by George Papaioannou
A vibrant discussion took place on Friday November 15th at the Lecture Theatre Building of the University of Essex, Colchester with guest speakers Professor Costas Lapavitsas and Professor Robin Blackburn offering their thoughts on the recent Eurozone Crisis and forecasting the expected socio-economic outcomes.
See the video:
Lapavitsas and Blackburn on the Eurozone Crisis
Open Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with country data experts and researchers has published the first ever index on Data Openness. Countries are accessed on the following points:
Countries are examined for the provision of 10 data themes:
According to the index, the champion in data openness is the UK while the country with most restrictions and data disclosures is Cyprus.
The index, criteria, and data portals based on which the index was compiled can be retrieved on the Open Knowledge Foundation Website
View the live programme of the Greek public TV that the regime is trying to shut down and censor.
Here is a list of a few Public Spending data on Contracts and Procurement:
Open Ted data store: Anders Pedersen and Joost Cassee have been the EU publication office data on procurement throughout the EU, generating machine readable, ready to process csv data files for contracts with private entities between 2009 and 2013. Transparency at its best.
US Spending.Gov: Excellent website offering data for all sorts of public spending in the US. By selecting ‘contracts’ in the respective tab, you get to access the relevant data on procurement.
TED Europa: A supplement to the aforementioned Open Ted. This official site provides all the relevant information for bidding or searching for contracts awarded throughout the EU.
AusTender: Contracts and Procurements in Australia.
UK Contracts Finder: What is being bought by the government and costs more than 10000 GBP? You may trace it here. The site can be of great assistance to potential sellers willing to enter the highly competitive market of public contracts.
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES): Rich database of electoral information for 40+ states
Latin American Studies Data: Offers Election data for 18 Latin American countries. Includes Latinobarometro & Public Opinion Project
European Elections Study: Containing data for the E.P elections since 1979
European Representative Democracy Data Archive (ERDDA): Rich data for 29 European democratic governments, 600+ parties (Plus, extensive list of comparative datasets from other researchers)
Party Policy in Modern Democracies: expert surveys for political parties across 49 countries during 2003-2004
Global Elections Database: Election results for 36 countries starting from as early as 1900s
Vetoplayers Data: Produced by Tsebelis for 22 countries providing info for ideological party position etc
Psephos: Rich historical archive with electoral information for 182 countries. Maintained by Adam Carr
Parties and Elections in Europe: Perhaps the most easy to use Electoral Archive that exists
ParlGov: Well structured and updated database on worldwide parties and elections in downloadable csv formats
ElectionResources.org: Electoral database broken down by district. Some in CSV format
Party Organisational Data: Produced for “Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, 1960-90″ – 11 EU countries
EU Profiler (2009): Voters positions and opinions in the European Elections 2009
Parline: Information on electoral, executive, and legislative institutions
In case you want to read more on this community journalism initiative and find ways for offering your active support, visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/radiobubble-independent-media-community-in-athens-greece
Radiobubble news can be accessed from here