Tucked away within the more than 1,500 pages of the omnibus budget bill is a small paragraph with potentially big effects for transparency efforts.
Continue readingSunlight Supports Effort for Greater Lobbying Disclosure in the UK
The Sunlight Foundation is supporting lobbying transparency efforts across the pond - will you join us?
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: How an Open Source Candidate can Save the US House of Representatives
House members need a low-cost way to get elected, that also increases their bargaining power to deal with special interests. We can achieve this today, through the Open Source Candidate pledge and ProxiCast voting technology.
Continue readingNavigating the new landscape of transparency and journalism
The intersecting worlds of big data, transparency and journalism are changing rapidly.
Need a roadmap to the new terrain? Fortunately, the University of Oxford has teamed up with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism to produce a new volume: Transparency in Politics and the Media: Accountability and Open Government. The volume brings forth a star-studded line-up of journalists and academics to give the latest and greatest lay-of-the-land for those who want to get up to speed on what’s what.
Though there’s no substitute for reading all the contributions, I’ve tried to distill some of the highlights and big picture “here’s where things are heading” insights into the three big areas the book covers: big data, transparency and journalism
OpenGov Conversations: Tiago Peixoto on Open Data and Citizen Engagement – Disentangling the Relationship
This post is part of our series, OpenGov Conversations, an ongoing discourse featuring contributions from transparency and accountability researchers and practitioners around the world.
This post responds to the following question: What is the role of citizen engagement in the ability of transparency policies and initiatives to hold governments accountable?
As asserted by Jeremy Bentham nearly two centuries ago, “[I]n the same proportion as it is desirable for the governed to know the conduct of their governors, is it also important for the governors to know the real wishes of the governed.” Although Bentham’s historical call may come across as obvious to some, it highlights one of the major shortcomings of the current open government movement: while a strong focus is given to mechanisms to let the governed know the conduct of their governors (i.e. transparency), less attention is given to the means by which the governed can express their wishes (i.e. citizen engagement).
Continue readingOpenGov Conversations: Aaron Azelton on Citizen Engagement
This post is part of our series, OpenGov Conversations, an ongoing discourse featuring contributions from transparency and accountability researchers and practitioners around the world.
This post responds to the following question: What is the role of citizen engagement in the ability of transparency policies and initiatives to hold governments accountable?
As much as I would like to offer a simple definitive answer to the question, I have to say instead that it depends; particularly when democratic institutions and processes are being established and corresponding norms, values and practices are evolving. This view is based on 20 years working at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to increase organized citizen engagement, as a means of deepening democracy so that governments deliver a better quality of life for citizens. This work has provided a number of lessons regarding the relationship between citizen engagement, transparency and government accountability.
Continue readingOpenGov Conversations: Lee Drutman on Three Types of Accountability
This post is part of our series, OpenGov Conversations, an ongoing discourse featuring contributions from transparency and accountability researchers and practitioners around the world.
This post responds to the following question: What is the role of citizen engagement in the ability of transparency policies and initiatives to hold governments accountable?
Unlike the others in this series who have been working on the ground to implement transparency policies and initiatives, I have not. My background is in political science, so I’m going to do something that political scientists often do. I’m going to theorize and I’m going to offer a typology.
Though we tend to talk about accountability as if it is one thing, I think there are actually three types of government accountability that we care about: preference accountability, character accountability, and performance accountability. And each of these has its own relationship to citizen engagement. By better understanding this, we can better understand the citizen engagement – transparency – accountability nexus.
Continue readingOpenGov Conversations: Susannah Vila on Three Types of Citizen Engagement
This post is part of our series, OpenGov Conversations, an ongoing discourse featuring contributions from transparency and accountability researchers and practitioners around the world.
This post responds to the following question: What is the role of citizen engagement in the ability of transparency policies and initiatives to hold governments accountable?
The term civic engagement can be defined in a variety of ways. For the purposes of this conversation let’s say it consists of someone’s involvement in matters of public concern. Let’s also say that citizen engagement refers specifically to the involvement of individuals as opposed to civil society organizations.
What are the different ways that citizens engage? How does the shape of their engagement influence the shape of any government accountability that might come from it? I’ve noticed a few different types of engagement - and each type appears to have different repercussions for accountability. Here are three:
Continue readingRecent Developments Show Desire For Trade Talk Transparency
Last week we wrote about the recent trend towards secrecy in international trade negotiations, including a discussion of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major agreement currently being hammered out. This week two developments have highlighted the broad desire, as well as the need, for more transparency in these talks.
Yesterday Wikileaks released a draft chapter from the TPP dedicated to intellectual property. The leaked document represents the state of negotiation following a round of talks that took place on August 26-30th in Brunei. It includes notations detailing how each negotiating country feels about the various points still under contention.
SEC Poised to Improve Political Spending Transparency
The government shutdown. Single digit congressional approval ratings. Polarization and dysfunction. Not all that ails our democracy can be blamed on the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, but $1.2 billion in spending by outside groups—at least $300 million of that from undisclosed donors—doesn’t help create a working democracy.
There is no shortage of possible solutions—from fixing a broken FEC and changing IRS rules, to public funding of elections and a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, but in the short term, the most necessary and promising solutions come in the form of more transparency of money in politics.
And it just so happens that there is some traction developing for one transparency measure.
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