4. Infrastructuring Openness

This chapter discusses practices and politics of opening up government data in the Austrian context by focusing on three government data infrastructures: the open government data portal data.gv.at, the Austrian Micro Data Center, and the digital twin infrastructure of the city of Vienna. While these data infrastructures fundamentally differ in terms of their degree of open-/closedness, they all share the ambition to open up government data for secondary use – through initiatives such as creating open data applications, facilitating micro data research, or fostering data-driven city planning. Theoretically, the chapter draws on open government research, STS-informed infrastructure studies, and critical data studies to trace the history of open government data within the wider context of the neoliberal “data welfare state”. Empirically, the analysis focuses on three core aspects of infrastructuring openness: Infrastructure building, data sharing, and cross-organizational collaboration. This analysis shows what the recent shift in Austrian data policies from professional secrecy towards an open “data culture” practically entails. To conclude, the chapter discusses how to foster a more participatory and collaborative data culture in the context of wider transformations of the data welfare state.