The transparency performance puzzle: A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of policy failure in open government initiatives

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ingrams, Alex

Affiliations: School of Politics and Public Administration, School of Law, Tilburg University, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 013 466 2128; E-mail: a.ingrams@uvt.nl

Abstract: Open government reform is frequently being used to promote greater transparency and participation in government. But conceptual models of transparency success have not been well articulated, and there is a puzzle regarding whether and why transparency policies perform. One way forward is to assess negative cases of when open government initiatives fall far short of their stipulated goals. Policy failure can be specifically measured and has strong empirical and normative salience given that poor transparency performance is a common phenomenon. In order to address the transparency performance puzzle, this paper employs institutional theory and uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to assess whether any combination of factors proposed by the theory present necessary or sufficient conditions for failing open government initiatives. Results show that no single condition is necessary for failure to occur. Four `recipes' of policy failure exist revealing a strong influence of lack of legal mandates and weak civil society support combined with either a poor information rights environment or low resources.

Keywords: Transparency, open government, policy failure, qualitative comparative analysis

DOI: 10.3233/IP-160014

Journal: Information Polity, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 25-39, 2017