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OPEN GOVERNMENT AND THE POLITICS OF PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE IN THE UNITED STATES
Author(s) -
ROCCO PHILIP
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12269
Subject(s) - politics , citation , government (linguistics) , political science , library science , open government , media studies , sociology , public administration , law , computer science , open data , philosophy , linguistics
The promotion of transparency has long been identified with the goal of holding democratic governments (and sometimes the private sector) responsible. In recent years, advocates of “open government” have argued that, beyond mere accountability, transparency can be a positive instrument of public policy — a means of shaping social and economic behavior that differs qualitatively from fiscal incentives or regulatory punishments. Yet while transparency initiatives are easy enough to enact, they often fail to reshape the incentives of key actors, including government agencies and market players subject to disclosure rules, and hence fail to ignite meaningful changes in the direction or scope of public policy. And in some cases, policymakers have also developed powerful new tools to restrict the flow of information, which remain outside the purview of sunshine laws altogether.