If the media is to be believed, citizens do not have much confidence in the public administration and the political system. However the Council for Public Administration, the Scientific Council for Government Policy and the Social and Cultural Planning Office show that citizens do have confidence in the democratic system, but, at the same time, the confidence in politicians, political parties, administrators and regulators is under growing pressure. In order to keep a well-functioning of the society and the rule of law intact, it is essential to change this situation. Openness and transparency regarding administrative and political decision-making are excellent means of regaining some of the lost trust.
In the recent years, there have been many developments with political decision-making processes and government spending that focused on transparency of information and documentation. The next step lies in making people, organizations and their mutual relations transparent while shaping and representing the administration. This provides an understanding of the reasoning and the decision-making context behind any political decision.
Within the project Transparant Nederland a data platform will be built. This platform will allow us to see the relations and connections between politicians, people, organizations in the business community, social organizations, the government, universities, and think tanks. All this information is already available publicly, but in an incoherent form and spread over the internet. Transparant Nederland will gather this information and make it available as open data.
With this project, we want to permanently facilitate network analyses by providing insight into how the administrative power works in the Netherlands. This will be done on the basis of (open) data of individuals, organizations, and relations. This project is done in collaboration with Waag Society, University of Leiden, VPRO’s Tegenlivht, De Correspondent, Vrij Nederland, De Volkskrant, and Newsuur. We will use our previous knowledge from for example Publeaks in order to investigate the relationship between democracy and technology.
For more information, please visit www.transparantnederland.nl
