Administrative Reform and the Quest for Openness: A Popperian Review of Open Government

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers claim open government offers a panoply of good governance benefits, but it also risks political abuse as window dressing or a smokescreen. To address this risk, this article builds on the meaning of openness through an examination of closed and open society in Karl Popper’s theory. Four historic trends in open government reform are analyzed. The findings suggest a need for new attention to Popperian notions of the social technologist’s piecemeal change and mechanical engineering aimed at serious policy problems. Without appreciation of these open society linkages, open governments will continue to paradoxically co-exist alongside closed societies.

Joining the open government partnership initiative: An empirical analysis of diffusion effects

“…Governments with more autocratic traits also join conditional to other countries in the same group joining. Earlier on we suggested this happens as a form of window dressing (Ingrams, 2020) or because autocracies reinterpret or modify the norms of transparency underlying the OGP when they accept to join (Towns & Rumelili, 2017).…”

“…This also suggests that while OGP diffusion among countries with different political regimes may unfold in a similar manner, the mechanisms of diffusion may be substantially different. Whereas competition may be the dominant mechanism in democracies, in autocracies open government initiatives may be employed as window dressing (Ingrams, 2020). Democracies are also more likely to respond to social pressures by accepting and complying with the norms of open government, while autocracies prefer to reinterpret or modify the same norms (Towns & Rumelili, 2017).…”

“…The empirical evidence concerning a decade of experience with the OGP provides a few contradictory developments surrounding the implementation and the implications of the initiative. On the one hand, the voluntary nature of the commitments, the lax enforcement rules and the absence of sanctions for noncompliance has led to accusations of window dressing (Berliner, Ingrams, & Piotrowski, 2021;Ingrams, 2020). On the other hand, there are some reasons to be optimistic, primarily related to the diffusion of norms of transparency, the empowerment of civil society actors in countries where this was largely absent and the formation of coalitions supporting participation norms in government institutions (Wilson, 2020).…”

Popper’s Critical Rationalism as a Response to the Problem of Induction: Predictive Reasoning in the Early Stages of the Covid-19 Epidemic

“…A second, albeit more limited, stream of scholarship has engaged with Popper’s social philosophy, in particular his concept of an open society. Armbrüster and Gebert ( 2002 ) have for example discussed the use of open society approach for evaluating contemporary patterns of organizing in contemporary companies, whereas Ingrams ( 2020 ) has outlined a more concrete open society model of administration to be enacted in governmental affairs.…”

Análisis comparado de la política de transparencia en los municipios Ibéricos

“…La transparencia se ha convertido en un concepto global (Manfredi-Sánchez, 2017;Tejedo-Romero, 2014), de gran relevancia para el ejercicio de la moderna gobernanza (Piotrowski y Van Ryzin, 2007; González-Limón y Rodríguez-Ramos, 2019;Grimmelikhuijsen y Feeney, 2017), centrándose en la divulgación de información pública (Nevado-Gil y Gallardo-Vázquez, 2016;Cagica-Carvalho y otros, 2019). Existe entre la comunidad académica y la sociedad, en general, un consenso sobre la necesidad de apertura, transparencia y acceso a la información pública en el contexto de la democratización y el buen gobierno (Estrada y Bastida, 2020;Gutiérrez-Ponce y otros, 2019;Ingrams, 2020;Rossi y otros, 2018).…”