Local Open Government: Opportunities and Challenges in Terms of Impact and Participation (original) (raw)
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Defining subnational open government: does local context influence policy and practice?
Policy Sciences, 2019
What is open government? The contemporary conceptualization of open government remains rooted in transparency and accountability, but it is embedded within the political economy of policy, where forces of globalization through supranational organizations strongly influence the creation and dispersion of policy across the globe. Recognizing the direct impact of subnational governments on residents, in 2016 the Open Government Partnership (OGP) launched the Subnational Pioneer's Pilot Project with 15 participating government authorities globally. Each subnational participant submitted an action plan for opening their government information and processes in 2017. The uniformity of the OGP action plan provides a unique opportunity to assess the conception of open government at the subnational level globally. This paper uses a document analysis to examine how open government is conceptualized at the subnational level, including the salience of various components, and how local context can influence the development of action plans that are responsive to the realities of each participating jurisdiction. This paper assesses whether being a part of the political economy of policy homogenizes the action plans of 15 subnational governments or allows for local context to influence the design of commitments still aligned within a general theme.
Local initiatives in Open Government - English
This report examines the implementation of Open Government on the regional level in the Indonesian context. By looking at the cases of Mojokerto, Pontianak and Tangerang, this research suggests several factors that might decisive in the outcome of Open Government in general.
Local Open Government Model for Rural Municipalities
JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government
The Open Government; understood as a management paradigm or model, has managed to position itself as a key formula to the fight against corruption and distrust of public institutions; becoming an ally of public integrity. In spite of the advances in this matter from nations and its multilateral network, the Alliance for Open Government, it is in local governments where it may express better the scope and impact on people. In this regard, the present work shows the experience of developing a model of Local Open Government from the experience of the Chilean Municipality of Calle Larga, where the main opportunities and barriers that are in a rural context were detected in order to propose the implementation of an alternative model of Open Government in local administrations.
Open Government and Targeted Transparency: Trends and Challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2012
In recent years, a number of countries around the world have joined an ongoing process to promote and develop strategies linked to the concept of open government. Their popularity has been gaining ground, thanks to the momentum of various government initiatives, large and small. This trend is accompanied by the emergence of a new network of connected activists and communities (so-called “netizens”) who advocate for their implementation. All of this has not come without difficulties. Placing open government on the public agenda has given rise to its own problems in terms of operational definitions. The very ambiguity of its meaning (due to the wide variety of interpretations) has broadened the debate and led to the superposition of other concepts, such as electronic government (e-Government), digital government, and good governance, thereby confusing the ends with the means, channels, and practices that sustain them. In general, open government refers to certain principles, such as: (i) improving transparency and Access to information via the disclosure of public information (for social monitoring and accountability purposes) and the reuse of public sector information (to promote innovation and economic development); (ii) facilitating citizen participation in the design and implementation of public policy (and thereby influencing decision making), and (iii) fostering the creation of opportunities for collaboration among diverse actors, particularly the public sector, private sector, and civil society, in order to co-design and/or co-produce public value. These efforts come under the objective of strengthening the democratic system, increasing citizens’ trust in their political institutions, maximizing civic engagement and commitment, and improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of governments and their public administrations, based on the principles of fairness, integrity, and transparency. All of this comes about by creating new opportunities for institutional innovation, developing mechanisms for co-creation in public service provision, joint effort, and establishing new organizational networks and management systems oriented to fostering openness and a new form of governance in the Internet age. In this scenario, the role of the Internet, digital technologies, and digital culture have proven vital for the current combination of elements that are redefining the concept of open government. Today, the digital environment constitutes the basic infrastructure that facilitates more fluid access to information and knowledge management. The digital culture, with its interactive models, promotes transparent, participatory, and collaborative practices. These are all necessary, but insufficient, conditions for building open governments. As never before in history, there is a need for institutional frameworks and legal bases that are adapted to the new context, more sophisticated data management systems, and a profound shift in the culture of public organizations to make the promise of open government a reality. This effort goes hand in hand with putting into practice the pillars that sustain it: transparency and openness, citizen participation and collaboration, and accountability. This chapter attempts to: (i) briefly present the concept of open government and its implications, (ii) review the Latin American experience in light of the recently created Open Government Partnership (OGP), and (iii) analyze the prospects for a new state reform and modernization agenda within the region’s public sector, outlining a frame of reference that guides efforts to promote policies based on open government as a paradigm for change and renovation for the 21st century.
Local Open Government: Empirical Evidence from Austrian Municipalities
2018
Local governments have increasingly been applying an open and collaborative approach towards public management during the last years. Accordingly, they aim at increasing accessibility by releasing public data and providing participative decision-making arenas. ‘Open government’ has also been implemented in Austrian municipalities. This paper takes stock of the current status of open government implementation in Austria by analyzing survey data from city managers. Findings indicate that Austrian municipalities choose releasing public data over involving citizens in decision-making. Although public managers seem to value the principles of an open government, a successful implementation of open government is hampered by resource constraints.
The adoption of open government by local governments in Canada: Obstacles and possibilities
Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 2020
The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which dimensions of open government have been adopted by local governments in Canada. Local government structures are sometimes conceptualized as particularly well suited to democratic experimentation. Certainly, it has been the case that many governmental/democratic reform initiatives have started at the local/municipal level. Exploring open government at the local level provides us with insights into two questions. First, it helps us determine the extent to which open government has permeated beyond federal and provincial levels of government in Canada. Second, due to the challenges associated with open government, it allows us to identify and highlight such challenges.
Openness and Urban Governance: How Transparency Erodes Local Government
International Public Administration Review, 2015
Local government political leaders have a hard job these days. More and more they are confronted by citizens demanding transparency and a say in the production of social goods. Challenging the hegemony of local government, they connect their resources to come up with grass roots solutions. Fear of litigation claims and an increase in the complexity of policymaking and administration and fiscal scarcity render local administrations risk averse.How to effectively structure the frontline between local government and local communities? Open and collaborative governance approaches hold the promise of developing to mediate these tensions, but what are the implications for the way local democracy, local government and local administration work? This article looks at the ugly face of trust in collaborative and open governance on the basis of a comparative casestudy from Apeldoorn (The Netherlands). The article identifies and analyses patterns of (a lack of) open governance and offers altern...
2011
Open" is not just a fancy synonym for transparent and accountable. The "Open" in Open Government, Open Data, Open Information, and Open Innovation stands for the changing relation between citizens and authorities. Many citizens no longer accept the passive stance representative democracy held for them. They take an active approach in setting up better means of collaboration by ICTs. They demand and gain access to their historically grown collective knowledge stored in government data. Not just on a local level, they actively shape the political agenda. Open Government is to be seen in the context of citizens' rights: the right to actively participate in the process of agenda-setting and decision-making. Research into open government needs to address the value of the changing relation between citizens, public administration, and political authority. The paper argues finally for the application of the Public Value concept to research into open government.
Peculiarities of Open Governance Practices at the Local Level in Georgia
Publishing House “MERIDIANI”, 2021
Open governance offers an alternative to the traditionally vertical interaction between the state and society (governor and governed). It conceives of the state and society as equal partners that interact horizontally to co-create public policies. It is also linked to ‘bottom-up’ decision-making in public policy processes, stemming from community-based initiatives. This is vital for strengthening democracy worldwide and for building trust between the representatives of the state and the society. The implementation of open governance model is of particular importance at the local self-government level, where local government is the primary, direct and regular point of contact for citizens with the state, is directly responsible for addressing the day-to-day needs of citizens, and has more opportunities to implement a variety of participatory mechanisms. However, the implementation of such a model in practice is particularly difficult in post-communist countries, where command-based ‘top-down’ decision-making dominated the governing systems and civic culture of those countries for years. Therefore, they still find it difficult to move to a ‘bottom-up’ decision-making and to fully implement decentralization and open governance reforms. In the present book, these difficulties are discussed on the example of Georgia. Based on the research findings, a new model of multilevel, multisectoral collaboration has been developed, the introduction of which will be useful for other transitional democracies besides Georgia.