Throughout the past few decades, governmental transparency has become a hot topic within public administration. However, very limited quantitative research has been conducted questioning if governmental transparency, or at least a citizens perception or use of governmental transparency, is beneficial for governmental agencies and its citizens. Ultimately, this dissertations goal is to add to a very limited set of U.S. public administration transparency literature. To achieve this goal, this dissertation first analyzes current governmental transparency publications and research focusing on specific relationships between a citizens perception and use of governmental transparency, public trust in government, and public participation. To test these relationships, a 2009 survey conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates International for the Pew Internet and American Life Project is used. With this robust data set, this research study finds that a relationship between governmental transparency perception and a citizens trust in government does exist, but the relationship is extremely weak in a negative direction (transparency pessimism). Furthermore, a relationship between governmental transparency perception and a citizens participation in government also exists, but the relationship is also extremely weak in a negative direction. The key finding in this research is that a statistical significant, positive relationship exists between governmental transparency use and citizen participation. Higher governmental transparency use leads to increases in citizen participation. Public administers should be aware of this relationship to enhance overall public participation in government. When publishing governmental transparency data, a public administrator must know their audience since, as this research reveals, governmental transparency is a driver to citizen participation.