Government openness and transparency in the form of communicating data sometimes misses the mark. However, if we view data sharing as an act of distribution between government and citizens rather than an act of communication, it becomes clearer what good governance means. This is what Gijs van Maanen concludes in his dissertation, which he will defend tomorrow at Tilburg University.
Openness and transparency is a high priority these days. Several governments have taken initiatives to share data in recent decades. This strengthens the position of citizens toward the government. For governments themselves, transparency is a way to gain trust. But to what extent does data sharing contribute to that?
Gijs van Maanen, a researcher at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (Tilt), studied two initiatives: the sharing of groundwater level data by a water board and making municipal data and documents accessible to the general public. He focused specifically on how the communication of data changed the relationship between government and citizens.
