Electoral Competition, Transparency, and Open Government Data

The availability of large government data, new technological developments, and emerging social norms for improved government transparency are pressurizing governments around the world to adopt open government data initiatives. Although some governments actively respond to such changes, others are found to lag despite these pressures. This study focuses on the political and administrative factors in explaining this variation. Examining how Korean local governments responded to citizens’ open data requests during 2007-2016, the study demonstrates how political competition and administrative capacity are critical factors for improving government transparency and responsiveness to information disclosure requests from citizens. Specifically, considering (1) the scope of information disclosure, (2) the time to disclosure, and (3) the quality of disclosed information as the outcomes, greater electoral competition and stronger administrative capacity were found to help governments enhance transparency and responsiveness. However, regression discontinuity design shows that the partisan affiliation of local governments had little significant impact on these outcomes.