Open government in Brazil: Reflections on the power relations revealed through the instrumentation of public action

ABSTRACT

The Open Government agenda has emerged as a catalyst for the modernization of Public Administration, promoting transparency, citizen participation, and technological innovation. It integrates dimensions such as bureaucracy, governance, and legitimacy. However, despite this modernizing push, analyses of Open Government rarely consider or provide a critical perspective on the power dynamics, legitimacy, and governability that emerge from these initiatives. This study investigates the non-neutrality of public action instruments in Open Government, examining how these instruments delimit access to information and social participation while legitimizing state action and functioning as mechanisms of power. It seeks to unveil elements of the complex power relations and dynamics that influenced legitimacy and governability during the administrations of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), Michel Temer (2016-2018), and Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).

Keywords:
Open Government; instrumentation; public action; power relations; governance