Transparency and the particular

Abstract Transparency generates a paradox. For the way that we make things transparent is by simplification which at the same time masks all the information and thus contributes to opacity. The paper looks at how this paradox is played out in the contexts of the interplay between legal rules and particularity and between political representation and complete democracy. This raises questions of the Rule of Law and the functions and meanings of democratic legitimacy and though these are different questions, they are closely related and overlapping. Finally, it looks at how the issues come into focus in questions of governance of an entity like the EU which should not be seen either on the model of a union of states or a nation state itself.