Open Government and musings
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Open Government and musings
 
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The Beneficiaries of Gov 2.0
I liked that this author asked that the citizen/end user of open government / government data be considered in the equation and not just the goverati calling the shots to meet their particularist needs. Just like the sale of radarsat meant nothing to most Canadians when it was framed in technolpolitical or scientific parlance but got traction when it got framed as a sovereighty issue. That also told me something about how we do not really know how to think or talk about science and technology, but that is another matter. I am also appreciating the critical reflections on the open data cases to date. It helps us/me think them through and to temper / question rhetoric and utopias.
Open data / open government, if framed in the language of deliberative / participatory democracry and/or information equalization could result in the discourse being about information/data the government creates as being a public good which should be in the public domain. Particularly since we have already invested in it as citizens. It means stating that when citizens have access to those data / information they can participate / act in the process and not just be the recipients of policy. It can become a dialogical process. As Darin Barney states it, it is about doing citizenship. But this takes time.
A conversation about what we believe our democracy is about, what our roles and responsibilities are, and how access to public data / information fit into that equation is a good place to start.
At the moment the debate is mired in crown copyright, budgets, licenses, business cases, formats, open source, transparency, cost recovery, the information officer, cool applications, statistics canada, etc. These are operational, implementation and technological issues. These are often tautological arguments and are not tied into why we are doing this in the first place. They are not even considered as part of the higher order principle open government / open data as being a key part of the democratic process. That is where we/I should start. We each know something about a or some tree/s but we/I do not see the splendour of the forest let alone the magnificience of the global ecosystem.
I just read a paper by Mueller, Mathiason and Klein (2007). The Internet and Global Governance: Principles and Norms for a New Regime. I read it right after attenting 2 Digital Economy Round Tables on Parliament Hill yesterday. One on The Modern Digital Infrastructure and Foreign Ownership and the other Copyright, Intellectual Property Protection and the Future of Broadcasting in the Internet Age moderated by Modérateurs: Marc Garneau & Pablo Rodriguez. Partisan tones, all panelists were men, overepresentation of cultural industries and no sciece & engineering representation and very much 'a society du spectacle' type of event, but nonetheless it was a good discussion between and among a select group of key big players that have opposing views.
The paper described the elements of what a regime is: "implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures around which actors 'expectations converge in a given area of international relations." How does one go about that:
1. Principles are agreed upon - Open Government is ..... the principles of open data are...
2. Agreement about norms, which tie into principles - what are the standards and obligations of the parties involed in open government...
3. Then come rules, prescriptions and proscriptions for action - legislation, acts, directives, regulation, Treasury Board of Canada rules
4. Finally decision making procedures and the organizations through which the rules are implemented, established and institutionalized - finances, budgets, who, mechanisms, formats, etc.
The last two are developed in alignement with the principles and the norms.
When I think of the round table discussions which were mostly particularists desires and not what is good for Canadians; whininig about the mechanics of the current process; proscriptions without principles, tangled in the technicalities of implementation or operations. I also learned that Bill C-61 included specifics about technologies, which surprised me, as I would expect a bill on copyright to not be discussing video tapes but reproduction. Apparently, Bill C-60 did not. Also, reflecting upon a conversatation I had with Michael Lenczner about higher order thinking in relation to open data combined with my general observations about our political process, the conversations I have had with public officials in the past few months and, yikes, thoughts about our society in general, I thik we all seem to be muddled in the bits, rules, problems, issues, fiscal constraints, fears, operations and so and we have no frame of reference about how this fits into Canadian society, economy and culture.
Our open government / open data discussions are about applications, catalogues, user licenses, formats, code, data types, and while we are doing that, and unthinkingly self referencing ourselves (e.g. just copying Vancouver Open Data terms of use or catalogue) we are not providing our governers in both the bureacracy and government with a principled frame of reference for them to implement this work. We are also not really talking to the public, but just talking to ourselves.
I really want to start thinking about the big picture, the principles & norms and then hashing out the parts. Work has been done in the US, but it has not really been done here yet.
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