skip to main content
10.1145/3396956.3398254acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pagesdg-oConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Electoral Competition, Transparency, and Open Government Data

Published: 16 June 2020 Publication History

Abstract

The availability of large government data, new technological developments, and emerging social norms for improved government transparency are pressurizing governments around the world to adopt open government data initiatives. Although some governments actively respond to such changes, others are found to lag despite these pressures. This study focuses on the political and administrative factors in explaining this variation. Examining how Korean local governments responded to citizens’ open data requests during 2007-2016, the study demonstrates how political competition and administrative capacity are critical factors for improving government transparency and responsiveness to information disclosure requests from citizens. Specifically, considering (1) the scope of information disclosure, (2) the time to disclosure, and (3) the quality of disclosed information as the outcomes, greater electoral competition and stronger administrative capacity were found to help governments enhance transparency and responsiveness. However, regression discontinuity design shows that the partisan affiliation of local governments had little significant impact on these outcomes.

References

[1]
[1] Attard, J., Orlandi, F., Scerri, S., & Auer, S. (2015). A systematic review of open government data initiatives. Government Information Quarterly, 32(4), 399–418.
[2]
[2] Conradie, P., & Choenni, S. (2014). On the barriers for local government releasing open data. Government Information Quarterly, 31, S10-S17.
[3]
[3] Chatfield, A. T., & Reddick, C. G. (2017). A longitudinal cross-sector analysis of open data portal service capability: The case of Australian local governments. Government Information Quarterly, 34(2), 231-243.
[4]
[4] Dawes, S. S., Vidiasova, L., & Parkhimovich, O. (2016). Planning and designing open government data programs: An ecosystem approach. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 15-27.
[5]
[5] Harrison, T. M., & Sayogo, D. S. (2014). Transparency, participation, and accountability practices in open government: A comparative study. Government Information Quarterly, 31(4), 513-525.
[6]
[6] Ruijer, E., Grimmelikhuijsen, S., & Meijer, A. (2017). Open data for democracy: Developing a theoretical framework for open data use. Government Information Quarterly, 34(1), 45-52.
[7]
[7] Sieber, R. E., & Johnson, P. A. (2015). Civic open data at a crossroads: Dominant models and current challenges. Government Information Quarterly, 32(3), 308-315.
[8]
[8] Vetrò, A., Canova, L., Torchiano, M., Minotas, C. O., Iemma, R., & Morando, F. (2016). Open data quality measurement framework: Definition and application to Open Government Data. Government Information Quarterly, 33(2), 325-337.
[9]
[9] Wang, H. J., & Lo, J. (2016). Adoption of open government data among government agencies. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), 80-88.
[10]
[10] Baum, M. A., & Jamison, A. S. (2006). The Oprah effect: How soft news helps inattentive citizens vote consistently. Journal of Politics, 68, 946–959.
[11]
[11] Lourenço, R. P. (2015). An analysis of open government portals: A perspective of transparency for accountability. Government Information Quarterly, 32, 323–332.
[12]
[12] Dawes, S., & Helbig, N. (2010). Information strategies for open government: Challenges and prospects for deriving public value from government transparency. Electronic Government, 6228, 50–60.
[13]
[13] Janssen, K. (2011). The influence of the PSI directive on open government data: An overview of. Government Information Quarterly, 28, 446–456.
[14]
[14] Hong, S., & Lee, S. (2018). Adaptive governance and decentralization: Evidence from regulation of the sharing economy in multi-level governance. Government Information Quarterly, 35(2), 299-305.
[15]
[15] Hong, S., & Lee, S. (2018). Adaptive governance, status quo bias, and political competition: Why the sharing economy is welcome in some cities but not in others. Government Information Quarterly, 35 (2), 283-290.
[16]
[16] Mergel, I. (2016). Agile innovation management in government: A research agenda. Government Information Quarterly, 33(3), 516-523.
[17]
[17] Barry, E., & Bannister, F. (2014). Barriers to open data release: A view from the top. Information Polity, 1,2, 129–152. http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/IP-140327.
[18]
[18] Joffe, J. (2018). When Transparency Backfires: A Lesson From Marco Rubio’s Town Hall. PR News Online. Accessed on June 5, 2018 through www.prnewsonline.com/transparency-marco-rubio-gun-control
[19]
[19] Janssen, K. (2012). Open government data and the right to information: Opportunities and obstacles. The Journal of Community Informatics, 8(2).
[20]
[20] Sayogo, D. S., Pardo, T. A., & Cook, M. (2014, January). A framework for benchmarking open government data efforts. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 1896-1905). IEEE.
[21]
[21] Matheus, R., Vaz, J. C., & Ribeiro, M. M. (2014). Open government data and the data usage for improvement of public services in the Rio de Janeiro City. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (pp. 338-341). ACM.
[22]
[22] Marienfeld, F., Schieferdecker, I., Lapi, E., & Tcholtchev, N. (2013). Metadata aggregation at govdata. de: An experience report. In Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (p. 21). ACM.
[23]
[23] Musyaffa, F. A., Halilaj, L., Li, Y., Orlandi, F., Jabeen, H., Auer, S., & Vidal, M. E. (2018). OpenBudgets. eu: A Platform for Semantically Representing and Analyzing Open Fiscal Data. In International Conference on Web Engineering (pp. 433-447). Springer, Cham.
[24]
[24] Safarov, I., Meijer, A., & Grimmelikhuijsen, S. (2017). Utilization of open government data: A systematic literature review of types, conditions, effects and users. Information Polity, 22(1), 1-24.
[25]
[25] Zuiderwijk, A., Janssen, M., Choenni, S., Meijer, R., & Sheikh Alibaks, R. (2013). Sociotechnical impediments of open data. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 10, 156–172.
[26]
[26] Martin, S., Foulonneau, M., Turki, S., & Ihadjadene, M. (2013). Risk analysis to overcome barriers to open data. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 11(1), 348.
[27]
[27] Janssen, M., Charalabidis, Y., & Zuiderwijk, A. (2012). Benefits, adoption barriers and myths of open data and open government. Information systems management, 29(4), 258-268.
[28]
[28] Mergel, I. (2018). Open innovation in the public sector: drivers and barriers for the adoption of Challenge. gov. Public Management Review, 20(5), 726-745.
[29]
[29] Bates, J. (2014). The strategic importance of information policy for the contemporary neoliberal state: The case of Open Government Data in the United Kingdom. Government Information Quarterly, 31 (3), 388-395.
[30]
[30] Zuiderwijk, A., & Janssen, M. (2014). Open data policies, their implementation and impact: A framework for comparison. Government Information Quarterly, 31(1), 17-29.
[31]
[31] Lee, G., & Kwak, Y. H. (2012). An open government maturity model for social media-based public engagement. Government Information Quarterly, 29(4), 492-503.
[32]
[32] Huntgeburth, J., & Veit, D. (2015). Evaluating Open Government Initiatives. In From Information to Smart Society (pp. 281-295). Springer, Cham.
[33]
[33] Blais, A., Gidengil, E., & Kilibarda, A. (2017). Partisanship, information, and perceptions of government corruption. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 29(1), 95-110.
[34]
[34] Hood, C. (2010). The blame game: Spin, bureaucracy, and self-preservation in government. Princeton University Press.
[35]
[35] Rose-Ackerman, S. (1980). Risk taking and reelection: Does federalism promote innovation?. The Journal of Legal Studies, 9 (3), 593-616.
[36]
[36] Horrigan, J. B., Rainie, L., & Page, D. (2015). Americans’ views on open government data. Pew Research Center. Accessed on June 8, 2018 through assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2014/10/PI_OpenData_072815.pdf
[37]
[37] Rocco, P. (2016). Open Government and the Politics of Public Knowledge in the United States. Public Administration. Volume 94, Issue 3. Pages 846-853
[38]
[38] Hong, S., Kim, S. H., & Son, J. (2019). Bounded rationality, blame avoidance, and political accountability: how performance information influences management quality. Public Management Review, 1-24.
[39]
[39] Terman, J. N., & Feiock, R. C. (2014). Improving outcomes in fiscal federalism: Local political leadership and administrative capacity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 25(4), 1059-1080.
[40]
[40] Ferreira, Fernando, and Joseph Gyourko (2009). “Do Political Parties Matter? Evidence from US Cities.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(1): 399–422.
[41]
[41] Hong, S. (2019). A behavioral model of public organizations: Bounded rationality, performance feedback, and negativity bias. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 29(1), 1-17.
[42]
[42] Hong, S. (2020). Performance Management Meets Red Tape: Bounded Rationality, Negativity Bias, and Resource Dependence. Public Administration Review.
[43]
[43] Hong, S., & Kim, Y. (2019). Loyalty or Competence: Political Use of Performance Information and Negativity Bias. Public Administration Review, 79(6), 829-840.
[44]
[44] Hong, S., Hyoung Kim, S., Kim, Y., & Park, J. (2019). Big Data and government: Evidence of the role of Big Data for smart cities. Big Data & Society, 6(1), 2053951719842543.
[45]
[45] Wood, A. K., & Lewis, D. E. (2017). Agency Performance Challenges and Agency Politicization. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27(4), 581-595.
[46]
[46] Hong, S. (2017). What are the areas of competence for central and local governments? Accountability mechanisms in multi-level governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27 (1), 120-134.

Cited By

View all
  • (2020)An Analysis of the Supply of Open Government DataFuture Internet10.3390/fi1211018612:11(186)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2020

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
dg.o '20: Proceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research
June 2020
389 pages
ISBN:9781450387910
DOI:10.1145/3396956
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 16 June 2020

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Electoral competition
  2. Open government data
  3. Transparency

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Conference

dg.o '20

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)12
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 23 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2020)An Analysis of the Supply of Open Government DataFuture Internet10.3390/fi1211018612:11(186)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2020

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media