Accounting for citizens when explaining open government effectiveness

Open government initiatives attempt to strengthen the relationship between public information disclosure and citizen engagement. Yet empirical assessments suggest they frequently miss their mark, thus highlighting a gap in open government knowledge: while a strong emphasis is placed on institutions in shaping the flow of government information and creating opportunities for engagement, there has been very little emphasis on understanding citizens and ways of communicating government information to draw them to engagement opportunities. To address this gap, we design a randomized survey experiment to demonstrate how the choice of reference points – cognitive anchors that innately influence the way individuals approach decisions – used to communicate government information can strengthen the relationship between public information disclosure and citizen engagement, and in turn the effectiveness of open government initiatives. We explain how these findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into ways open government could be leveraged for purposes of enhancing citizen engagement.