Open Government and Its Impact on the Lobbying Environment in CEE Countries

Abstract

Although the responsibility for transparency should be shared by lobbyists and public officials, it is public officials who must be accountable to the public for decisions taken. The chapter introduces some recent global initiatives that deal with the phenomenon of open government as a supporting tool for efforts to make the governments more transparent, responsive, accountable, and effective with special attention to Open Government Partnership (OGP). It also discusses under what circumstances open government may affect the transparency of lobbying and thereby reduce the corruption opportunity space, and subsequently provides deeper analysis on how seven member-states of the European Union that have joined the OGP initiative, and are also former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), use the potential of their membership in the OGP.