In this paper, we explore ways of creating and strengthening e-democracy on the local government level by means of e-participatory budgeting projects. Having analyzed the existing realm of work on ...

Increasing citizen participation in e-participatory budgeting processes

In 2017, the encryption vulnerability of a widespread chip led to major, nation-wide eID card incidents in several EU countries. In this paper, we investigate the Estonian case. We start with an analysis of the Estonian eID field in terms of stakeholders and their responsibilities. Then, we describe the incident management from the inside perspective of the crisis management team, covering the whole incident timeline (including issues in response, continuity and recovery). From this, we are able to derive key factors in coping with large-scale security vulnerabilities in the eID field (public-private partnership, technical factors, crisis management, documentation), which encourages further research and systematization.

Key Factors in Coping with Large-Scale Security Vulnerabilities in the eID Field

Data Exchange layer X-Road successfully implemented in Estonia is a key enabler for secure data exchange and interoperability in public and private sector. Other countries are adopting the similar interoperability and data exchange framework as a part of e-governance solution. To ensure successful adoption of previously named framework it is important to identify crucial prerequisites influencing the process. In current paper, we analyse the practice of nine different countries. First, we define possible prerequisites in combination with relevant literature, data and documentation analysis. Second, we validate these prerequisites through qualitative expert interviews and identify additional prerequisites. The focus of this paper is on X-Road adoption critical prerequisites, in this context we analyse X-Road deployment wealth indicators, the impact of prerequisites in accelerating X-Road implementation, and procedures to assess countries readiness to adopt X-Road. Research results presented in this paper offer initial assessment framework to investigate the country's readiness to adopt systems similar to X-Road.

Prerequisites for the Adoption of the X - Road Interoperability and Data Exchange Framework: A Comparative Study

Countries are struggling to develop data exchange infrastructures needed to reap the benefits of e-government. Understanding the development of infrastructures can only be achieved by combining insights from institutional, technical and process perspectives. This paper contributes by analysing data exchange infrastructures in the Netherlands and Estonia from an integral perspective. The institutional design framework of Koppenjan and Groenewegen is used to analyse the developments in both countries. The analysis shows that the starting points, cultures, path dependencies and institutional structure result in different governance models for data exchange infrastructures. Estonia has a single – centrally governed – data-exchange infrastructure that is used by public and private parties for all kinds of data exchanges (including citizen-to-business and business-to-business). In contrast, the institutional structure in the Netherlands demands a strict demarcation between public and private infrastructures, resulting in several data exchange infrastructures. While there are examples of sharing infrastructure components across various levels of the Dutch government, public infrastructures cannot be used for business-to-business or citizen-to-business data exchange due to the potential for market distortion by government. Both the centrally governed Estonian model and the decentrally governed Dutch model have pros and cons on multiple levels.

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Making e-Government Work: Learning from the Netherlands and Estonia.

Government 3.0, which builds on openness and transparency, sharing, increased communication and collaboration, government reorganization through integration and interoperability, and use of new technologies, is an emerging concept in eGovernance. However, few systems that qualify as Government 3.0 have been described in detail so far. And there is a lack of research on how governments can put in place such systems. This study investigates and characterizes an innovative eGovernment project, based on Open Source Software (OSS), that could be considered as an example of a Government 3.0 project. Therefore, we report from a case study of X-Road, an originally Estonian eGovernment project for creating a data sharing infrastructure, which today is also used in other countries. We present the main characteristics of X-Road from the point of view of Government 3.0, how the X-Road project is organized, compare its organization to other OSS projects, identify who contributes to the project, and point out what challenges are perceived by their stakeholders. We conclude offering some reflections on how X-Road and other Government 3.0 projects can benefit from OSS.

Setting Up Government 3.0 Solutions Based on Open Source Software: The Case of X-Road

The concept of Public-Private Partnerships has found a large variety of different approaches since the 1980s and each country has found its own interpretation. In later years, Estonia has also strengthened a collaboration between public and private sector, while a data exchange layer X-Road, initially developed for the public data sets to communicate, is now also been open for private entities to use and thus shows the great potential for Public-Private Partnerships to grow further. As there are still quite a small amount of private sector entities attached themselves to the X-Road, there must be the reason, why the private sector has not gone along with the platform. In order to find out how to design a unified platform for public agencies and private entities, authors have conducted face-to-face interviews as well as an online questionnaire among different private sector organizations. As a result, authors will provide various recommendations, in order to make a platform more acceptable for both public as well as private entities and to strengthen the intersectoral collaboration. The research was supported by the Estonian Information System Authority (EISA).

Karoline Paide

Papers

On the Systematic Exploitation of the Estonian Data Exchange Layer X-Road for Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships