nership (OGP) to guide and incentivize similar initiatives across the globe.
4 OPEN
GOVERNMENT AS A VEHICLE FOR TRANSFORMATION
The varied experiences of U.S. agency implementations demonstrate that
open government for its own sake may not be sufficient to unlock the
information revolution’s potential to reshape the government/citizen rela-
tionship. Rather, this transformation must be strategically targeted using
openness as a tool rather than an end-goal in ways that align with the
agency’s mission (Lee & Kwak, 2011). The most successful U.S. agency
transformations validate this assertion, such as:
Open Government as a Vehicle for Government Transformation 15
• The Department of Health and Human Services has implemented an
open infrastructure to spark an entirely new Health 2.0 industry via
public-private partnerships around data-driven healthcare, electronic
health records, and innovative healthcare service delivery.
• The State Department is enlisting the public in its on-line diplomatic
eff
fforts (e.g., Virtual Student Foreign Service) and rejuvenating its pro-
motion of transparency and good governance via the OGP.
• NASA has centered its initiatives around open innovation to create
public value through open source technologies and scientifi c
fi projects,
while benefi
fiting from valuable contributions from the public through
competitions.
• The Federal Communications Commission is expanding inclusive
e-rulemaking through crowd-sourcing technologies to “open a pro-
cess that was closed for too long” (VanRoekel, 2010).
These successful strategies leverage open government for strategic trans-
formation. This pattern of success is consistent worldwide, from Singapore
tapping openness to combat citizen apathy; Kenya connecting open govern-
ment to the devolution of power to local governments; and to the World
Bank embracing open development to reshape its role in an increasingly
multi-polar and networked world.
Adopting a similarly targeted approach, the international Open Gov-
ernment Declaration issued by the OGP explicitly structures open govern-
ment commitments around a set of goals, or “grand challenges.” Analysis
of member nations’ action plans demonstrates that governments intend
to address these challenges by operationalizing the OGP’s core princi-
ples—transparency/accountability, citizen participation, and technology/
innovation—through deliberate actions that enable specifi c
fi government
transformations (Table 2.2).
Table 2.2 Transformation Goals Targeted to Address Grand Challenges through
OGP Principles
OGP Core Principles
OGP Grand
Transparency/
Citizen
Technology/
Challenge
Accountability
Participation
Innovation
Improved public
Citizen choice
Collaborative
Citizen-centric,
services
& informed
service delivery
digital service
decision-making
& open
delivery
innovation
Increased public
Open book
Real-time citizen
eProcurement
integrity
government
feedback
More eff ective
ff
Open data
Participatory
Shared services
public resource
planning &
management
budgeting
16 Dennis
Linders, Susan Copeland Wilson, and John Carlo Bertot
Table 2.3 synthesizes the toolbox of open government policy, business, technology, and community enablers that governments are employing to
realize these transformation goals as identifi
fied by the action plans, which
for the fi
first time, provide a standardized way to look across national open
government initiatives. In so doing, it provides a preliminary framework
for how open government can drive transformation.
Table 2.3 Open Government Enablers for Transformation
Enablers
Transformation
Examples
Policy/Business Technology Community
Citizen choice
�Police.uk (U.K.)
�Results-based
�Performance
�Citizen report
& informed
�Performance.gov
management
dashboards
cards
decision-
(U.S.)
�Performance
portal
making
�“Know your
indicators
�Crime mapping
service rights”
�Data publication �Open agency
(South Africa)
guidelines
information
�Public awareness systems
campaigns
�National geo-
graphic informa-
tion system
Collaborative
�Open Data
�Open govern-
�Open APIs
�Government
service delivery
Communities,
ment license
�Online commu-
data reuse
& open
ExpertNet (U.S.)
�Competitions
nities/ collabora- �Civil society
innovation
�Space App
�Public-private
tion spaces
partnership on
Competition (U.S.) partnerships
�E-rulemaking
implementat ion
�Regulations.gov
�Scientifi c data
fi
�Ideation plat-
projects
(U.S.)
guidelines
forms
�Expert networks
�Open rulemak-
ing framework
Citizen-centric,
�Gob.mx (Mexico) �Business process �One-stop inter- �Citizen surveys
digital service
�Plain language
improvement
active citizen
�Assisted digital
delivery
project (Norway)
�Administrative
service delivery
service providers
�Household target- simplification
fi
portal
ing system for
�Consolidation of �Household elec-
social services
service delivery
tronic registry,
(Philippines)
channels
targeting system
�Citizen charter
�Zero-touch
technologies
Real-time
�Presidential
�Citizen com-
�Social participa- �Online/ mobile
citizen
Hotline (South
plaints manage-
tion systems
reporting
feedback
Africa)
ment
�Online feedback �Civil society
�FixMyStreet
�Open forums,
mechanisms
services
(U.K.)
town halls,
�Online report-
monitoring
�Open311 (U.S.)
workshops
ing, hotlines
�Whistleblower
�Crime mapping
protection
(continued)
Open Government as a Vehicle for Government Transformation 17
Table 2.3 (continued)
Enablers
Transformation Examples
Policy/Business Technology Community
Open book
�Data.gov.uk (U.K.) �Right to
�Open data
�Partnerships
government
�Recovery.gov
information
portal
with develop-
& Open data
(U.S.)
�Proactive data �Expenditure
ers, civil society,
�Open Gov Plans
publication
tracking system
students, etc.
(U.S.)
�Open data
�Information
standards
registry
�Public sector
�Agency data
transparency
inventories
board
�Unifi ed data
fi
�Digital records
warehouse
management
�Electronic
�Agency open
records
government
plans
�Declassifi cation
fi
regimes
Participatory
�Participatory
�Participatory
�E-petitioning
�Consultative
planning &
Budgeting (Brazil)
budgeting and
�Online dialogs
National
budgeting
�We- the-People
development
and town halls
Conferences,
(U.S.)
planning
�Fiscal transpar-
Councils
�EITI (Indonesia)
�Social audits
ency system
�Transparent
budgeting
eProcurement
�Comprasnet
�Consolidated
�Electronic
�Civil society
(Brazil)
bidding
procurement
oversight
�CompraNet
�Civil recruitment system
(Mexico)
transparency
�Anti-corruption
conventions
Shared services
�Data center
�Business process �Consolidated
�Open source
consolidation
improvement
digital services
solutions
(U.S.)
�Consolidated
�Integrated
�Directgov (U.K.)
sites, data center
fi nancial infor
fi
-
�Whole-of-
mation system
government
�Cloud computing
architecture
The interplay among these enablers is complex, but the fi nd
fi
ings suggest
that each targeted transformation necessitates a somewhat different set
of actions. This argues against adopting foreign open government mod-
els wholesale; rather, governments should tailor implementations to their
particular strategic goals and ensure that they suit local contexts, needs,
and opportunities.
That said, the action plans also demonstrate strong consensus around
a common set of basic enablers: a right to information; transparency of
18 Dennis
Linders, Susan Copeland Wilson, and John Carlo Bertot
planning, process, and systems; and platforms for data publication, public
engagement, and online service delivery. While the specifi c
fi implementa-
tion will diff
ffer based on goals and circumstance, virtually all genuine open
government initiatives require this baseline infrastructure and enabling
policy environment.
Indeed, perhaps the most exciting characteristic of the OGP is that it
off
ffers the catalyst and means for developing countries to realize the level of
transparency, citizen engagement, and good governance that have largely
remained the reserve of mature democracies. In these more nascent envi-
ronments, even the fi
first steps towards open government represent not incre-
mental improvements (as in the U.S.) but a fundamental transformation of
their governance model.
5 LESSONS FROM A PIONEER:
THE STATE OF U.S. OPEN GOVERNMENT
While the pioneering U.S. experience has rightly served as a model for
those who have followed, it is important also to explore opportunities for
improvement and appropriate diff
fferentiation. Accordingly, this section
identifi
fies several obstacles encountered by the OGI, with a particular focus
on the challenges to sustainability.
5.1 One Year After the Directive
Early in 2011, rising budgetary pressures for a more cost-eff ec
ff tive gov-
ernment pushed agencies to focus on mission-critical activities only—a
condition few open government initiatives met. Looking to cut costs,
Congress reduced the 2011 budget for federal e-government programs
by 76 percent, shuttering or slowing federal shared services and open
government efforts (Serbu, 2011). Meanwhile, the White House’s rheto-
ric has shifted to a focus on customer service, which downplays the
role of citizens as partners (Executive Order 13571), just as many of the
open government champions—including the fi
first Federal Chief Infor-
mation Offi
fficer (CIO)—have left their White House posts (Howard,
2011). In this shifting policy environment, few agency plans have been
updated since the last review, a number of eff
fforts remain incomplete,
and little new data is posted to Data.gov (Perera, 2011; Lukensmeyer et
al., 2011).
The future of open government therefore remains unclear; some even
predict its “slow, inevitable death” (Wadhwa, 2011). But perhaps open
government has simply entered what Gartner’s hype cycle identifies as
the “trough of disillusionment” with the defl
flation of the impossible
expectations that had been placed upon it (Fenn & Raskino, 2011).
Open Government as a Vehicle for Government Transformation 19
Figure 2.1 U.S. Open Government Initiative on the Gartner Hype Cycle.
The question now is whether and how the U.S. can re-energize its efforts to
reach the cycle’s “slope of enlightenment” (Figure 2.1).
5.2 Overcoming
the Challenges
Fiscal pressures need not mean the end of open government efforts. To the
contrary, openness can form the central strategy in today’s dominant nar-
rative of budget cuts, smaller government, and the elimination of waste—as
ency is at the heart of his government’s agenda of improving services with-
out spending more money by “radically redistributing power away from
government and to communities and people” (Cameron, 2011b). Indeed,
despite similar budget shortfalls, the U.K. government has committed to
“the most ambitious open data agenda of any government in the world”
(2011a), an assertion supported by the Guardian (Rogers, 2011).
Beyond the failure to eff
ffectively tie open government to the chang-
ing political winds in favor of small government, the literature points to
other potential pitfalls that may have been inherent to the OGI imple-
mentation approach. Conditions which often derail technology products
include: lack of standards and measurements; little top-level governance;
unmaintained eff
fforts; inhibited data sharing; legal barriers; and lim-
ited funding, experience, and training (OASIS, 2010). Likewise, a lack
of clear direction risks disintegrating transformational efforts “into a
set of unrelated and confusing directives and activities” (Fernandez &
Rainey, 2006, p. 169). Some of these conditions were present in the
20 Dennis Linders, Susan Copeland Wilson, and John Carlo Bertot
OGI. Specifi
fically, research and interviews with government administra-
tors conducted by the authors (Wilson & Linders, 2011) identified the
absence of three critical success factors:
1. Factor 1: Clear Vision and Leadership. Taking an agency-centric per-
spective, the U.S. has promoted change from the bottom. But agencies
often meet unfunded mandates with recalcitrance in favor of funded
priorities; combined with the OGD’s lack of specifi
ficity, this limited
the ability to create signifi
ficant change. The OGD also did not clearly
articulate strategy and defi n
fi itions by focusing on abstract principles,
leaving agency CIOs “fuzzy” about open government and needing
more “direction and clarity” (Montalbano, 2010a). Without clear
guidance, agencies developed their own defi
finitions and policies with
little cross-agency cohesion.
2. Factor 2: Specifi
fic Implementation Guidance and Success Measure-
ments. Lack of a robust, consensus-based implementation framework
made “success” nearly impossible to defi ne. T
fi
hus, agencies struggled
to build internal business cases or demonstrate value. The OGD also
indirectly encouraged pro-forma compliance (e.g., publishing “high-
value data sets” for compliance rather than for their value) by requir-
ing immediate outputs and technology implementations rather than
the patient organizational reform needed for institutionalization
within day-to-day operations.
3. Factor 3: Citizen-Centricity. A focus on building a vast catalog of
Public Sector Transformation Through E-Government Page 4