Open government
In the fifth century B.C.E. Athens, a legal institution called euthyna held officials to a standard of straightness. This body enforced that they give an account in front of an Assembly of citizens about everything that they did that year. Citizens could express grievances towards these officials through different legal institutions regulating their behavior. The concept of transparency and accountability in government traces back to this ancient Greek practice. Philosophers during the European Age of Enlightenment debated the proper construction of a nascent democratic society. They attacked absolutist doctrines of state secrecy with vigor. Jurgen Habermas published The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962, analyzing these historical shifts. Reinhart Koselleck released Critique and Crisis in 1965, further exploring the critique of crisis. These works examined how philosophes made an attack on state secrecy.
Wallace Parks served on a subcommittee on Government Information created by the U.S. Congress. He introduced the term open government in his 1957 article titled The Open Government Principle: Applying the Right to Know under the Constitution. Federal courts began using the term as a synonym for government transparency after the passing of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966. Sweden enacted free press legislation as part of its constitution in 1766, known as the Freedom of the Press Act. Finland continued the presumption of openness after gaining independence in 1917. It passed its Act on Publicity of Official Documents in 1951, which was superseded by new legislation in 1999. Scandinavian countries claim to have adopted the first freedom of information legislation dating back to the eighteenth century. Attempts by Metternichean statesmen to row back on these measures were vigorously opposed by liberal politicians including Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
Morocco's new constitution of 2011 outlined several goals the government wishes to achieve regarding citizens' right to information. The Transparency and Accountability Development Policy Loan offered financial and technical support through a joint program between the European Union and the African Development Bank. Section 35 of Kenya's constitution ensures citizens' rights to government information as of 2010. Important government data is now freely available through the Kenya Open Data Initiative. Taiwan started its e-government program in 1998 and has since had a series of laws enforcing open government policies. The Freedom of Government Information Law of 2005 stated that all government information must be made public. The Sunflower Movement of 2014 emphasized the value Taiwanese citizens place on openness and transparency. In October 2023, the Iranian government publicly opposed a measure for tripartite branches of judiciary, executive, legislative transparency program. The transparency law never passed after nine months as the judiciary and state did not consent.
Political commentator David Frum wrote in 2014 that transparency reforms have yielded more lobbying, more expense, more delay, and more indecision instead of yielding accountability. Jason Grumet argues that government officials cannot properly deliberate when everything they are doing is being watched. A randomized controlled trial conducted with 463 delegates of the National Assembly of Vietnam showed increased transparency curtailed delegate activity. Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, outlined three main possible privacy challenges in a 2014 article. First is the difficulty of balancing further transparency while protecting personal information. Second involves dealing with distinctions between data protection regulations between private and public sector actors. Third concerns the release of Big data which may appear anonymized but can be reconnected to specific individuals using sophisticated algorithms. Intelligence gathering often requires clandestine methods to identify violent threats whether domestic or foreign. Local election officials in Florida and Michigan reported spending 25-70% of staff time processing public records requests.
Open government data refers specifically to the public publishing of government datasets available through online platforms such as data.gov.uk or www.data.gov. OGD principles require that data is complete, primary, timely, accessible, machine processable, non-discriminatory, non-proprietary, and license free. Numerous organizations have worked to consolidate resources for citizens to access government budget spending, stimulus spending, lobbyist spending, and legislative tracking. Giordano Koch and Maximilian Rapp published Open Government Platforms in Municipality Areas: Identifying elemental design principles in 2012. The Welsh Government funded the training of Wikipedia skills in secondary schools since 2018 as part of the Welsh Baccalaureate. All government videos are uploaded on open licences including CC-BY-SA and OGL. The Philippines passed the Freedom of Information Order in 2016 outlining guidelines to practice government transparency and full public disclosure. Agencies must display a transparency seal on their websites containing information about functions, annual reports, officials, budgets, and projects.
The Open Government Partnership launched in 2011 to allow domestic reformers to make governments across the world more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Since 2011, OGP has grown to 75 participating countries whose government and civil societies work together to develop reforms. Code for All is a non-partisan, non-profit international network believing technology leads to new opportunities for citizens to lead a prominent role in politics. The Sunlight Foundation was a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 that used civic tech, open data, and policy analysis to make information transparent. Its ultimate vision was to increase democratic participation and achieve changes on political money flow. OpenSpending aims to build and use open source tools to gather and analyze financial transactions of governments around the world. Promoting open government in Latin American countries increased public trust and reduced corruption under the Obama Administration plan. Chile published its open government action plan for 2016, 18 as part of its membership of the Open Government Partnership.
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Common questions
When did Athens hold officials to a standard of straightness through the euthyna institution?
Athens held officials to a standard of straightness through the euthyna institution in the fifth century B.C.E. This body enforced that they give an account in front of an Assembly of citizens about everything that they did that year.
Who introduced the term open government in 1957 and what was the article title?
Wallace Parks served on a subcommittee on Government Information created by the U.S. Congress and introduced the term open government in his 1957 article titled The Open Government Principle: Applying the Right to Know under the Constitution. Federal courts began using the term as a synonym for government transparency after the passing of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966.
Which country enacted free press legislation as part of its constitution in 1766 known as the Freedom of the Press Act?
Sweden enacted free press legislation as part of its constitution in 1766, known as the Freedom of the Press Act. Scandinavian countries claim to have adopted the first freedom of information legislation dating back to the eighteenth century.
What are the three main possible privacy challenges outlined by Teresa Scassa in 2014 regarding open government?
Teresa Scassa, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, outlined three main possible privacy challenges in a 2014 article. First is the difficulty of balancing further transparency while protecting personal information. Second involves dealing with distinctions between data protection regulations between private and public sector actors. Third concerns the release of Big data which may appear anonymized but can be reconnected to specific individuals using sophisticated algorithms.
When did the Open Government Partnership launch and how many participating countries does it include since 2011?
The Open Government Partnership launched in 2011 to allow domestic reformers to make governments across the world more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Since 2011, OGP has grown to 75 participating countries whose government and civil societies work together to develop reforms.