More and more government organizations are making data public with the aim of promoting innovation and democratic processes. But open data does not always lead to the desired impact. In this study the authors analyze why some organizations are successful in exploiting the potential of open data and others are not. This research uses an ecosystem approach to investigate similarities and differences between four organizations that use open data. This has revealed three factors that promote the ecosystem, namely the influence of other organizations that are also involved with open data such as the motivation for open data, the important role of innovation champions and the utilization of the user perspective. Three barriers have also emerged: the preparation of a suitable case question for open data, the difficult relationship between obtaining capacity and the expected yields and the difference in scale between issues and profitable data sets.

The technological dynamic has a major impact on all kinds of markets, but what does this dynamic mean for local and regional government? This special issue presents five articles about local and regional governance in the information society. The editors of this special issue have chosen to place two articles by practitioners (written by Marcel Thaens and Evert-Jan Mulder) and three articles by scientists, one of which is a co-production of scientists and a practitioner. The editors believe that for a platform such as Bestuurswetenschappen (Administrative Sciences), it is also important to make the different voices heard and thus feed a rich debate about local and regional governance in the digital society.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.