The Interlegis program in Brazil seeks to modernize legislative houses through the use of Web 2.0 technologies, collaborative tools, and free software, aimed at enhancing the integration of federal, state, and municipal legislatures. Despite its innovative approach, the program faces significant challenges, including uneven access to technology and information, which limits its effectiveness across the country. The initiative emphasizes the importance of transparency, accountability, and active citizen engagement in the legislative process.

1. Interlegis Program in Brazil: Use of
Web 2.0, Collaborative Tools and Free
Software in Legislative Power
MATHEUS, Ricardo, CRANTSCHANINOV, Tamara Ilinsky & NERLING, Marcelo Arno
University of São Paulo – USP & GETULIO VARGAS FOUNDATION - FGV
ricardomatheus@gmail.com
ABSTRACT pointed, with its production technique, important and fruitful discussions that
Since the 80's, education (training, education and training per se) in the have transformed the environment in a span of activity conducted in regular
legislative context meant the employee training standards and rules arising education classroom without any social interaction.
from the specific laws of "home" legislation. Analogous to the process of There are currently three: the GIAL (Interlegis Legislative Advisory
structural changes in economy and politics in the late 80's, Brazil also Group), the GITEC (Interlegis Technology Group) and GICOM (Interlegis
promoted the modernization of their legislative houses. Through funding from Communications Group). Therefore, InterLegis seeks to create greater
the Interamerican Development Bank, it was possible to promote the program integration of the legislative power through more intensive use of information
InterLegis. The objective of this program was the modernization and technology, internet and the concept of virtual community as a way to improve
integration of the Legislature in its federal, state and municipal levels and the performance of legislators and legislative houses.
promoting greater transparency and interaction with society that Power. Soon Another positive point of InterLegis is the use and distribution of open source
became apparent that the model open, collaborative and open management of software, as an economic advantage to the Public Administration. An
knowledge and information InterLegis was an innovative model, but above important factor is the possession of source code, allowing customization of
all, there were still limits and challenges to the Legislature and can education applications according to the needs of each legislative house user. In
and development of officials and parliamentarians of the Legislative Houses. addition, the Legislative Houses encourages Interlegis to regularize their
This article will seek to identify the limits and challenges of improving this technology platforms, migrating to open source software, preventing uneven
innovative model of using free software and web-based collaborative software licenses.
environment and information and communication technologies. Result of the characteristics of use of Web 2.0, collaborative tools like wikis and
Methodologically this article is structured from a previous exploratory also the voluntary collaboration based on trust, there are the communities of
research, checking conditions and models of InterLegis, besides the networks GIAL, GITEC and GICOM. These communities are basically a
participation of the authors within the mailing lists and use of information InterLegis strategy to provide environments to exchange of information and
packets and applications available on the web environment of the program. It knowledge through the use of ICTs, because as noted above, the
was performed an exploratory research the topic of collaborative scientific methodological difficulties and financial resources to knowledge production
production, electronic government and electronic governance and the use of by old methods, such as classroom and textbooks do not meeting the goals that
free software by government, where they found several articles and texts. As a the program had to meet all the national territory.
further step was made a theoretical framework on these themes that helped
formulate the analysis of the limits and challenges of the open Limits and challenges of Interlegis Model
model, collaborative and open management of knowledge and information The search for technical improvement from the exchange of
InterLegis. information, provided by the use of the System InterLegis, can be framed as
Keywords : Free Software, Web 2.0, Collaborative Tools, Legislative one of their own objectives of the new public management models, especially
Power, Brazil. when dealing with the New Public Management - NPM. Discussions on the
reform of the traditional state fell on the possibilities of having a more efficient
Introduction and effective, based on results, not on processes. In this context, the
Education - formation, training and continuing education – at the legislative communication system for the improvement of public bureaucracy is clearly
context has meaning only a meager training of the servers / staff / ruled by the new model for reform. Access to information, as detailed by Pó
commissioners, according to specific “in-House” standards. The and Prado [4], is a recent agenda, of the 1990, that comes to increase the
professionalization of human resources, the integrated transparency of governments and thus enhance accountability. In sum, we can
work, modernization, transparency and interaction with society in the consider that the InterLegis system has ideological framework within
legislative houses of local, state and own Senate and House of Representatives government to be developed and implemented.
is a task for the consolidation of emerging brazilian young democracy. Despite of being in the wave of transparency and accountability that came
We point to the currents and trends of global thinking and local levels that from the 1990s, the limits of the system are still huge. It is not known whether
form the agenda for the management of the legislature in Democratic State of the information circulates evenly throughout the country, reaching isolated
Right, to the achievement of the modernization of the national legislature. We areas that really need technical support and training. Thus, the interaction is
speak of the construction of e-Legislature in Brazil. In Brazil, the wave of often restricted to a few localities, and even fewer servers, which are evident
modernization of the legislature came through the 'InterLegis Program', whose during the discussions and constrain new actors to participate in the exchange
problem is modernization and integration of the Legislature in its federal, state of information and problem resolution. These are problems that concern any
and municipal levels and to promote greater transparency and interaction of sphere of public administration, because it is the coexistence and human
that Power with society. relationships. Just as it is necessary to articulate solutions to these dilemmas in
real life, you also need to think about strategies for living in the virtual
The case Interlegis in Brazil network.
The Interlegis is the product of an integrated process for modernization of the It is important, at a broader view, recognize access to information as a
national legislature. The idea was the institutionalization of a Participation and condition sine qua non of democracy. Thus, the exchange of experiences
Integration Net of the Legislative within a Program for Reform and facilitates transparency and accountability, both with respect to horizontal
Modernization of the State and Parliament. The goal was to articulate (internally to the government) and its vertical (government to society) of
internally the legislature and also the actual integration of civil society in a accountability. But to actually be an instrument to control society, we must
continuous, effective and transparent, public, republican, how could be include and provide access to channels of InterLegis to population, under the
expected. The advances in technology and its focus on the legislature allowed risk of having the insulation of the information, creating again an technocratic
the formation of the Integration of the Legislative, with a contract signed on cycle in public bureaucracy.
27/07/1999, worth $ 50 million. Fifty per cent financed by the IDB and $ 25
million remaining, as national counterpart. The execution of the contract was
tumultuous.
In essence, the process of modernization of the Legislature was being
implemented on the idea of virtual community, with a view to forming a
national law system that would improve communication and information flow
among legislators, with more efficiency and competence of the legislative
houses.
The Experience more consecrating of GIAL List - Legislative Advisory Group
Interlegis - was the participation of students of Public Policy Management of
University of Sao Paulo in this environment. All the academics attending the
course 'Legislative and Public Policy Management', taught by Professor
Marcelo Arno Nerling, were welcomed by the List and locked in a virtual
environment very close contact with the real issues of national legislative and