| Keywords [eng] |
Open government, public diplomacy, country reputation, nation branding, international relations, public sector innovation, e-government, e-democracy, government 2.0, multi-methods reseach, Delphi study, case study |
| Abstract [eng] |
The aim of this dissertation is to explore the potential relationship between open government and public diplomacy, identifying the latter as an active tool of the first. As open government activities are implemented more and more by governments and administrations at all levels around the world, it is important for public servants and policy makers to recognize the effects that those initiatives may have for image-building strategies in the international arena. Moreover, as public diplomacy scholars acknowledge the erosion between foreign and domestic publics and take into account new forms of defining soft power, the values signalled by open government activities become impossible to ignore, especially when promoted through institutionalized multinational platforms. After examining the history and research of the two main concepts, this study focuses on formulating a theoretical framework for the assessment of open government activities in their public diplomacy sense. It does so by first critically evaluating literature review of relevant frameworks and taxonomies for both concepts. Second, findings of a Delphi study research are integrated with the identified models, enriching them with data coming from the specific insight of open government’s experts, and a unifying framework is proposed. Finally the newly developed framework is employed in two case-study analysis of open government activities implemented in Canada and South Korea. The specific context of these activities is analysed, keeping into account each country’s international reputation and public diplomacy strategy. The study concludes that while open government activities have indeed a public diplomacy value, this is often not fully recognized by governments, resulting in missed opportunities for image and reputation building. On the other hand, some governments and administrations are found to be very aware of this positive reputational effect, and might even have started to exploit it to their advantage. Finally, scholars and practitioners of both open government and public diplomacy are invited to build on the findings of this research, particularly with more empirically-based approaches, in order to truly grasp the fundamental shift caused by governments’ employment of innovative information and communication technologies and its effects on national and international publics. |
