Open Government and Open Society

Citation:

Fung, Archon, and David Weil. 2010. “Open Government and Open Society”.

Abstract:

Archon Fung and David Weil, February 2010

Enthusiasts of transparency should be aware of two major pitfalls that may mar this achievement. The first is that government transparency, though driven by progressive impulses, may draw excessive attention to government's mistakes and so have the consequence of reinforcing a conservative image of government as incompetent and corrupt. The second is that all this energy devoted to making open government comes at the expense of leaving the operations of large private sector organizations – banks, manufacturers, health providers, food producers, drug companies, and the like – opaque and secret. In the major industrialized democracies (but not in many developing countries or in authoritarian regimes), these private sector organizations threaten the health and well-being of citizens at least as much as government.

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