Abstract
During the last decade, a new approach to bureaucratic reform in the field of public administration, open government, has aimed to increase government transparency and accountability and improve participation of citizens and other stakeholders of government. In the current era of digital governance transformations, evaluating governmental efforts to become open is a central concern of politicians, policymakers, and researchers. Various global maturity models have been developed, but the majority of them focus on the technological capacities of government rather than the historic affinity of openness and democratic governance. In this study, we attempt to address this problem by conceptualizing how governments harness technology innovations and by prescribing developmental phases for open government. Using the qualitative meta-synthesis method, we compare 10 open government maturity models to find the similarities and differences between them. Finally, we present a comprehensive model which evaluates the open government initiatives holistically and includes the following six major stages: (1) an initial stage; (2) a transparency and accountability stage; (3) an open collaboration stage; (4) a platform stage; (5) a democratic open government stage; and, finally, (6) an open governance stage.
Highlights
• This study compares 10 open government maturity models and illustrates the similarity and differences between them. • We develop an open government maturity model to address open government initiatives holistically. • Our open government maturity model has six stages: an initial stage, transparency and accountability, open collaboration, platform, democratic open government, and open governance. • Most of the open government initiatives focus on the technological capacities of government but our analysis highlights the historic affinity of openness and democratic governance.
Introduction
In recent years, a new approach to bureaucratic reform in the field of public administration—open government—has introduced governmental openness as a solution to perennial concerns about government transparency, accountability, corruption, participation, public services, innovation, and economic development (Dawes et al., 2016; Ingrams, 2018; Veljković et al., 2014; Zuiderwijk et al., 2021). Guided by this paradigm, many governments—by using the new technologies and updating their processes and infrastructures—have attempted to demonstrate improvements in their level of openness.
Both scholars (Cortes-Selva & Perez-Escolar, 2016; Kalampokis et al., 2011; G. Lee & Kwak, 2012; Zulkarnain, 2014) and international organizations (e.g., UN, OECD, World Bank, Open Knowledge Foundation, and World Wide Web Foundation) have tried to develop specific models to evaluate open government initiatives from particular points of view such as readiness, implementation, infrastructure, organizational capacities, and political, social, and economic aspects. These developments indicate that open government scholarship is progressing steadily and has permeated into the programmatic language and philosophies of major institutions.
However, the developments also underline just how diverse and multifaceted our current understanding is of open government. First, many models focus on technical dimensions of open government such as the technologies that governments offer like social media (Feeney & Welch, 2016; Gunawong, 2015; Ingrams & Schachter, 2019). As a result, the opportunities for citizens or civil society to use technologies get ignored (Zhang & Feeney, 2020). Second, though there are many models that evaluate open government initiatives, when we look at the results of the models, we see that we still have quite a fragmentary and conflicting approach to understanding what characterizes a good versus a poor or mediocre approach to government openness. This is not only a conceptual problem for open government scholarship. It is also a policy problem. A country may receive a high assessment score in one model, while the same country does not receive much recognition in other models because of the selection of evaluative criteria. In other words, because each maturity model evaluates open government initiatives from specific perspectives and focuses on certain dimensions, the evaluation results could vary from one model to another model.
To give one example, according to the Open Government Data Report (OECD, 2018), which measures government performance according to each stage of the data value chain, France is ranked 1st out of 23 OECD member states. However, based on the WJP Open Government Index (World Justice Project, 2019), which evaluates open government initiatives globally, France ranks 9th out of 28 EU countries and 12th out of 126 countries worldwide. This can also be seen in the variety of conceptual models and measurement tools. On closer inspection, we can see that the Open Government Data Report is primarily focused on the availability and accessibility of data, while the WJP Open Government Index focuses on government responsiveness and public participation. These are both valid methods for measuring open government, but they have different conceptual approaches that lead to different results, and they tend to ignore entirely the things they do not measure rather than considering how multi-dimensional aspects of open government fit together to give a holistic impression of open government performance. This mirrors the observation in the academic literature that open government approaches are divided between more technical, data-driven approaches, on the one hand, and citizen-oriented, responsive approaches on the other hand (Lourenço et al., 2017; A. Meijer, 2009; A. J. Meijer et al., 2012).
At some point, greater synthesis and comprehensiveness in open government evaluation will become necessary. Lack of a holistic open government framework with which to assess the maturity of the open government initiatives could prevent citizens, policymakers, and other stakeholders of governments from getting a comprehensive picture of the initiatives’ various levels of progress. Governments could narrowly focus on an area of openness that makes them look good while ignoring other important areas. Obviously, governments would be very inclined to publicize their open government efforts based on a particular evaluation model which assesses their maturity level much higher than other models. If models are one-sided or biased, the risk increases that governments can window dress their operations, showing off their achievements while the reality of their performance is in fact much less attractive (Ingrams & Schachter, 2019; Zuiderwijk et al., 2021). As the scholarly and practitioner interest in open government has increased to such a high degree in recent years, now is a good time to consolidate and build on our existing knowledge; to learn from the most positive examples, correct mistakes, and set out new challenging benchmarks for governments to follow.
In this study, we aim to develop a new multi-dimensional holistic assessment framework that builds on a variety of existing frameworks. The concept of open government is not only synonymous with the use of new technologies in governance but also brings wide-ranging developments in various fields, particularly political developments (Pirannejad, 2011). Most of the existing models in this field are less addressed or not addressed at all. In this article, we try to examine the various dimensions of the concept of open government, by examining the existing models in this field, to provide a comprehensive model that simultaneously considers the various dimensions of the concept. Our framework provides a comprehensive approach to open government assessment that factors in how the technology innovation practices of democratic governments help them to realize open government. The historic link between open government and democratic society governance is a vital link that runs through a large swathe of scholarly research on the topic but is frequently neglected by data- and technology-focused concepts of openness (Hansson et al., 2015; Ingrams, 2018; Millard, 2018; Yu & Robinson, 2011; Zhang & Feeney, 2020).
The paper proceeds as follows: first, we provide a review of the state of the art of research on maturity and open government. We set out key definitions and concepts and describe what shortcomings we would like to address. Second, we present our meta-synthesis approach and show the results of our final model of open government maturity. We finish by expanding our analysis of each stage of maturity by tying the results back to open government literature, before summing up our conclusions.
Literature Review
What is Open Government?
Open government is an approach to public administration that relies on giving citizens greater transparency towards the internal processes of government and greater influence on its decision-making (Gasco, 2015; Grimmelikhuijsen & Feeney, 2017; A. J. Meijer et al., 2012). Key to these transparency and participation qualities is the adoption of digital technologies to support them (Matheus et al., 2021; Schnell, 2020). Recent definitions of open government have therefore added qualities of information availability and information technology (e.g., Gil-Garcia et al., 2020), and we agree that technology is integral to open government initiatives. The use of participative tools in open government initiatives goes beyond citizen use to include use by other governmental agencies in more collaborative approaches such as inter-agency data sharing (S. J. Piotrowski, 2017) and intranet infrastructures (Wang & Feeney, 2016), as well as shared participation in governmental policies and services by civil society networks (Bearfield & Bowman, 2017; Schnell & Jo, 2019). Inevitably, this means that open government is an essentially dynamic, relational construct that is difficult to measure and is viewed differently by actors depending on their position in a political system (Wootten & Kiss, 2019).
In sum, open government encompasses both the more technical sides of transparency such as open data, and the more democratic sides of participation such as public commenting on new laws, citizen petitions, and crowdsourcing public improvement schemes (Pirannejad et al., 2019). Thus, open government is not just an idea for public administration reform, but also political reform as it connects with fundamental social and political properties of governance systems such as concepts of deliberation and representation found in foundation democratic theory by scholars such as John Rawls and Robert Dahl (Hansson et al., 2015; Porumbescu, 2017). The institutional and technological elements of open government need to be well connected to be successful. Technology and data produced by technology are not politically neutral and depend on institutional capacity and norms to deliver values such as transparency, participation, and collaboration (Matheus et al., 2021; Nikiforova & McBride, 2021).
Open Government Maturity Models
There is something that sounds rather absolute about the concept of open government as if a government either is or is not open. In fact, scholars have found that open government is a difficult quantity to define that is easily subject to abuse or manipulation (Ingrams & Schachter, 2019; Yu & Robinson, 2011). Even among Western European countries where the historic connection between democracy and openness should be strongest, there is significant variation in open government performance (Schmidthuber et al., 2021).
An interest among scholars in disentangling the genuine performers from the superficial open government performers has led to research on the “maturity” of open government. Maturity models are extrapolations to the extent that they use an ideal linear template to make sense of empirical observations that themselves reveal only parts of the whole (Coursey & Norris, 2008). But government maturity models are useful for understanding how a particular system does or should evolve, for holding governments accountable for their performance, and as learning devices for policymakers. Another important contribution that maturity models can play is putting in place realistic expectations for government capacity (Cingolani, 2021; Matheus et al., 2021; Schmidthuber & Hilgers, 2021). Currently, developing countries face challenges from “digital infrastructures, sustainable e-government platforms and limited resources” (United Nations, 2020, p. iv). Any government’s ability to adopt reforms depends on their existing capacity in terms of resources and their political constitution. These kinds of determinants are relatively similar globally across developed and developing countries (Safarov, 2020), which gives scholars a reasonable assumption that capacity can lead to quite a consistent maturity process provided that the determinants are in place. Further, over time, by participating in international open government initiatives, countries facilitate a developmental process of spreading norms and building coalitions (Berliner et al., 2021).
Maturity suggests two important features. First, that there are qualitatively different types of open government, with some better than others. And second, that performance can be measured on a chronologically continuous scale where governments could progressively or digressively get better or worse at being open. This linear progression is also cumulative in the sense that each prior stage of open government development helps to foster the next stage, and that leapfrogging—while possible—is unlikely, because the right building blocks are needed to progress in a steady way.
The major question for maturity models of open government is what should go into their measurement instruments. A wide range of political and institutional characteristics contribute to the quality of open government (Ingrams, 2020; Matheus et al., 2021; Safarov, 2019). Scholars have found that some aspects of open government—such as data transparency—are markedly easier for governments to implement but that they may simultaneously not deliver on other areas of openness such as public participation and collaboration. There are also significant implementation costs of more interactive kinds of open government that outweigh the managerial benefits that would be therein derived (Feeney & Welch, 2016). Even in a historically open style of government such as that of the United States, recent trends have shown that policymakers cling to rather traditional forms of transparency such as legal access to public documents and open data, while harder to reach areas of open government such as public participation and inter-agency collaboration are much rarer (S. J. Piotrowski, 2017; S. Piotrowski et al., 2018). Thus, open government maturity models address how governments progress or regress along a path towards “better,” “stronger,” or “more mature” open government performance.
Existing open government maturity models have taken a wide range of approaches, and we aim to align these approaches as well as to integrate a stronger perspective of democracy into these models. Some models are focused on particular government technologies such as open data (Sayogo et al., 2014) or social media (G. Lee and Kwak, 2012). But open government is broader than specific technologies (Lember et al., 2019). Other maturity models tend to be strong supply side in focus by looking at supply-side indicators of openness such as whether social media accounts exist (regardless of usage) (A. J. Meijer, 2014) or whether budgetary documents are disclosed online (in addition to already-existing offline) forms (Rodriguez Bolivar et al., 2007). G. Lee and Kwak (2012) consider how social media initiatives take advantage of open government characteristics of transparency, participation, and collaboration, but there is a need for broader conceptualizations of open government maturity.
By developing a holistic model of open government maturity, we aim to improve on these earlier approaches in two keyways that are consistent with the view of maturity as a chronological and cumulative process of improvement where any case within phenomena (in this case open governments) can be placed on the scale according to pre-defined measurements of maturity. The first goal is to adopt a truly generic idea of open government from a governance point of view rather than a maturity model based on a specific kind of technology such as open data, websites, or social media. By placing open government within a governance paradigm, we follow approaches to maturity from Casady et al. (2020) that connect the technical steps of government development with a more fundamental view of the institutional values, which in our case are the values associated with openness such as civil rights and democratic responsiveness. Second, we aim to capture maturity levels that are cumulative and progressive so that it is clear how each prior level of the maturity process was instrumental in making the next stage possible.
Research Method and Procedure
In this study, we use a meta-synthesis approach which is a type of exploratory research method. This approach is designed to systematically review the research and integrate the findings from qualitative studies (Jensen & Allen, 1996; Sandelowski & Barroso, 2006; Walsh & Downe, 2005). Because most of the stage models are developed qualitatively, in this study, we use a qualitative meta-synthesis method to compare the existing open government models.
Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Approach
The qualitative meta-synthesis refers to a research approach that collects, analyzes, and interprets results across multiple studies or reports to create a new interpretation (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009; Finfgeld, 2003; R. P. Lee et al., 2015). The approach takes the findings of any individual study and aims to provide a comprehensive viewpoint that stands further than the individual parts alone imply (Walsh & Downe, 2005). J. Lee (2010, p. 221) describes the approach as one that can “not only maintain the unique features of individual studies but also reveal the differences among them, thereby enabling researchers and readers to understand how various study results are related to each other.” The qualitative meta-synthesis was introduced for the first time by Harris and Stern (1985) in the healthcare field and during the last decades, it has been used in other social science areas such as public administration (Almuftah et al., 2016; Dekker & Bekkers, 2015; Fath-Allah et al., 2014; J. Lee, 2010; Siau & Long, 2005), organizational studies (Hoon, 2013), and management science (Tranfield et al., 2003).
This study aims to reveal the underlying metaphors and concepts present in the stage models of open government in order to build/theorize the underlying higher-level stage model of open government development. Open government is a relatively new concept in public administration and during the last decade several academics, international organizations, and consulting firms have developed a number of open government stage models. These models are presented as results of qualitative studies and therefore, a qualitative meta-synthesis seems to be an appropriate method to reveal the underlying metaphors and concepts present in open government stage models.
Qualitative Meta-Synthesis Procedure
This study adopted the qualitative meta-synthesis approach presented by Sandelowski and Barroso (2006). They proposed a six-step approach for the qualitative meta-synthesis: 1) formulating the review question; 2) conducting a systematic literature search; 3) screening and selecting appropriate research articles, reports, and studies; 4) analyzing and synthesizing qualitative findings; 5) maintaining quality control; and 6) presenting the findings. The synthesis steps which are used in the study are outlined in Figure 1 and explained in detail as follows. Qualitative meta-synthesis procedure for this study. Adopted from Sandelowski and Barroso (2006).
Formulating the Review Question
Like other research methods, formulating an appropriate research question is the first step of the meta-synthesis method. As discussed earlier, in this study we aim to synthesize the open government stage models, address the underlying themes and metaphors in the currently available open government stage models in the literature, and produce a common frame of reference for evaluating open government initiatives.
Conducting a Systematic Literature Search
In this study, we collect academic, peer-reviewed articles that addressed the issue of the open government model. The collecting process is undertaken using the following combination of terms: “open government” and “model” or “stage” or “level” or “tier” or “development” against the eight databases provided by Academic Search Premier (EBSCO), Taylor & Francis, Emerald, Springer, ProQuest, Blackwell Synergy, Sage, and Science Direct Publications. Additionally, Google and Google Scholar search engines were also used for searching for the relevant articles.
Screening and Selecting Appropriate Research
In the initial search, 368 articles were collected from the online databases and manual searches to identify the final systematic review (see Figure 2). At the first stage of screening, the publication and the abstracts of all founded articles were reviewed to exclude those articles that did not match the aforementioned criteria and drop duplicates. According to the conventional systematic review methodology, the following inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to the identified articles by two independent researchers. This was done to ensure that the sample of articles used for the analysis was appropriate for the meta-synthesis. The inclusion criteria included the following items: (1) methodology of the publication was qualitative, (2) publication was academic and peer-reviewed in nature, and (3) publication dealt with the open government model. The exclusion criteria refer to (1) papers with no research design (papers with an entirely conceptual or theoretical background), (2) develop “readiness” indicators/measures of open government initiatives without specific reference to stages of development, (3) quantitative-based research analysis, and (4) use languages other than English. Eventually, the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria on the identified articles, a total of 10 studies were included for the final systematic overview (see Table 1). Systematic review flowchart. Selected models.
Analyzing and Synthesizing Qualitative Findings
After selecting the 10 studies based on the previous section, we compared each of the studies together in order to find their similarities and differences. As Jensen and Allen (1996) state that this section includes two parts. The first one is the in-depth reading of the selected research to explore the metaphors, phrases, ideas, and concepts which are used in each study. In the second part, the explored key metaphors, phrases, ideas, concepts, and relations are compared against each other in order to generate a grid linking concepts to themes. This process of analyzing the selected studies was quite time-consuming and needed high accuracy. Three experts from the field of open government carried out the study by exploring the metaphors and concepts of each study and also by comparing the studies against each other.
Comparison of stages in open government developmental models.
Underlying metaphors and themes of open government stage models.
Maintaining Quality Control
As discussed in the previous section, the process of exploring the metaphors, phrases, ideas, concepts, and relations among the selected research and comparing them against each other depends on a high level of attention to detail and transparency. In this study, we have two kinds of scenarios for quality control. At first, in the process of in-depth reading of the research and exploring related metaphors and concepts, and comparing them against each other, a focus group of three experts compared the stages in the selected 10 models against each other. All the explored metaphors, concepts, and relations were checked with them to be sure that they are correct. In the second scenario, we used the Delphi method and forwarded the results of comparing the models to five other experts in the field of open government. The process of the Delphi phase took around 3 months and after some rounds back and forth, the final model, which was presented in the next section, was finally approved.
Presenting the Findings: Qualitative Meta-Synthesis of Ten Developmental Stages of Open Government Maturity Models
According to the semantic comparison of the descriptions of each stage in these 10 models, we identified 11 specific stages as numbered in the leftmost column of Table 2. In the following, the stages which were identified and extracted throughout the processes of comparison are described.
Stage 1 & 2. Among the 10 selected models which are investigated in this study, eight of them in their first stage focus on the same issues which refer to the initial efforts of the government to be open. Among these eight models, two of them (model 1 and model 3) consider generally the prerequisites and preliminary efforts for starting the process of openness in government. Accordingly, in these models, general labels such as initial (model 1) and initial conditions (model 3) have been used for their first stage (Gartner Group, 2010; G. Lee and Kwak, 2012).
Among the eight mentioned models, four of them look at the preliminary efforts from a data perspective and emphasize the quality and quantity of government data that are published in the first stage of the openness process. According to this perspective, they use different labels for their first stage such as aggregating and integrating government data (model 2) and initial state data (model 4), publishing and manipulating data (model 6), and aggregating and integrating government data (model 8). Among the models examined, model 5 was the only model that considered the maturity of openness in government by focusing on transparency and citizen participation (Schwalje & Aradi, 2013). Based on this model, the first attempts of governments to open up are accompanied by their efforts to increase transparency and promote public participation. Accordingly, in this model, “initial transparency and citizen participation” is considered as the first stage of the model. Finally model 9, without emphasizing a specific issue in the first stage of its maturity process, has used the term “semi-open” to cover the set of initial efforts of governments in the opening process (Ham et al., 2015).
Stage 3 & 4. Like any other organism that goes through its growth stages after emerging, all the maturity models, which were investigated in this study, also considered the growth and development of open government initiatives in the next step after the initial stage. Here, the main theme is commitment, as governments move from the presentation of information to institutionalizing the consequences of information sharing through transparency and accountability. Among the 10 models examined, only five models (model 3, 4, 5, and 7) specifically considered the concept of transparency as the next step of the open government maturity process (Krabina et al., 2012; G. Lee and Kwak, 2012; Schwalje & Aradi, 2013). In the rest of the models, although the issue of transparency is not specifically mentioned in the title of any stages, as in the previous five models, this concept has been emphasized as one of the important issues in the maturity process of open governments. Among the models examined, in addition to the concept of transparency as the second stage of the open government maturity process, two of them also emphasized the concept of citizen participation (in model 5) and accountability (in model 7) as other important issues in the second stage of the process of development and growth of open governments (Abu-Shanab, 2015; Schwalje & Aradi, 2013).
Stage 5, 6, and 7. In the step after the previous stage of the open government’s maturity process, various issues have been considered in the examined models. Most of them (models 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10) emphasized how publicizing government data can provide the capabilities of collaboration and participation between governments, businesses, and citizens. They emphasized issues such as providing innovative services, creating economic value from government data, entrepreneurial support from governments by providing public data for businesses and citizens (Abu-Shanab, 2015; Ham et al., 2015; Krabina et al., 2012; G. Lee and Kwak, 2012; Mergel, 2015; Millard, 2018; Schwalje & Aradi, 2013). Other models (model 2 and 8) have emphasized the need for governments to make their data more accessible to other segments of society, including the integration of government data with non-governmental data such as the data of smartphones and social networks to provide innovative public services and also facilitate the economic opportunities for the societies (Kalampokis et al., 2011; Karakiza, 2015).
Among the models studied in this study, in three models (model 2, 5, and 8) these stages of maturity are considered as the last and most complete level of open government maturity. In other words, based on these models, the government will reach its final point at these stages. However, in the other seven models, the process of open government maturity continues and further stages have been considered.
Stage 8 and 9. Among the examined models, six models (model 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10) considered more advanced levels of open government maturity such as optimizing (model 1), ubiquitous engagement (model 3 and 4), manipulation, and community formation around the data (model 6), fully opened (model 9), and open engagement (model 10). The developers of these models believed that the efforts of governments to be open, which are discussed in the previous stages, would be more complete in these stages. At this level of maturity, governments would not only look at citizens and businesses as they did in the previous stage but they consider them as a strategic partner (Gartner Group, 2010; Ham et al., 2015; Krabina et al., 2012; G. Lee and Kwak, 2012; Millard, 2018; Sayogo et al., 2014).
Stage 10 and 11. Based on 80% of the examined models in this study, the maturity stages of open government’s initiatives have been completed in the previous stages (stage 8 and 9) and in the maturity cycle designed in these models, stages 8 and 9 have been considered as the optimal level of open government’s maturity. However, only two of the examined models, (model 7 and 10) by considering the next steps, emphasized the continuation of the maturity process of open government initiatives with closer attention to the influence of democracy on open government. Model 7 emphasizes the participation of citizens and their empowerment in order to participate directly in the decision-making process. This model emphasizes that open governments at their most mature level, by empowering citizens, lead to the formation of stronger democracy in societies (Abu-Shanab, 2015; Pirannejad & Janssen, 2019). In fact, this model was the only model among the models examined in this study that emphasized political variables and democracy promotion as pillars of open government maturity. Model 10 was the only model examined that focused on the process of openness in the governments with a macro approach to political institutions. In other words, the other nine models in the design of the open state maturity process have considered the concept of openness in governments from a specific micro viewpoint, while in the tenth model, an attempt has been made to consider this concept with a holistic and macro approach. According to model 10, open government initiatives reach the highest level of maturity when they are considered as a part of a societal-level open ecosystem where public policy concerns are effectively addressed (Millard, 2018). In other words, open governments do not achieve their ideal stage unless they are considered in a macro-level democratic open ecosystem. The model used “open governance” as the final stage of maturity proves of open government initiatives and illustrated that when we talk about openness, this concept is not only limited to governmental domains but also should consider the societal-level ecosystem of open government.
Discussion: A Common Frame of Reference for Open Government Maturity Models
Metaphors, description, and the main issue of the open government maturity model.
In the following, the metaphors and themes identified and extracted throughout the processes are described.
Stage 0: Initial
As usual, the first stage in most maturity models is the emerging or initial stage which refers to the preliminary stage of a concept. In the field of open government, when we talk about the maturity of open government initiatives you can find that most of the related models have the same first stage or level (as discussed in the previous sections). The initial stage of the open government maturity model refers to the infrastructure that is necessary for openness in government. In other words, the first effort of openness in a government is related to the willingness of the government to share data with the public and the governments’ readiness in terms of infrastructure (Assar et al., 2011; Gerunov, 2017; Gil-Garcia et al., 2014; Saez Martin et al., 2016). According to the last version of the UN e-government survey report, the number of countries with open government data portals jumped from 46 in 2014 (24%) to 153 in 2020 (80%). This illustrates that most governments have already taken the first steps to openness in their activities.
This stage presents the first initiative of government to be open. This first stage relates to drivers of open government adoption such as globalization trends from national or international pressures (De Renzio, 2005). Around the turn of the Millennium when governments faced a choice to adopt open government, it was a decision to move only into an initial phase of adoption. Due to political pressures, the choice to adopt open government was somewhat limited (Cucciniello et al., 2012). In other words, openness became a necessity for governments.
Comparing existing open government maturity models above illustrates that most of the models started the process of openness in governments in this initial stage where the decision consisted of simple adoption with questions about how and what to implement coming later. Accordingly, we combined all these kinds of efforts in one stage which was labeled as “stage 0.” Because all kinds of actives in this stage are concerned with prerequisite infrastructures and conditions to achieve openness in governments, we refer to this as number “0.” That means that this stage refers to the initiatives which are a starting point of openness procedures in governments but open government programs are not yet visible or tangible. When we look at the open government maturity models which are investigated in this study, we can find most of them have already been identified such as stage but with different labels such as “initial state” and “initial conditions.”
This stage also pertains to the aggregation of government data. Based on the quality of infrastructures which are vital for the process of openness, governments will take different lengths of time to pass this stage and go to the next step. It should be mentioned when a government passed this stage it does not mean the government will from then on not have any infrastructure issues. Based on the new generation of technology and changing environmental conditions which surround governments, it could be imaginable that the governments in some cases should update their openness initiatives based on the new conditions.
Stage 1: Transparency and Accountability
According to the literature, various studies conclude that transparency is a crucial ingredient of open government. In other words, the process of openness in governments is accompanied by transparency promotion in a variety of areas such as government operations, procedures, tasks, budgeting, and government-held data (Janssen et al., 2012; Nam, 2015; Veljković et al., 2014). On the other hand, some other research, in addition to emphasizing transparency, have pointed to the concept of accountability as another prominent feature of open governments. The interaction between the two concepts of transparency and accountability is such that some researchers consider accountability to be the result of transparency and emphasize that increasing transparency in governments automatically increases governments’ accountability (Abu-Shanab, 2015; Esteller-Moré & Otero, 2012; Lourenço et al., 2017). As Veljković et al., (2014) explain “transparency of a government is a means for achieving an accountable government that measures and tracks the outcomes of its actions and takes responsibility for the results. Letting people see the internal government flows and investigate whether their representatives have met their expectations is an important step for achieving accountable government.” (p. 280).
Comparing the studied models indicates that in all of these models, directly or indirectly, the issue of transparency and accountability has been considered as one of the pillars of open government projects. In some of these models, more emphasis has been placed on this concept, and it has been mentioned as one of the stages of maturity, while in others, this concept has been emphasized to a lesser degree.
Over time (especially after the previous stage), social and political sensitivities to government transparency increase and there is a demand for more responsiveness to decisions and actions of governments (Feeney & Welch, 2012). In other words, in the context of transparency, governments are committed to taking policy steps towards greater openness, and there are increasingly social and political pressures on openness in the various activities of the government. In response to the demands, civil society and the media get access to more information about the government and its activities (Aaronson, 2011; Smith, 2008). This stage—which partly depends on a commitment to transparency on the part of the government—is at the heart of how civil society holds its public officials accountable.
At this stage, the idea of openness in government gradually becomes a value and norm in society and turns into a necessity. In other words, governments have no choice and have to publish information about their actions. In this stage, we are faced with two kinds of transparency: active transparency (voluntary disclosure of information) and passive transparency (release of information following a request) (Mabillard & Zumofen, 2015). Some governments that are more democratic tend to provide voluntarily more information than less democratic governments that have a passive approach to transparency. Of course, it should be noted that some governments are also trying to divert public opinion in different directions by manipulating the flow of information to provide a safe environment for themselves (Fallis, 2014).
Regardless of whether governments voluntarily or compulsorily move towards transparency, the important point is that at this stage of the maturity of open government, the process of transparency becomes a greater social and political demand. Additionally, the concept of transparent and accountable government enters further into the social and political culture of a society.
Stage 2: Open Collaboration
At this stage, the governments who go through the opening process try to prepare conditions for collaborative work inside of government (government to government, G2G) and outside of government with citizens (government to citizens, G2C), business (government to business, G2B), and civil society (government to civil societal, G2CS) in order to make more responsible decisions and deliver more innovative services. In other words, at this stage, governments understand that they are not alone able to respond to all the needs of society efficiently and effectively, and need help from third parties. Accordingly, the business model of government monopoly turns into a clearer collaboration model with other parts of society.
At this stage, governments also look at the process of openness from economic perspectives. They would like to achieve more citizen engagement, business partnership, more innovative services by sharing the government information (Mergel, 2015, 2018). The economic value of data is the main concern of the government in this stage and it drives more entrepreneurship opportunities, startups, and new innovative services. As A. J. Meijer et al., (2019) described: “new innovative forms of collective action aimed at solving complex public policy issues, contributing to public knowledge, or replacing traditional forms of public service provision.” As a general entity, the government has novel datasets about the market, business, and citizens because, in most countries, the government is a major provider and also has a regulatory role. In this stage, governments, civil society, and other stakeholders are looking for ways to foster dialogue and collaboration.
It should be noted that although governments at this stage are willing to collaborate with other sections of society, this collaboration is such that it still maintains the superior position of government in society. At this stage, governments realize that sharing some of their data with other segments of society provides more economic benefits than just keeping it for internal purposes. This is especially true in the current economic environment, where most governments face budget deficits.
Interestingly, in most of the models examined in this study, the concept of has collaboration been considered as one of the most important stages in the process of openness in government. This means that the concept of openness at this level of maturity requires collaboration between governments and other sections of society. Although this collaboration at this stage is associated with economic presuppositions or the assumption that governments are willing to keep their superior hand in the economy but these set of events that occur at this stage are the beginning of a process that will be completed in the next stage of maturity (Åström et al., 2012).
Stage 3: Open Platform
At this stage of the maturity model, a paradigm shift occurs in governments. Similar to the idea of New Public Services (NPS) about “serving rather than steering,” at this stage, governments by providing data and serving society become a facilitator instead of rowing or steering. In fact, at this maturity level of open government initiatives, governments realize that instead of directly interfering in the affairs of a society, they should simply become a valuable database, to serve different sections of society to provide their services and products. At this stage, the government has an intermediary role in facilitating collaboration, connecting civil society and businesses, and coordinating ground-breaking public service delivery models. This is a radical departure from the existing model of government, which Donald Kettl so aptly named “vending machine government” to Tim O'Reilly’s idea of Government as a Platform (GaaP). As O'Reilly (2011) implied under the concept of GaaP, “citizens [and other parts of society] are connected like never before and have the skill sets and passion to solve problems affecting them locally as well as nationally. Government information and services can be provided to citizens where and when they need them. Citizens are empowered to spark the innovation that will result in an improved approach to governance. In this model, the government is a convener and an enabler rather than the first mover of civic action.” The platform is free, and the cost is essentially zero. Citizens, civil society organizations, NGOs, businesses, companies, SMEs, and also the government have access to the data which are provided on the platform (Millard, 2018). In this platform, the different parts of society as Millard (2018) explained “are themselves changing from passive consumers of data, content, and knowledge to active producers and prosumers” (p. 85).
Stage 4: Democratic Open Government
According to the literature, access to information is one of the essential conditions for having proper democracy in societies (Ruijer et al., 2017). On the other hand, open government by disseminating public data aims to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration, all of which are important aspects of democracy (Attard et al., 2015; Mathiesen, 2015; Pirannejad, 2017). Accordingly, open government can be seen as a way to strengthen democracy (Hansson et al., 2015). Open government initiatives can directly or indirectly affect democracy. But as Hansson et al., (2015) state, “[the] review of the open government paradigm shows that the concept of open government is highly politicized toward a political discourse that is mainly about innovation and efficiency, rather than deliberation and democracy” (p. 4). The studied models in this study also confirm this statement because among the 10 models which were examined in this study only two models (model 4 and model 7) by focusing on public participation and citizen empowerment emphasized democratic concerns in the open government context, while all other models concentrate on collaboration opportunities, delivery of innovative services, and increasing efficiency in government through openness.
In the proposed model, the fourth level of open government maturity is devoted to the issue of democracy and the democratic approach of open government initiatives. At this stage of the maturity model, democratic concerns such as freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of media, freedom of press, freedom of net, empowering citizens to make decisions, and political development indicators are considered as the most important factors of open governments maturity.
It should be noted that achieving this level of maturity is highly dependent on the type of political system that governs societies and most countries that have poor status on democratic indicators do not reach this level of maturity of open governments. In other words, at this level, open government initiatives emphasized the dissemination of government data in support of democracy and related democratic indicators. The main concern in this stage is how much governments are disseminating their information and data with a more democratic mindset. As Hansson et al., (2015) implied “open data and transparency are means not only for accountability but also for control. Therefore, we need a more critical discussion on who controls the data, how the data are produced, and by whom” (p. 11). This is the reason why, despite the significant efforts of some countries such as Bahrain, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to openness at the global scale, the open government projects in these kinds of countries have not reached this level of maturity and have stopped at the second stage (open collaboration) or, at most, at the third stage (open platform) of the maturity process.
Stage 5: Open Governance
In the current age, most aspects of human life are intertwined with data, and almost everything we do as citizens, businesses, government, etc. creates a digital trail. Based on the new kinds of technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), in addition to governments which are themselves a novel source of data, other sections of society are also engaged in data production and analysis. According to this condition, the government and their data along with other sectors of society and related data are seen as parts of an ecosystem that includes integrated components such as civil society, business, government, cities, urban initiatives, traffic, air pollution, etc. At the fifth stage of the open government maturity model, open government initiatives are considered as part of a larger open ecosystem. In this stage, open government initiatives reach the optimal level of maturity and are not limited to the government domains. As Millard (2018) explained, the initiatives should be seen “across the whole of society, and not just within the public sector” (p. 77) through an ongoing dialogue with civil society and citizens (Ianniello et al., 2019). In other words, at this level of maturity, like Hudson (2016) stated “open governance matters, not because it is a good thing in itself, or because it leads directly to better development outcomes (it rarely does). Instead, open governance matters because it enhances the ability of communities, to try, learn and adapt their way towards better development outcomes.”
Based on the ideal state of partnership, collaboration, co-creation, and cooperation that exists between the open governments and various other parts of the open ecosystem at this level of maturity, the ability to learn, adapt, and generally become intelligent open government is conceivable. At this stage, open government can learn from the environment and become adopted based on the demands of the environment. At this level of maturity, unlike the third and fourth levels, where governments merely provided a platform for the activities of other sections of society, the ecosystem provides access to the data and information not only for governments and citizens but for all sections of society. This is vital for governments and all parts of the ecosystem because it is the free flow of data and information that provides the lifeblood of this ecosystem and allows different parts of the ecosystem to access collections through the information of other parts and become a learner entity. In the meantime, governments are no exception to this rule and as a member of this ecosystem, they develop their learning cycle and become a kind of smart government that can better manage their challenges with the help of other sections of society. Accordingly, at this level of maturity of open government, governments achieve an appropriate level of intelligence and flexibility that provides them with better and more efficient, innovative, and participatory services.
Conclusion
In this paper, we set out to address the ambiguity and incongruity of existing approaches to open government maturity using a meta-synthesis approach. We analyzed 10 open government maturity models to find areas of common ground and to draw out the most salient levels of open government change that need to be present in our models. We find that there are basically six major stages, which we describe using metaphors that capture their institutional meaning in a process of maturity (Figure 3): (1) an initial stage; (2) a transparency and accountability stage; (3) an open collaboration stage; (4) a platform stage; (5) a democratic open government stage; and, finally, (6) an open governance stage. This constitutes a holistic model of open government maturity, which builds on earlier maturity models that focused on a specific geographic area (e.g., Schwalje & Aradi, 2013) or technology of open government such as social media or open data (e.g., Kalampokis et al., 2011; G. Lee and Kwak, 2012). Further, by considering fully how open government programs support democratic norms and processes such as free media and expression and strong civic institutions as a step towards a data-sharing ecosystem which we call “open governance,” we answer the call for the technocratic side of open government to be linked with the institutional side (Matheus et al., 2021; Nikiforova & McBride, 2021; Safarov, 2020). Maturity levels of open government initiatives.
The capacity to shift into the next of each of the stages is characterized by a corresponding main developmental issue:(1) preparation, (2) information sharing and awareness, (3) data economy, (4) paradigm shift, (5) political, and (6) ecosystem. These main issues describe the kind of institutional challenge that must be solved by governments in order to move to the subsequent stage. In this paper, we do not address which determinants play a role in this shift through the milestones, but we do explore extant literature on these issues to analyze what kinds of institutional features are associated with each shift. Knowing these features is a good starting point for empirical work on how maturity is realized.
By synthesizing existing works and conceptually elaborating on the meaning of each stage independently and interdependently as part of a chain of linear stages, the article also builds substantially on our existing understanding of how open government stages work dynamically in a developmental context. We noted that, while a majority of works focused on earlier stages of maturity where transparency, participation, or collaboration were the goal of open government reforms, fewer works addressed open government as a governance “system”; that is a way that the various components of open government led to a ubiquitous form of governance characterized by values of openness. Such a system of openness considers how an open government and all the elements needed for a culture of open government that functions as a sustainable ecosystem with openness across all governmental processes.
Some scholars have questioned the usefulness of open government as an idea for general government reform given that many democracies, especially in the West, embraced a model of openness in government and society long ago (Tkacz, 2014), and others have criticized the catch-all quality of the term that allows it to be ascribed to such a broad range of values and policies (Ingrams et al., 2020; Yu & Robinson, 2011). In this paper, we also highlighted how different approaches in measurement indicators that have been developed by global institutions such as the OECD and WJP lead to ambiguity for policymakers in how to assess country performance. In fact, we find that existing scholarly maturity models have quite a high degree of overlap in how they conceptualize the stages of open government. That is a positive finding for open government scholarship, policymakers, and open government advocates.
Further, by considering all these models through a meta-synthesis, we were able to demonstrate that many of the existing maturity models do not extend to matters of collaborative information sharing, information rights, and data ecosystems that link concerns about democracy to open government. Open government is not just a matter of opening data and empowering civil society. As scholars and policymakers grapple increasingly today with the corrosive effect of misinformation and media bubbles on democracy, politically sustainable forms of data ecosystem will become increasingly important (Hochschild & Einstein, 2015; Humprecht, 2019; Landemore, 2020). We would argue that linking open government and democratic governance will become an essential goal for policymakers seeking to address misinformation challenges. This issue is especially important in developing or less developed countries. In other words, in these countries, open government development is considered mostly as a technological tool used by governments, and most of the open government initiatives are limited at the initial level (stage 0) or ideally at the transparency and accountability level (stage 1) United Nations (UN, 2020). However, the open government initiatives have not reached their true place in the societies until they lead to action. Accordingly, a comprehensive evaluation of open government activities for all societies, especially for developing societies, is essential because it provides a clear view of what has been done in this area for citizens and also provides policymakers with a plan for achieving greater maturity in the open government initiatives.
From a policy-making and citizen perspective, there are also practical implications. Providing a clear, realistic, and holistic picture of the activities carried out by governments towards openness can play an important role in increasing transparency, reducing corruption, as well as increasing openness in governments as a public demand. In other words, when citizens are confronted with a more comprehensive assessment of government activities in openness government domain, it could lead to a more accurate and realistic assessment by them. Additionally, governments in such circumstances will be encouraged to balance their initiatives to address the different aspects of openness such as technical aspects as well as democratic aspects. The motivation, we hope, is for governments to avoid creating an unrealistic picture of their actions. In developing a synthesized maturity model of open government, we do not imagine those earlier models are surpassed. Much to the contrary, we wish to open up further debate about how open government development works, and what key attributes should be observed and assessed by measurement and indexing organizations to mark the positive steps of governments towards open government progress. We hope that existing indexes will become more attuned in the future to the difficult task of measuring dynamic political indicators of open information ecosystems and open governance in order to bring the historic connection of democracy and open government into closer alignment in open government research and policymaking.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author Biographies
Ali Pirannejad is an associate professor at the Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran. Iran. His main research concerns open government, government as a platform, data-driven government, ICT & political development, e-government, e-participation, and e-democracy
Alex Ingrams is an assistant professor in the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He mainly teaches and researches on the topics of public management, governmental transparency, and the influence of digital technologies on public sector information management.