Bringing Government Data into the Light: Slovakia’s Open Data Initiative, 2011-2015

Jordan Schneider drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Bratislava in July 2015. This case study was funded by the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More. Case published in October 2015. Innovations for Successful Societies (ISS) is a joint program of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace & JusticeTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi....

In 2010, Slovakia’s new prime minister, Iveta Radičová, mandated that every government contract be published online in a central registry before companies or individuals received any payments. The success of that transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More initiative and pressure from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) persuaded Radičová to join the Open Government Partnership in 2011 and prioritize open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... as a tool for improving governance. After the 2012 electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... brought the opposing political party back into power, the small government office charged with implementing the open data initiative lost the active support of the prime minister’s office. In response, the office worked with a dozen committed NGO activists to press for political support, coordinate with various ministries, and ensure that Slovakia’s nascent open data portal would survive. During the next three years, the office was able to preserve and build on the gains made during the Radičová era, creating a portal that featured more than 600 data sets—of admittedly varying quality— of information ranging from crime statistics to agricultural data. By mid 2015, Slovakia’s ministries were preparing to release before the year’s end an additional 15 open-format data sets that the NGO community considered highest priority…

Bringing Government Data Into the Light: Slovakia’s Open Data Initiative, 2011-2015