Political Awareness and Symmetric Vision Evaluating the Online Government Initiative Liquid Friesland from an Openness Perspective

In February 1980, the pilot of the popular British TV-series ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ aired under the title open government. In one scene, Sir Arnold vividly shares with the viewer his thoughts on the openness of government in a dialogue with Bernard Woolley: “My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government” (Stanley, 2013). A clear statement, which however seems to have lost some of its truth during three decades; indeed, facilitating greater openness seems to have become a quasi-panacea for some of the maladies of contemporary western democracies – a growing political resentment amongst citizenries and a related alienation from the work of elected officials. A common element to most approaches to openness of governments – may they be theoretical or practical – is the idea of transparency. More precisely, one element inherent in the openness of governments is understood as the degree to which citizens are able to monitor and scrutinize the work of governments (Meijer et al, 2012). Well in line with this conception, attempts to facilitate a greater openness of governments – from the United States to Europe and from supranational to community level – revolve around making political decisions and processes more visible and hence more comprehensible for citizens. And indeed, reviews of such initiatives suggest their positive effect on trust and confidence in the political realm as perceived by citizens.