Slovenian e-Government

rakerman writes "In its October 20th issue the Economist reports from Ljubljana that 'Slovenia may be Europe's most Internetted government', including 'holding most of its cabinet meetings online'. There is some information at the Slovenian e-government site, in particular check out their detailed strategy for e-commerce in public administration." I''ve read the article; very well done.

E-commerce strategy

[randal_hicks]

Their detailed strategy [e-gov.gov.si] will certainly take some time to digest (and perhaps several cups of coffee). Interesting post though... perhaps their smaller size allows them to take such giant steps. My country (US) seems like it keeps tripping over its own feet [slashdot.org] whenever it attempts to deal with technology. Hopefully Slovenia will show the rest of the world a thing or three...

intresting thought

[jjshoe]

i being a tax paying computer using civilian in the us i could see a use for a more computer-ized governemnt.

take for instance a state law that might get passed. you want to let your representivitve know how you feel about a certain subject. so you write him letters and send him email and corrospond with him. great. then you find out in the news papers that he's decided to vote for the opposite when he told you something completly else.

what i am trying to get at here is lets say they want to pass parking tickets on red cars only for the state of georgia... so people of smalltown georgia log on to their local representives page and enter in a an internet uid and password which were assigned at the latest voter registration or came in the mail. they then vote how they feal on the issue and include a comment. likewise, all the representives would do the same to the state. now then the small town people of georgia feal more involved and can see the results much quicker. think of this for the national election. people could log on securely and vote. people with out computers could go to librarys since most are equiped with computers. and all though a paper trail would be nice for such things as we saw in the last election paper or not if someone wants to buy the election they will.

but there are other advantages... say you want to move somewhere, you could go to their local page and see how the town votes and feels on certain subjects and see if you fit in that area

perhaps this is all a pipe dream, but i think it would be wonderfull to see

small, "newer" and flexible

[Vspirit]

Changing our infrastructures, Governments included, is easier in smaller organisations than larger ones. This I believe is one of the main reasons, that smaller organisations are better suited for innovations and why larger organisations follow, incorporate and acquire them in order not to become obsolete and replaced.

If major changes are to be expected in the way we live and organize ourselves, then I believe the chance for that is higher by supporting and learning from the smaller entities (on their terms), compared to start dancing with the big old lady.

Re:to Anonymous coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the original poster was a troll, and you fell for it, but still...

I call the IRA murdering scum. One of my friends was on call doing network support for a client in London docklands when the IRA bombed it. Another friend was working in a shopping centre (aka shopping mall ;-) when it was evacuated because of IRA bombs. Maybe its just getting to me this morning because I watched "The Devils Own" for the first time last night and found the American slant interesting to say the least. I doubt Hollywood would look at it in quite the same way if the story had been about a Muslim fundamentalist who kills Americans, instead of a Catholic fundamentalist who kills British.

Not for "old" countries

[JavaPriest]

I guess that Slovenia could make this happen thanks to it being such a "young" state. I don't know exactly how long they are independent by now but it should not be much more than ten years.

Older countries (or more generally, organizations), with a tradition of paper, will only be able to move toward e-government very slowly. Primarily because people are reluctant to change in general, but paper also makes a lot of "excuses" possible (see article). Another big issue is that a lot of people require signatures, mostly to be backed up and blame someone else in case something goes wrong. As digital signatures still aren't accepted here (in Europe) normal (paper) signatures are still required.

In my organization, some people even make paper copies of e-mails in order to classify them in an ordner...just because they have done so (classifying "normal" mail) for years!

E-govt my *bleep*

[YanIsa]

I'm from Slovenia. I can tell you that the article is a nice coup for the Slovenian govt marketing dept and pretty much nothing else.

Yes, I can find all the government departments on the net. Yes, there is an "internet ministry". Yes, they all have a nice matching spiffy web graphics. Yes, I can access all the laws online.

So what?
Can I file my tax returns via the net? No.

Can I contact govt officials via the net _and get an answer_? No.

Can I do anything via the net instead of waiting in a queue? Nope.

Did they abolish the monopoly on leased lines and voice communications, held by a company that the govt ownes? Are the voice calls and modem calls cheap? Can I choose my phone operator? No, no, and no.

To top it off, due to the 9/11 terrorist strikes the govt has now usurped the right to check all email (and other forms of communications) without a court order - a thing constitutionally possible just in a state of emergency (read war). Does the parliamentary commision that keep tabs on the police actions object? Nope.

Unfortunately, this is just another example of pretending to give more control to the public while in fact reducing it.

Yan

---
Hello, Mr. Govt Man.

Slovenia

[limeymax]

Hey..I seem to remember the same claim being made about Estonia. In both cases though, it's a lot easier to do with a small country (and BTW, both countries are great to visit - Ljubljana is a happening place and Talinn is just beautiful). It's easy to forget that in the 80s, France was way ahead of everyone with the Minitel system..it was proprietary, cumbersome and basic, but it worked.