Does Saying It Out Loud Matter? Strategic Communication Transparency as a Marker of Developed Democracies

Abstract

Purpose: To assess whether government transparency about strategic communication(SC) policies affects citizens' trust in government and their perceived "say" in public matters.Design/methodology/approach: Using a cross-national sample (N = 28), I estimateordinary least squares (OLS) models and bootstrap confidence intervals. I also performprincipal component analysis (PCA) and k-means cluster analysis on six standardizedindicators: SC transparency (dummy), GDP per capita, good governance, social policyeffectiveness, communication coherency (all SGI expert scores), plus OECD measures of trustand "say". The goal is to obtain ceteris paribus estimates of the association between SCtransparency and the two outcome variables (Trust Score and Say Score), and to explore countrygroupings with similar trait profiles.Findings: OLS models show no statistically significant predictors of Trust Score or SayScore, with one borderline exception: a one-point increase in the Coherency score is associatedwith a 14.38-point increase in Say Score. The 2-cluster solution clearly separates countries:Cluster 1 scores higher on all analyzed indicators than Cluster 2 (all mean differences arestatistically significant, and effect sizes are large). Transparency differs sharply across clusters:in Cluster 2, 13 of 17 countries (76%) are non-transparent, whereas in Cluster 1 only 4 of 11(36%) lack transparency.Originality/value: The study directly addresses whether transparency about strategiccommunication "matters". While OLS suggests no robust standalone effect, the cluster analysisindicates that SC transparency co-occurs with higher institutional quality and citizen attitudes.