"The Institutionalization of Digital Openness": How NGOs, Hackers and Civil Servants Organize Municipal Open Data Ecosystems

Abstract

Around the world national and municipal governments launch open data initiatives with declared goals like increased efficiency, transparency or economic growth. However, although little of these effects have been proven, more and more administrations open up their datasets to the public. The dissertation project describes this phenomenon as the ongoing institutionalization of digital openness in the field of public sector information. With empirical evidence from three case studies in large European cities the research project intends to theorize how NGOs, hackers and certain civil servants turn open data into an institution, which more and more public bodies feel the need to adapt to.