Local Open Government: Empirical Evidence from Austrian Municipalities

Local governments have increasingly been applying an open and collaborative approach towards public management during the last years. Accordingly, they aim at increasing accessibility by releasing public data and providing participative decision-making arenas. ‘Open government’ has also been implemented in Austrian municipalities. This paper takes stock of the current status of open government implementation in Austria by analyzing survey data from city managers. Findings indicate that Austrian municipalities choose releasing public data over involving citizens in decision-making. Although public managers seem to value the principles of an open government, a successful implementation of open government is hampered by resource constraints.