E-legislative and accountability: the case of Brazil

Abstract

This article broaches the subject of Electronic Government, with a focus on its use in the 27 state legislatures of Brazil, concerning its use as a tool for public transparency. We sought to measure the level of transparency in the web addressess of these state legislatures. The measurement of the degree of transparency of the legislative web pages was carried out through the application of an electronic transparency measuring method, duly adapted, which are used by the non-governmental organization, Legislative Monitor, to monitor the websites of the legislature in Mexico based on the determinations of Complementary Law 131/2009 and Law 12.527/2011. The model took into consideration the availability of information on: administrative function; internal control; legislative work; work of the committees; concessions, permissions and contracts; historical archive and librarians services; external controls; e communication channels with the citizens. From this measurement a general ranking transparency was presented, demonstrating that 55.5% of the state legislative websites present insufficiency and low levels of transparency. Finally, the results of the research were correlated to other variables, with the intention of verifying if there were any degree of correlation between the variables analyzed and electronic transparency.