Open government and e-government: Democratic challenges from a public value perspective

TLDR

Transparency, participation, and collaboration are framed as means to desirable ends rather than administrative ends, with public value seen as the overarching goal of public organizations. The study proposes using a public‑value framework to guide open‑government initiatives and to describe the value generated by more transparent, participative, and collaborative citizen‑government interactions. The authors employ the public‑value framework to characterize the value created by increased transparency, participation, and collaboration in open‑government interactions. The authors argue that the Obama Administration’s Open Government Initiative blurs the line between e‑democracy and e‑government by embedding historically democratic practices, enabled by emerging technology, within administrative agencies.

Abstract

We argue that the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative blurs distinctions between e-democracy and e-government by incorporating historically democratic practices, now enabled by emerging technology, within administrative agencies. We consider the nature of transparency, par ticipation, and collaboration, suggesting that these processes should be viewed as means toward desirable ends, rather than administrative ends in themselves, as they appear to be currently treated. We propose alternatively that planning OG initiatives be addressed within a "public value" framework. The creation of public value is the goal of public organizations; through public value, public organizations meet public goals with respect to substantive benefits as well as the intrinsic value of better government. We extend this view to OG by using the framework as a way to describe the value produced when interaction between government and citizens becomes more transparent, participative, and collaborative, i.e., more democratic.