The past few decades have seen the welcome introduction of freedom of information laws, innovative amendments to existing legislation and a widespread call for improved access to government information.1 In response, many governments have started moving towards greater openness. In keeping with this trend, post-Soviet states have been actively involved. From the early 1990s to present, many eastern European and post-Soviet countries have enacted right to information laws, an important signal of a growing dedication to transparency and openness.2 While bureaucratic inefficiencies, weak judicial institutions and lack of enforcement continue to impede progress, countries such as Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine have recommitted within the last few years to advancing the public provision of information by joining the Open Government Partnership.3

As the open government movement continues to develop, and with it an increased focus on access to information, it is important to collect and track the experiences and perceptions of common citizens to evaluate whether governments are making progress, or regressing, in their efforts to make information more accessible to the public.

People’s experiences and perceptions can signal many things, be it a need to enact new laws or improve the implementation of existing legislation; the need to better inform the public of the rights and avenues available to them; or to help understand the environment in which these initiatives are applied.

To this end, this article presents the results of several survey items touching on access to information that were asked to members of the general public as part of the ongoing surveys associated with the WJP Open Government Index4 in seven post-Soviet countries: Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Because of their shared history, general progress towards reform and variation in opinion, post-Soviet countries provide an interesting look into the public’s perception and experiences with access to information.

Although results vary by country, in general few post-Soviet respondents report requesting information held by the government. Personal information and information about local businesses are the most commonly reported request and respondents in some countries report high rates of fulfillment. Satisfaction and bribery vary by country, as do the primary reasons for not requesting information.

Data

This article uses polling data from the WJP Open Government Index regarding people’s perceptions and experiences requesting information held by government agencies. The Open Government Index is derived from in-country expert questionnaires and general population polls collected for the WJP Rule of Law Index.5

The polls used in this article were carried out in two waves in 2013 and 2014 using probability samples of 1,000 respondents drawn from the three largest cities in each country and were conducted by professional polling organisations using face-to-face interviews (except for Estonia for which online interviews and a sample size of 800 respondents were used).

For our analysis, we use two groups of survey items. The first group is composed of eight questions. These questions provide baseline data on the frequency of requesting government information as well as an indication of the experiences of those who actually asked for it in terms of government responsiveness, length of time in which the information was granted, bribery and levels of satisfaction. Specifically, respondents were asked:

• Have you made a request in any way, including oral requests and written requests, for information held by a government agency (such as government ministries, municipalities, law enforcement agencies and public firms) in the past year?
• Thinking about the last time you requested information, did you request information about yourself; associated with the conduct of a local business; as members of the media or NGOs; for political purposes or to lobby; for educational or research purposes?
• Did you receive the information from the official or government agency from which you requested it?
• Approximately how long did it take to obtain the information that you requested?
• In terms of the specifics of the information you requested, how would you describe the information that was supplied to you?
• Did you have to pay a bribe (or money above that required by law) in order to obtain the information?
• How satisfied were you with the process of requesting the information?
• What are the reasons why you have not requested information from a government agency?

   

These questions provide a general picture of the provision of government information to the public but they are not without limitations. For instance, the questions combine both oral and written requests, requests made at the local and national level and requests made to a wide variety of public institutions, including government ministries, municipalities, law enforcement agencies and public firms. This is because they are intended to describe the common, everyday experiences of citizens in their interactions with the government.

Equally importantly, since freedom of information laws are not uniform around the world, there might be differences in what people understand by “requests for government information” which should be borne in mind when making cross-country comparisons.

The second group of survey items provides a look into people’s perceptions of how well the government actively provides information, including information about legal rights. These perceptions have generally been found to positively correlate with objective experiences as well as contributing to a country's culture of openness and affecting citizen behaviour. While there is a large number and type of government disclosures, for simplicity we only include two questions in which respondents were asked for their opinions about their government’s provision of information on government expenditures and the government’s provision of information, in plain language, about people’s legal rights.

In addition, we include questions where respondents were asked their perceptions concerning requests for government information when a hypothetical request is made under appropriate and uncontroversial circumstances. The questions were worded as follows:

• Could you please tell us how well or badly you think your local government is performing in the following procedures: providing information in plain language about people’s rights so that everybody can understand them?
• Could you please tell us how well or badly you think your local government is performing in the following procedures: providing information to citizens about government expenditures?
• If you could request to have access to information held by a government agency, how likely do you think it is that the agency will grant it, assuming the information is both public and properly requested?

   

Together, these survey questions present a broad indication of citizens’ perceptions of their government’s performance in providing information to the public. The data, however, only provide general information about a country’s situation. The first two questions ask respondents specifically about the performance of the local government rather than at the national level and, in general, seek to provide an overall sense of public opinion rather than detailed views on specific laws or government actions.

Access to information in context

The act of accessing information held by the government does not exist in a vacuum. In practice, citizens’ access depends on a government’s performance in a variety of dimensions including its legal framework, protection of political and civil rights, commitment to openness, bureaucratic efficiency and absence of corruption. These dimensions importantly shape the environment in which requests are made, forming what we refer to as the “requesting environment”.

In many ways, a country’s requesting environment sets the parameters for the types and nature of information requests available to common citizens. In repressive environments, requests for access to politically sensitive pieces of information are less likely to be granted but also, presumably, less likely to be requested by common citizens in the first place. In these environments, citizens may choose to self-censor, requesting information necessary to them personally but avoiding politically sensitive or potentially controversial requests that put them at risk of state retaliation. Citizens of more open countries, on the other hand, may be more demanding when it comes to levels of disclosure, transparency and types of requests. In practice, these more open requesting environments may lead to a larger number of politically sensitive and bureaucratically difficult requests.

Qualitative reports and legislative ratings concerning the strength and implementation of access to information legislation can help differentiate between the two general environments described above. At a minimum, the passage of strong laws signals the political will to provide the right in theory. At the same time, weakly enforced or practically non-existent laws suggest more repressive requesting environments.

Estonia, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine have passed legislation providing for the public’s access to information held by the government.6 According to the Global Right to Information Rating, these laws rank within the upper levels of the 102 laws included in the database – Estonia’s legislation ranks 37th, while Georgia’s, the Kyrgyz Republic's and Ukraine’s rank 32nd, 28th and 19th respectively.7

In contrast, other countries in the region – namely Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan – present a different picture. Although broadly referenced in the constitution,8 Freedom House notes that Kazakhstan does not have a specific right to information law.9 Consequently, government decisions are frequently reported to be made on arbitrary grounds.10 In Russia, the right to access information exists in law,11 but right to information advocates have reported frequent non-compliance and severe difficulties with the law in practice.12 Finally, although Uzbekistan provides for the right in law,13 civil society organisations have been highly critical of the law’s implementation, with Freedom House noting in its Freedom of the Press report “Uzbekistan has an access to information law on the books, but it is not enforced.”14

The differences between these two groups point to different environments when requesting information. Indeed, because of these differences, it is important to be cautious when interpreting survey results. To help take this into account and to provide more fitting comparisons, in our analysis below we sort countries according to a rough estimate of their requesting environments approximated by the Civic Participation dimension of the WJP Open Government Index, presented along with the Global Right to Information Rating produced by Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy.15

The Global Right to Information Rating, as noted above, scores countries’ legal framework. The Civic Participation dimension of the Open Government Index considers the effectiveness of civic participation mechanisms – including the protection of the freedoms of opinion and expression, assembly and association, and the right to petition the government – and is derived from surveys of the general public and local lawyers in each country.16

Together, these two indicators serve as reasonable proxies for a country’s requesting environment and, when combined with the brief qualitative reports noted above, present a fairly consistent picture with Estonia, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine exhibiting more open requesting environments than Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan.

Results

This table presents statistics of people’s experiences requesting information held by a government agency. Column 1 presents the scores and rankings of the Civic Participation indicator of the Open Government Index. Column 2 presents the scores and rankings of the Global Right to Information Rating by Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy. Column 3 presents the percentage of respondents who made a request for information in the past year with the number of responses listed in parenthesis. Columns 4 and 5 split the sample into two groups: requests made for personal information or information associated with a business, and requests made as a member of the media, NGO, interest group or for educational purposes. Panel A shows the responses for all requests. Panel B presents the responses for personal requests. Panel C presents the responses for non-personal requests. The asterisks denote statistically significant results from a t-test of difference of means between the responses of panel B and panel C.

Table 1: Experiences in requesting information held by a government agency