Legibility
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decree of 29 April 2002) that this right of access was considered one of the “fundamental guarantees granted to citizens for the exercise of public liberties.”59 But what is at stake today is something greater than this. It involves a right to know,60 which cannot help but enlarge the very idea of citizen ship. This right has two aspects, one associated with open government, the other with a legible society. The question of open government is t oday the more disputed of the two. However much the corollary principle of “open data” may be celebrated as marking the dawn of a new age, both of a right to information and of democracy itself, the demand for unfet tered access has been fiercely resisted everywhere. For a democracy of appropriation, the battles now being fought on this terrain are the equiv alent of what the campaign for universal suffrage was for a democracy of expression in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The success of the present campaign will depend on legislation and court rulings, of course, but also on how completely, or with what modifications, they are put into effect. It w ill be generally agreed that greater openness is needed in communicating with public institutions. Most people’s experience is limited to replying to official correspondence, standing in line at city hall, and waiting for someone to answer their telephone call. As for strictly political institutions, their workings are still too often hidden from view. Take, for example, the National Assembly in France: its ses sions are a m atter of public record, partially televised, and its official documents are all available; but at the same time the crucially impor tant work of its committees remains largely unknown. The notion of a legible society, for its part, is a response to the problem of how ordinary citizens can hope to acquire a practical understanding of the mechanisms of government. A legible society ought to permit in dividuals to enjoy what might be called real citizenship, which is to say to gain insight into the difficulties encountered in trying to bring into ex istence a society of equals through the informed design and implemen tation of redistributive measures. This w ill only be possible if we are able to see the world around us as something more than the mere availability of information. Attempts to realize open government and a legible society are two complementary methods of citizen reappropriation. Alongside exercises in participatory democracy that seek to diversify, and thereby enrich, opportunities for individual expression and involvement in order to
