The biggest difference between Gov 2.0 and OpenGov seems to be how they approach 
transparency. Gov 2.0 is about transparency through open data and the "government as a 
platform" idea. "Open Government" is about Transparency for the sake of 
accountability, but not necessarily interaction, cooperation and reuse of data outside the 
government. 
[who advocates] Open Data does so in order to make it accessible to citizens 
rather than to hold government accountable. This is not to say that one approach is 
better than another, but this is to say that there seem to be two very different 
motivations for advocating for transparency, and they do seem to correlate to whether 
people label themselves as part of Gov 2.0 or part of OpenGov. 
In general, reflection and debate on this point is accelerating. At the moment, some characteristics  
of Open Government on which there is more or less agreement are that Open Government is about: 
• deliberation, choice, influence on decisions and participation as a common citizen 
• letting all citizens use technology to participate, monitor and define government activities.  
In other words, Government is really Open when it's based on interaction, not only on some  
set of infrastructures and methods imposed top-down 
• diffused, seamless conversations, that are only possible with digital technologies, online  
social networks and so on, between public employees and citizens. 
The obvious potential limit of these definitions is that they rely on a big, still largely unknown  
factor, that is actual citizen participation. When data are opened, the problem becomes to have  
everybody use them, in order to actually realize Open Government as defined above. This issue will  
be explored in detail in the next paragraphs, but we can already say that Open Data are highlighting  
the critical, weak points in the present and future relationship between citizens and governments. 
While citizens participation is essential, especially in times of social and economic crisis, achieving  
it on a large scale won't be easy. Frustration and lack of trust in institutions in many countries are  
high, so it's no surprise when people express doubts that opening government data won't help much  
in fixing things. 
3.6. Clearer vision of the real risks and limits of Open Data
Open Data, we already said, is about reuse. The point is, at least when the goal is Open Government  
and  transparency  in  politics,  reuse  by  whom?  There  is  no  automatic cause-effect  relationship 
between Open Data and real transparency and democracy. On the contrary, several problems may  
occur, if administrators and citizens don't pay close attention. 
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Copyright  2011 LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. This work is released under a Creative Commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)