The future of U.S. open government rests with ‘We the People’ — and it’s time to step up
Mary Beth Goodman and Cori Zarek
The Trump Administration finally released an action plan on open government last week. It’s the fourth such plan released by the United States and to say it was not well received by the open government community is an understatement. It was late by nearly two years, it was light on substance and borderline tone deaf in failing to address some of the serious rollbacks on openness that have occurred in the last two years, and in addition, public participation and visibility into the process to develop the plan turned dramatically opaque.
For much of the Obama Administration, we worked on portfolios that encompassed the open government work, including representing the United States Government in the global Open Government Partnership (OGP). We worked on the first three of these U.S. Open Government National Action Plans, leading our colleagues from dozens of agencies across the U.S. government to make scores of commitments around transparency, accountability, anti-corruption, public participation and more, and we found those plans received by the open government community with fairly mixed results. Critique was inevitable, and in many instances it was fair.
In our time leading this work, the U.S. made a lot of progress, and also had many setbacks. We found lots of allies — and detractors — both in our government colleagues and in the civil society advocates outside of government. One thing that remained constant was a strong pressure by civil society on the U.S. government to produce high-quality open government commitments across a variety of sectors with great depth and specificity. Civil society groups organized themselves so well that they would draft model action plans they asked the U.S. government to adopt.
At some point along the way — surely not because the government was “open” or the work was done — it seems that U.S. civil society largely moved on to other things. Some people moved into new roles, some funding disappeared, some interest waned, shinier topics took center stage — perhaps a confluence of these things and more. But there were no more model action plans and there wasn’t robust civil society review of the existing commitments. That’s not to discount the hard-working and committed few who kept up the fight, but it was no longer an organized force. And while we may not have said so publicly at the time, those model plans, in-depth criticism of implementation or work not yet included, and especially the occasional plaudits allowed us to get much more done in government.
Sadly, we have seen a lot of the progress made on a wide variety of open government and transparency and accountability initiatives rolled back or canceled outright under the Trump Administration. The U.S. withdrew from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a multilateral standard that promotes openness and accountability in oil, gas and mineral revenues to hold corporations more accountable; the White House stopped publishing its visitor logs to show who was coming in to potentially influence policy and activity (though began releasing limited information after settling a lawsuit); the press remains continually under assault by the President himself; the Freedom of Information Act — a 50-year-old law granting us the right to access government records — is met with indifference at best and hostility at worst; and the overall culture of openness, including civic engagement and public participation, has been eroded. Numerous other examples abound.
Not surprisingly, this open government plan did not address these issues — instead, by submitting the plan, the Trump Administration met the requirement to ensure the U.S. remained in good standing in the multilateral OGP. As a result, civil servants working to implement open government initiatives across the U.S. government can forge ahead, U.S. diplomatic efforts around open government and anti-corruption can proceed, and U.S. foreign assistance funding to support open government efforts can also continue. While the content and consultation process were far from perfect, the release of this National Action Plan shows that it is possible to have a continuation of OGP at the highest levels of government despite a change in leadership that results in a hostile agenda toward some of the underlying work.
Last week, Open Gov Twitter had a lot to say about the release of the Fourth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan. It seems they — we — do care about this work. So why aren’t more people putting energy and attention into it? If there is a lot to say about the open government work but we’re not willing to put in the effort and take on the heavy lift, do we really care?
If we want these bigger issues covered, if we want to see real progress, we, as civil society, need to rethink our engagement. Whereas the federal government was in the driver’s seat before in setting the open government policy, now the shift is clear. If we want a more open government, for now, it’s on us. We need civil society to step up — and that means us, too.
Civil society can be a powerful force. It’s ‘we the people’ who hold our government to account, and we can be effective when we organize and approach the work we care about together. But in times such as this — where divisiveness threatens to block progress made on the open government agenda — that approach must include learning how to engage constructively with opposing political views and educating foes as well as friends on the benefits of open government as well as listening to all feedback constructively so that compromise can be found.
We don’t have the answers, but we truly believe that open, transparent, participatory government is a cornerstone of democracy and for both of us, it’s been our professional — and sometimes personal — mission to pursue it. We are committed to re-organizing with civil society and rethinking how we approach open government in this era. We hope you’ll be joining us.
Mary Beth Goodman works on anti-corruption, good governance, and open government projects. In the Obama Administration, she worked on the National Security Council Staff, most recently as Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for Development and Democracy where she led U.S. representation to the Open Government Partnership from the White House.
Cori Zarek works on technology, free press, and open government projects. From 2013–2017 at the White House, Cori advised the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and led the team’s work to build a more digital, open, and collaborative government including representing the United States to the Open Government Partnership.
