Not with a Bang but a Whimper: The Politics of Accountability and Open Data in the UK
Not with a Bang but a Whimper: The Politics of Accountability and Open Data in the UK
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不是一声巨响而是一声呜咽：英国的问责制和开放数据政治
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发表时间：
2011
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通讯作者：
T. McClean
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作者：
T. McClean
政府主动发布原始数据集能否带来更多参与性民主和政府问责制？本文探讨了什么是可能的限制，通过检查英国政府最近发布的历史数据，在其COINS公共支出数据库的开放政府数据。本文首先探讨了英国开放政府数据政策的起源。它表明，使用公开数据作为巩固民主的工具，与以往的做法相去甚远，实际上是英国政治和行政管理中几个长期趋势的结果。然后，它表明，这些起源鼓励有限的观点开放的政府数据对民主问责制的实际行使可能产生的影响，一个强调消除制度障碍的访问，往往是过度乐观的这些数据可能被广泛使用的个人公民。尽管主动披露可能使“公众”更容易获得信息，但实际使用它仍然存在许多障碍，包括处理原始数据本身的技术挑战，理解它的专业知识以及有效采取行动的机会的存在。使用政府数据集的资源要求实际上加强了能够处理和解释这些数据集的中介组织的重要性，以权利为基础的框架可能不是理解开放政府数据对民主实践的影响的一种特别有益的方式。它还表明，到目前为止，COINS披露的经验证实了技术怀疑论者提出的一些关键主张，包括信息技术可能会加强现有的权力关系，而不是破坏它们。
Can the pro-active release of raw datasets by the government lead to more participatory democracy and government accountability? This paper explores the limits of what is possible through open government data by examining the UK government’s recent release of historic data in its COINS database of public expenditure. The paper begins by examining the origins of the UK’s open government data policy. It shows that far, from constituting a radical departure from pre-existing practice, the use of open data as a tool of democratic consolidation is in fact the outcome of several long-term trends in British politics and administration. It then shows that these origins encouraged a limited view of the likely impact of open government data on the actual exercise of democratic accountability, one which emphasises the removal of institutional barriers to access and tends to be overly-optimistic about how widely these data are likely to be used by individual citizens. Although pro-active disclosure may make it easier for “the public” to obtain information, there are still numerous barriers to actually using it, including the technical challenge of processing the raw data itself, the expertise to understand it and the existence of opportunities to act effectively on it. Overall, the paper argues that far from encouraging direct participation, the resource requirements for using government datasets actually reinforce the importance of intermediary organisations capable of processing and interpreting them, and that a rights-based framework may not be a particularly informative way of understanding the effects of open government data on democratic practice. It also suggests that the experience of the COINS disclosure has thus far confirmed a number of key claims made by technological sceptics, including that information technology is likely to reinforce existing power relations rather than disrupting them.