Open Government a la Russe: How the Russian Government is Trying to Modernize

This is a guest post written with Elena Kvochko about Open Government in Russia. Open Government is a potentially exciting and vital concept that was all the rage at the start of Obama’s administration but which has flown largely under the radar since. 

This October, Russia marked the first anniversary of the national Open Government initiative and the six-month anniversary of joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral initiative to make governments more transparent and accessible. However, Russia’s understanding and implementation of Open Government are, as you might expect, quite different from the rest of the world’s.

Open Government is a relatively new approach that builds on recent developments in information technology. It is different from other approaches, such as “e-government,” because of its emphasis on allowing private citizens and businesses to experiment. Open Government is not simply about making traditional government services available electronically, it is about opening up data so that private citizens themselves can develop new approaches and methodologies and about creating an enabling environment for deeper technology-driven transformation.

Making government data more publicly available is not just a nice thing to do, it can have a significant economic impact. As one just one example, the European Commission estimated that opening up previously inaccessible government data would generate up to $48.7 billion a year in new economic activity. Open Government then is a philosophy with both social benefits (greater citizen engagement) and economic ones (faster growth and better use of private and public sector resources).

Specific approaches to Open Government differ greatly and are strongly influenced by a country’s underlying political institutions. In the United States, for example, an executive order from the White House jumpstarted the Open Government initiative. Cabinet-level agencies were given 90 days to produce and submit formal plans outlining how they would further transparency, collaboration, and engagement. While the intellectual formulation of Open Government was commendable, a major weakness to the American initiative was its lack of funding: because they received almost no resources specifically dedicated to promoting and sustaining Open Government, implementation has been highly uneven. A recent status report issued by the White House suggests that the administration hasn’t abandoned the initiative, but the progress to date has been modest and it will be interesting to see how it is handled in Obama’s second term.

In Russia, Open Government (initially, большоеправительство or “big government”) started as an initiative strongly supported by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. In the Russian context “big government” (hereafter referred to as Open Government for clarity’s sake) reflected a desire to involve a larger group of stakeholders in decision making and give them an opportunity to voice their opinions on major government initiatives.

According to Ilya Breyman, a government consultant with Ward Howell and a participant in an  Open Government working group:

“Open Government in Russia, unlike most other countries, is rather about meritocracy and expanding the talent pool…Interestingly, after participating in something like this, some are persuaded to starting working for the government full-time, despite much lower salaries and greater responsibility. Many of the members of the Open Government Expert Council are respected professionals with very little prior interaction with the government or none whatsoever. Making their recommendations public will exert certain pressure on the government to implement them”.

Russia’s Open Government documents were surprisingly blunt in acknowledging the ruling party’s decreasing popularity. The authorities view Open Government as a way to potentially address the concerns of the increasingly disaffected middle class, and they therefore made an active effort to encourage public participation in the project. According to the official report, Russia’s Open Government website was visited by over 1 million people who submitted over 37,000 suggestions and comments. At the same time, according to a poll on the Open Government website, 95% of citizens admitted they were not fully aware of the initiative’s goals.  When one considers these answers were submitted by a self-selected group of people actively visiting the Open Government website, it becomes clear that much work remains to be done in building awareness and that it will be difficult to overcome the public’s skepticism.

Outside of the website, the main working mechanisms of Open Government in Russia are working groups and expert councils featuring about 200 “permanent experts” who are expected to provide feedback on major government initiatives. As just one indication of how seriously the government was treating the issue, Medvedev created a Minister-level position to oversee the work of Open Government, appointing a former businessman, Mikhail Abyzov, to become Minister of Open Government.

However, while Abyzov has responsibility for setting the strategic direction of Open Government, the Ministry of Information Technologies and Mass Communications will actually have responsibility for “technical” and practical” implementation of the effort. The Ministry is headed by the newly-appointed young and ambitious Minister Nikolai Nikiforov who formed a brand new leadership team soon after taking charge. How the responsibilities will actually be divided between the two ministers is just one of the many issues surrounding Open Government that has yet to be resolved.

Despite its ambitious goals, many Russian experts remain decidedly skeptical about Open Government and its potential to create lasting change. There is a pressing need to move towards specific, concrete deliverables and to ensure that the initiative does not become overburdened with bureaucracy and red tape, since that would be inherently contradictory to its goals of inclusiveness and collaboration.  The government needs to listen and demonstrate how practical and important recommendations coming from experts and citizens are incorporated into the actual policies and legislation. Although this will be extremely difficult for a government such as Russia’s, the partial success of other “ombudsmen” in areas such as fighting corruption suggests that it is not impossible.

There is no “one size fits all” model for Open Government, and Russia’s multitudinous oblasts, okrugs, and republics should be encouraged to design and deliver their own unique approaches to engaging with citizens. In other contexts, Open Government has shown an ability to create economic value and to bridge gaps between citizens and governments, and Russia is in urgent need of accomplishing both. Considering that internet penetration is growing rapidly in Russia and the country now has Europe’s largest group of regular internet users, the government must find a way of engaging with its citizens or watch ever-larger numbers of them move into opposition.