

Burkart Holzner is Distinguished Service Professor of International Studies, Professor of Sociology and of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. For two decades he was the Director of the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He wrote about knowledge systems in society, and about the roles of knowledge use in modernity. His recent work is on international studies and global change. Currently he works with Leslie Holzner on a long-term project to explain the causes and consequences of the rise of transparency in global change. Dr Holzner is a member of the World Society for Ekistics (WSE). Leslie Holzner is a sociologist who has worked for the past several years with her husband on the issue of transparency and other global phenomena. She spent 30 years at the University of Pittsburgh where she was Assistant Director of the Learning Research and Development Center. Her research and development activity has centered on planned change, and restructuring organizations, with an emphasis on educational institutions. The text that follows is a slightly edited and revised version of a paper prepared for the WSE Symposion "Defining Success of the City in the 21st Century," Berlin, 24-28 October, 2001.