Working Paper: Multilateralism, Models, Membership, and Messiness

Is OGP More Successful at Getting Change Than Other International Initiatives?

By Chathan Raj with Joseph Foti

How do multilateral initiatives compare in terms of generating reform? How does the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) compare? And should it be a model for other international initiatives?

This working paper seeks to evaluate whether OGP, in particular, and pledge-and-review mechanisms, more generally, compare favorably to their more formal counterparts. The paper will not evaluate the political feasibility of “legally binding” versus “politically binding” initiatives; that is a job for historians, international relations experts, and memoirists. What it can do, instead, is evaluate the degree to which the different initiatives assess “success” and make that information public. It also can provide an approach for explaining why variation might occur – which variables matter and how they might explain OGP’s performance relative to other peers.

Download the working paper: Multilateralism, Models, Membership, and Messiness