Manuella Maia Ribeiro

New perspectives for electronic government in Brazil: the adoption of open government data in national and subnational governments of Brazil

The development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) enabled production of bases containing raw data which can be freely manipulated, filtered or being crossed to build new applications. These possibilities of using this raw data and its manipulation have been called Open Government Data (OGD). The aim of this paper is to present the State of Art of the Open Government Data in Brazilian National, State and Municipal governments. Some benefits that OGD have been promoted are: transparency promotion, and, improvements of social control and citizen participation. The methodology used is the literature review mainly about concepts of Open Government Data and three case studies about Brazilian governmental initiatives of OGD Portals. It was conducted an exploratory study of Brazilian initiatives National and Subnational governments that aims to verify the Brazilian level of OGD based on the eight principles of OGD and the five stars of open linked data, the last one was created by Tim Berners-Lee to measure the level of open data in websites. The final considerations reveal Brazilian initiatives adopt almost the entire principles of OGD. Further, the initiatives are in the third stage of a completely open linked data (three stars).

Open government data and the data usage for improvement of public services in the Rio de Janeiro City

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for information transparency in Brazil is not recent. It is possible to highlight several strategies have emerged to promote transparency of these information. This article aims to fill a gap observed in the literature regarding the use of data and information provided by governments and used by citizens and companies from the comparison with the specialized bibliography. The methodology consists of a single case study, the city of Rio de Janeiro, with review of literature in the field of e-government and open data followed by an exploratory study of the portals open data and open data policy municipality of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore creating a simple visit to portals based on the literature review of the eight principles of open data of the Open Government Data and five stars of Tim Berners-Lee. Finally, based on the work of Zuiderjwik & Janssen (2014) pointing virtuous elements of the use cycle of open data by civil society. This work also increase an element lacking in the literature: strategies of dissemination and encouraging governments to use open data. The results indicate the scarce, but organize data can improve the performance of service delivery of a city.

Case studies of digital participatory budgeting in Latin America: models for citizen engagement

This article presents the study of the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and local governance in Latin America, mainly using the internet for participatory processes, such as the experiences of Digital Participatory Budget (DPB), purposing the direct participation of citizens in setting priorities in public investment. The methodology used was the literature research on key concepts, followed by the discussion of the relationship between local governance and citizen participation and the presentation of experiences that produced findings on the impacts of the use of ICTs in participatory processes. Four Brazilian cases (Porto Alegre, Ipatinga, Belo Horizonte and Recife), one Peruvian (Miraflores) and one from Argentina (BellaVista) are presented and related challenges to local governance in identifying their real capabilities of building a new relationship between government policy and society in Latin American regions is discussed. Through the use of the Internet, these participatory government budgets can increase citizen participation and allow thousands of people deciding the allocation of public investment. This research considers that the use of ICTs, especially the Internet, can be a promoter of citizenship and citizen participation. However, this promotion may be limited by the condition of access to these technologies and the depth and quality of information available to citizens that would undermine the enjoyment of the rights of citizens.

Using internet to promote the transparency and fight corruption: Latin American transparency portals

The right to social control of the government refers to the monitoring of the formulation of policies and initiatives of government by citizens and their social organizations. This category of rights creates conditions for the establishment of relations of trust between rulers and the ruled and gives legitimacy to actions by the people. The initiatives that are the right are the benefits of accounts and disclosure of government activities. The right to social control depends substantially on access and availability of governmental information. With the use of ICT, social control of government can be encouraged by the possibility of facilitating access to information, primarily using the Internet. The Internet is a fast, relatively low cost and easy medium to use for enhancing the promotion of this right. Examples of government initiatives to promote transparency are Transparency portals. The Transparency Portals, which are present in several Latin American countries, provide access to public information especially in relation to public spending. This article examines the possibilities of using portals to promote the transparency and social control of public management as well as citizen participation. The study adopted a methodology based on survey through structured observation of the following Latin American portals: Transparency Portal, at Baja California, Mexico; Transparency Portal, in São Carlos, Brazil; Portal Transparency, in the municipality of Caçapava, in Brazil; the Transparency Portal, Trujillo, Peru; Transparent Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the Transparency Portal, Federal Government of Brazil.

Anti-corruption online monitoring systems in Brazil

Since the development of electronic government, the main area using information and communication technologies in governments were financial control and tax payment. However, recently, this scenario has been changing and new forms of ICT have been used. One of this new form is the anti-corruption online monitoring systems. It is a new channel where all of information about governments is published on transparency portals and there is a complex system to receive inquires and charges, kind of ombudsman through the Internet. It was conducted an exploratory study of sub-national initiatives from Court of Accounts to find initiatives and a structured review of websites. The States Courts of Accounts are the entity responsible to control State Governments in Brazil. The final considerations reveals what are the limits and challenges of anti-corruption online monitoring systems have in terms of technological use, as web 2.0, social networks and others innovations perceived on the international literature review.

Internet use for social control and participation: what are local governments doing in Latin America?

This paper will show the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in local governments of Latin America to support electronic governance based on the Internet. The paper methodology of analysis is divided in two steps: i) Series of case studies from local governments in Latin America based in structured inspection sites. ii) Analysis and identification of features in these governmental websites found (forums, transparency portals, digital participatory budgeting and others) and its results in promoting the rights of to be heard, to participation on public management and social control of the government, both identified in a literature review carried out earlier. Therewith, from these rights an assessment was made of the limits and possibilities from the features found of the websites.

Brazil Towards Government 2.0: Strategies for Adopting Open Government Data in National and Subnational Governments

Open Government Data (OGD) is a stream in which raw data is published for manipulation by others. This chapter presents the State of Art of OGD in Brazilian National, State and Municipal governments, describing benefits that OGD have been promoted on governments and society such as transparency promotion, social control and citizen participation. In addition, strategies used by governments are outlined aimed at boosting usage and the creation of chain value of OGD usage. Exploratory research is conducted by investing websites in accordance with the eight principles of OGD and the five stars of open linked data. Brazilian initiatives adopt almost all the principles of OGD and are in the third stage of a completely open linked data (three stars). Further, the strategy used by governments is the usage of citizen’s participation on contests and hackathons improving usage of OGD available by governments and created several applications for social control, transparency and better provision of public policies (transport, health, education, etc.). This work also adds an element inexistent on the literature known: strategies of dissemination and incentive of open data usage. The results indicate the existence of virtuous cycle of information when using public policy of open data is aligned with the implementation of the collection, analysis and opening data for several branches of city hall, and even that little data, but organized, can offer the possibility of citizen conduct social control, suggest improvements of the public service through studies and applications connected to processes performed by the city and local economic development.

Redesigning the Relationship between Government and Civil Society: An Investigation of Emerging Models of Networked Democracy in Brazil

The concept of networked public sphere [3] modifies the original Habermasian definition of public sphere by considering the dissemination of new interactive technologies that potentially allow new relations between civil society and government. The objective of this paper is to investigate the emergence of the networked public sphere based on the in-depth study of two Brazilian cities that have created conditions for their citizens to influence public policies through the use of Internet-based virtual platforms. To develop our study we adapt the method for analyzing political participation called democracy cube [13] that considers mechanisms of participation along three dimensions: a) who participates, b) how participants communicate with each other and make decisions, and c) how these decisions relate to political action and public policies. Our investigation shows that citizens of the two cities presented in this study use the virtual platform to engage in lively discussions and exchange of information as a way to propose and implement new public policies that are eventually adopted by their city governments. We conclude that, albeit at an early stage, the use of virtual platforms to share opinions on topics that citizens want to be recognized helps to mobilize public opinion and participation and influence the opinion of local public officials on policy implementations.