Smart Parliaments: Data-Driven Democracy

Edited by Fotios Fitsilis and George Mikros

ISBN: 978-2-39067-036-0

The digital transformation of parliamentary institutions is essentially the result of the availability and production of open data. While open data production can be streamlined to become a standardised process, this is work-intensive and puts additional pressure on parliamentary administrations owing to issues related, among others, to scarce parliamentary resources, internal resistance to change, and inappropriate or non-existent organisational structures. Moreover, the chronic lack of consistent open data does not allow for a comprehensive understanding of parliamentary discourse.

Smart Parliaments: Data-Driven Democracy highlights the role of data within both centuries-old and relatively novel institutional functions such as legislative work and parliamentary diplomacy. It is precisely this balanced focus on both tradition and innovation that makes this work stand out. Moreover, the book systematically avoids a purely scholarly character for the sake of a more practical and tangible approach to parliamentary evolution. It offers ideas instead of assumptions, solutions instead of missals, and presents a range of options instead of a single truth.