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This paper aims to identify and to understand how current data portals comply with open government data (OGD) principles in the context of Brazilian local government.

In this paper, we assessed a sample of 561 municipalities from a universe of interest of 3,052 ones expected to disclose information using the internet. As part of our methodology, the authors analyzed the required items for active disclosure and the technical requirements, all enforced by Brazilian law and close to OGD principles which are the focus of analysis of the authors.

The findings generally show the vast majority of assessed data portals did not comply with the basic requirements stated by national law, consequently not complying with OGD principles, and prevent society from benefiting from government data openness. The authors also found arguments that the national law should explicitly reproduce OGD principles, as they demonstrate clearer understanding about the global context of open data.

The contributions of this work can be used to plan public data openness actions over the internet and envision effective accountability and public participation with clearer legislation and with the effective implementation of OGD principles in data portals.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

The purpose of this study is to present a system called NEBULOSUS, which is a fuzzy rule-based expert system for assessing the maturity level of an agency regarding technical interoperability.

The study introduces the use of artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic to deal with the imprecision and uncertainty present in the assessment process. To validate the system proposed and demonstrate its operation, the study takes into account the Brazilian technical interoperability maturity model, based on the Brazilian Government Interoperability Framework (GIF).

With the system proposed and its methodology, it could be possible to increase the assessment process to management level and to provide decision-making support without worrying about technical details that make it complex and time-consuming. Moreover, NEBULOSUS is a standalone system that offers an easy-to-use, open and flexible structuring database that can be adapted by governments throughout the world. It will serve as a tool and contribute to governments’ expectations for continuous improvement of their technologies.

This study contributes toward filling a gap in general interoperability architectures, which is a means to provide an objective method to evaluate GIF adherence by governments. The proposed system allows governments to configure their technical models and GIF to assess information and communication technology resources.