Replication Data for: Wheeling and Dealing Behind Closed Doors: Estimating the Causal Effect of Transparency on Policy Evaluations Using a Survey Experiment

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States is highly technical. Still, the negotiations triggered large-scale protests among citizens with very diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Why has a complex issue such an enormous mobilizing effect although the economic consequences are either unclear or favorable for the participating economies? We argue that the transparency of negotiations is an important consideration for people evaluating the negotiation outcome. Conducting a survey experiment, we show that non-transparent decision-making decreases citizens' appraisal of the agreement independent of its outcome: A non-transparent negotiation is, on average, almost 16\% less likely to find public approval than a transparent but otherwise identical agreement. Our findings have important implications for democratic decision-making.

欧盟与美国之间的《跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴关系协定》（Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP）具有极强的技术性。尽管如此，其谈判仍引发了社会经济背景迥异的民众发起大规模抗议活动。为何一个复杂的经贸议题能够产生如此巨大的动员效应，尽管其对参与经济体的经济影响要么尚不明确，要么甚至是有利的？本研究认为，谈判透明度是民众评估谈判成果时的重要考量因素。通过开展一项调查实验，本研究证实：不透明的决策流程会降低民众对该协定的评价，且这一效应不受协定本身结果的影响——平均而言，与其他条件完全一致但透明度更高的协定相比，不透明的谈判进程会使协定获得公众支持的可能性降低近16%。本研究结论对民主决策具有重要的借鉴意义。