Using Technology to Open Government Should Be a Competition, Susan Crawford Says
BY Nick Judd | Wednesday, August 24 2011
What open government advocates need is for governments to compete on openness, suggests Susan Crawford, the Cardozo Law School professor and former adviser to President Barack Obama, in an opinion piece published yesterday by Bloomberg News.
Crawford writes in the context of the Open Government Partnership, a U.S. and Brazil-led international initiative seeking broad multilateral agreement on principles of openness and specific plans from each of several participating countries on how they will make their governments more open and participatory. Participating governments and non-governmental organizations were hoping for a big reveal of plans and agreements in an announcement tied to the U.N. General Assembly convening in September. As that deadline approaches, though, people involved in the process tell me it might be more realistic to expect incremental progress than completed work products.
The United States' own plan is being developed with what is shaping up to be a pretty ad-hoc public consultation process — not exactly the most auspicious beginning for an initiative that's supposed to be making it easier for citizens to monitor and talk with their government. Meanwhile, political gridlock in Brazil around a Freedom of Information Law could impede the development of openness efforts there.
In the opinion piece, titled "U.S. Falls Behind in Race Toward Open Government," Crawford argues that governments — the United States' included — have a new avenue to tap to build support:
This is a fragile moment for open government around the world. Though it seems as if age-old challenges of corruption and public distrust should be addressed with the help of 21st-century tools, isolated reformers are battling bureaucracies that have an interest in keeping public information secret.
Entrenched governments grow fearful, wanting to avoid rocking the boat and hoping to survive re-election challenges. Even the muscular transparency of the relatively new U.K. government may run into obstacles.
Building support for open government is crucial. A competition to find the world’s most open governments could provide needed nudges, including for the U.S. Countries around the globe are racing ahead with open government; the U.S. should feel fresh urgency to keep moving forward, too.