Exploring Non-State Stakeholder and Community-Led Open Governance: Beyond the Three Pillars of Open Government

Abstract

Over the past four decades, open government has been applied and researched in diverse democratic and administrative contexts. The literature focuses primarily on open government initiatives designed by government actors or co-created by government actors with non-state stakeholders. But the literature has paid little attention to the emergence of open governance by non-state stakeholders acting independently of government and developing innovative solutions to complex social problems. Thus, we develop a conceptual model of non-state stakeholder-led and community-driven open governance. Based on an in-depth case study on OpenStreetMap—a global digital community of more than 300,000 volunteer mappers—we found key themes and sub-themes that illuminate the concept of non-state stakeholder and community-led open governance leading to a comprehensive model of open governance that compares existing open government initiatives with non-state stakeholder and community-led initiatives. This study extends the open government literature by considering the role of non-state stakeholders in open governance initiatives. Findings from this study can help government actors harness the efforts of non-state stakeholders that provide public benefit.