How might changing the way that information about public money is organised, circulated and utilised in society shape the character of democratic engagement and political accountability in decision-making about public funds?

How are ideals from the open data movement gaining traction amongst advocates and practitioners of financial transparency, to what end, and with what consequences? What are the politics of the emerging issue of open budget data?

In order to begin to address these and other questions I led work on a research report on “Open Budget Data: Mapping the Landscape”, undertaken as a collaboration between Open Knowledge, the Global Initiative for Financial Transparency and the Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam.

The report charts a constellation of definitions, best practices, actors, issues and initiatives associated with the emerging issue of open budget data in different forms of digital media – from social media platforms to search engine results.

I’ve just archived a copy of the report on SSRN, where you can download it. An accompanying bibliography with pointers to research and other resources in this area is available here.