Sometimes important public opinion research does not receive the attention it deserves. The Global Opening Government Survey – a study undertaken through collaboration between the World Bank’s Open Government Practice and RIWI Corporation, a Toronto-based company – is one such survey.
Global in scope, the Global Opening Government Survey spanned 63 countries on every continent. It asked the fundamental question: Do citizens perceive their governments to be open, as well as why, and how they want government to be more open.
Government openness is an important democratic requirement; it enables citizens to make informed choices, to question policies and hold politicians to account. In this sense, the extent to which citizens perceive government as open may be a litmus test for a healthy, democratic environment.
This topic is also timely, given controversy in various countries surrounding how much citizens know about what their governments are doing – from news that the NSA’s PRISM surveillance system is being used on American citizens, to reports that CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada) has been using free airport wifi to keep watch on Canadians.
Link: http://www.environicsinstitute.org/research-digest/research-digest#article_75
