Another Canadian's post on OGP (Michael Gurstein)

[Michael Lenczner-2]

I really enjoyed this post of Michael's. I found it easier to
understand his concerns and I had a better sense of his version of a
possible alternative than I did before.



http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/does-inclusion-matter-for-open-government-the-answer-is-very-much-indeed/

Does “Inclusion” Matter for Open Government? (The Answer Is, Very Much Indeed!)
Posted on April 18, 2012 3

I am currently in Brasilia at a truly remarkable event–the inaugural
meeting of the Open Government Partnership.  It is remarkable for a
number of reasons–the role and significance of Civil Society in the
Partnership and particularly the acknowledgement by governments of
that role and significance; the quite uninhibited idealism being
expressed by those participating and again particularly and
surprisingly by governments in the opportunities for enhanced
democracy, transparency and accountability that the OGP represents and
that the new technologies are perceived to enable; and overall the
sense of new beginnings that hark back to those early meetings of
idealists and dreamers and post-60′s revolutionaries that accompanied
the very early days when the rules and practices of the Internet were
not yet fixed and the billions of dollars in value had not yet been
created (and appropriated).

And I don’t mean to cavil or be a nay-sayer, I too am being carried
away by the passion and optimism of the speaker from Yemen talking
about how Openness will help to transform his country, by Hillary
Clinton talking about renewed democracy and the ideals of Abraham
Lincoln;  by Minister Clement of the Harper Government of Canada
talking positively about the role of Civil Society in Open(ing)
Canadian governance; but, but…
There is a dirty little secret that everyone knows but no one is
willing to talk about, certainly not at this event. The secret is that
alongside the rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the Internet
generation has emerged the greatest inequalities of wealth and
privilege that any of the increasingly Internet enabled
economies/societies have experienced at least since the great
Depression and perhaps since the beginnings of systematic economic
record keeping.  The association between the rise of inequality and
the rise of the Internet has not yet been explained and it may simply
be a coincidence but somehow I’m doubtful and we await a newer
generation of rather more critical and less dewy-eyed economists to
give us the models and explanations for this co-evolution.

But in the context of the Open Government Partnership and the 60 or so
countries that have already committed themselves to this or are in the
process I’m not sure that the world can afford to wait to see whether
this correlation is direct, indirect or spurious especially if we can
recognize that in the world of OGP, the currency of accumulation and
concentration is not raw economic wealth but rather raw political
power.

The danger thus is that in the same way as there appears to be an
association between the rise of the Internet and increasing
concentrations of wealth one might anticipate that the rise of
Internet enabled structures of government might be associated with the
increasing concentration of political power in fewer and fewer hands
and particularly the hands of those most adept at manipulating the
artifacts and symbols of the new Internet age.

Thus I am struck by the fact that while the OGP over and over talks
about the importance and value and need for Open Government there is
no similar or even partial call for Inclusive Government.  I’ve argued
elsewhere how “Open”, in the absence of attention being paid to
ensuring that the pre-conditions for the broadest base of
participation will almost inevitably lead to the empowerment of the
powerful. What I fear with the OGP is that by not paying even a
modicum of attention to the issue of inclusion or inclusive
development and participation that all of the idealism and energy that
is displayed today in Brasilia is being directed towards the creation
of the Governance equivalents of the Internet billionaires whatever
that might look like.

Certainly there is enormous value in Openness and Transparency in
attacking corruption in Less Developed Countries. However, if those
countries need to wait for the availability of widespread digitization
and Internetization of their public administrations and citizenry
before they are able to effectively respond to corruption I fear that
they will be waiting a very long time indeed.  In practice, OG data is
about — as I’ve said earlier — two worlds. There is the world of fancy
apps and the world of dusty records and there is rather too much in
the current hype around OGP in blurring the fundamental distinctions
between the two. There is I fear an assimilation of the very real
concerns and opportunities in transparency as a means to attack
corruption to the commercial drives and strategies for organizational
and individual empowerment that may (and I do say may since there is
rather too much that we don’t really understand) underlie much of the
former concern with open data and shiny tools for smartphones.

I don’t really have any idea (for example) what crowd sourced public
policy looks like but I fear that no one else does either and a too
rapid rush into this as a fundamental structure for democratic
participation may not in fact have a totally happy ending. So while I
do have considerable hopes and expectations for the OGP I’m also
concerned that it may be in part motivated by a too rapid rejection of
the longer and more tedious road of reforming our existing democratic
structures for reasons and with objectives that may not always be
completely transparent even to those who are most obviously committed.

[Mark Weiler-2]

For those in the Canadian context, what do you have to say about this?

"There is a dirty little secret that everyone knows but no one is willing to talk about, certainly not at this event. The secret is that alongside the rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the Internet generation has emerged the greatest inequalities of wealth and privilege that any of the increasingly Internet enabled economies/societies have experienced at least since the great Depression and perhaps since the beginnings of systematic economic record keeping...  Thus I am struck by the fact that while the OGP over and over talks about the importance and value and need for Open Government there is no similar or even partial call for Inclusive Government."

http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/does-inclusion-matter-for-open-government-the-answer-is-very-much-indeed/

---

From: Michael Lenczner <[hidden email]>
To: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 4:29:26 PM
Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] Another Canadian's post on OGP (Michael Gurstein)

I really enjoyed this post of Michael's. I found it easier to
understand his concerns and I had a better sense of his version of a
possible alternative than I did before.



http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/does-inclusion-matter-for-open-government-the-answer-is-very-much-indeed/

Does “Inclusion” Matter for Open Government? (The Answer Is, Very Much Indeed!)
Posted on April 18, 2012 3

I am currently in Brasilia at a truly remarkable event–the inaugural
meeting of the Open Government Partnership.  It is remarkable for a
number of reasons–the role and significance of Civil Society in the
Partnership and particularly the acknowledgement by governments of
that role and significance; the quite uninhibited idealism being
expressed by those participating and again particularly and
surprisingly by governments in the opportunities for enhanced
democracy, transparency and accountability that the OGP represents and
that the new technologies are perceived to enable; and overall the
sense of new beginnings that hark back to those early meetings of
idealists and dreamers and post-60′s revolutionaries that accompanied
the very early days when the rules and practices of the Internet were
not yet fixed and the billions of dollars in value had not yet been
created (and appropriated).

And I don’t mean to cavil or be a nay-sayer, I too am being carried
away by the passion and optimism of the speaker from Yemen talking
about how Openness will help to transform his country, by Hillary
Clinton talking about renewed democracy and the ideals of Abraham
Lincoln;  by Minister Clement of the Harper Government of Canada
talking positively about the role of Civil Society in Open(ing)
Canadian governance; but, but…
There is a dirty little secret that everyone knows but no one is
willing to talk about, certainly not at this event. The secret is that
alongside the rise of the Internet and the empowerment of the Internet
generation has emerged the greatest inequalities of wealth and
privilege that any of the increasingly Internet enabled
economies/societies have experienced at least since the great
Depression and perhaps since the beginnings of systematic economic
record keeping.  The association between the rise of inequality and
the rise of the Internet has not yet been explained and it may simply
be a coincidence but somehow I’m doubtful and we await a newer
generation of rather more critical and less dewy-eyed economists to
give us the models and explanations for this co-evolution.

But in the context of the Open Government Partnership and the 60 or so
countries that have already committed themselves to this or are in the
process I’m not sure that the world can afford to wait to see whether
this correlation is direct, indirect or spurious especially if we can
recognize that in the world of OGP, the currency of accumulation and
concentration is not raw economic wealth but rather raw political
power.

The danger thus is that in the same way as there appears to be an
association between the rise of the Internet and increasing
concentrations of wealth one might anticipate that the rise of
Internet enabled structures of government might be associated with the
increasing concentration of political power in fewer and fewer hands
and particularly the hands of those most adept at manipulating the
artifacts and symbols of the new Internet age.

Thus I am struck by the fact that while the OGP over and over talks
about the importance and value and need for Open Government there is
no similar or even partial call for Inclusive Government.  I’ve argued
elsewhere how “Open”, in the absence of attention being paid to
ensuring that the pre-conditions for the broadest base of
participation will almost inevitably lead to the empowerment of the
powerful. What I fear with the OGP is that by not paying even a
modicum of attention to the issue of inclusion or inclusive
development and participation that all of the idealism and energy that
is displayed today in Brasilia is being directed towards the creation
of the Governance equivalents of the Internet billionaires whatever
that might look like.

Certainly there is enormous value in Openness and Transparency in
attacking corruption in Less Developed Countries. However, if those
countries need to wait for the availability of widespread digitization
and Internetization of their public administrations and citizenry
before they are able to effectively respond to corruption I fear that
they will be waiting a very long time indeed.  In practice, OG data is
about — as I’ve said earlier — two worlds. There is the world of fancy
apps and the world of dusty records and there is rather too much in
the current hype around OGP in blurring the fundamental distinctions
between the two. There is I fear an assimilation of the very real
concerns and opportunities in transparency as a means to attack
corruption to the commercial drives and strategies for organizational
and individual empowerment that may (and I do say may since there is
rather too much that we don’t really understand) underlie much of the
former concern with open data and shiny tools for smartphones.

I don’t really have any idea (for example) what crowd sourced public
policy looks like but I fear that no one else does either and a too
rapid rush into this as a fundamental structure for democratic
participation may not in fact have a totally happy ending. So while I
do have considerable hopes and expectations for the OGP I’m also
concerned that it may be in part motivated by a too rapid rejection of
the longer and more tedious road of reforming our existing democratic
structures for reasons and with objectives that may not always be
completely transparent even to those who are most obviously committed.
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