Culture of openness: the beginning of open government in municipalities in Germany

Open government and open government data are not new ideas but its implementation is still in its infancies. Germany has entered the Open Government Partnership in 2016. According to a regional agreement of the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia - the federal state with the highest population in Germany - the open exchange of best practice examples and improvement of open government development is anticipated. Based on an expert questionnaire and web content analysis we will present a case study on the current development of open government in North Rhine-Westphalia and discuss the potential for the future. We focus on the current understanding of open government to obtain insights if there is a common understanding or if there are different views. Furthermore, we consider the status regarding the realization of open government and expectations of future open government cooperation. Based on the results we propose four pillars of maturity that could be defined towards an open municipality. These pillars will be a part of a comprehensive framework for the adoption and implementation of open government at the municipal level.