Mária Žuffová

European University Institute | EUI · Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

In election times, political parties promise in their manifestos to pass reforms increasing access to government information to root out corruption and improve public service delivery. Scholars have already offered several fascinating explanations of why governments adopt transparency policies that constrain their choices. However, knowledge of the...

In Slovakia, women are poorly represented in politics and public life. Yet it is the first country in Central Europe with a female president. By applying a mixed-methods approach to analyzing an original dataset containing media coverage of leading presidential candidates ( n = 1492), this study explores how the media covered them and discusses und...

Despite great volume of research into press-state relations, we know little about how journalists use information that has been generated through independent bureaucratic processes. The present study addresses this gap by investigating the role of freedom of information (FOI) laws in journalism practice. By surveying journalists (n = 164), intervie...

Journalists around the world face immense threats for doing their job. Although compared to other regions, the situation in Europe is considerably better; many challenges need to be addressed here as well to ensure conducive conditions for the conduct of journalistic work. The present working paper identifies the main issues that prevent journalist...

A technical report assessing the implementation of the Slovak OGP action plan 2017 - 2019: "Slovakia’s third action plan included commitments on open data, open education and research, participatory policymaking, and transparency measures in the justice sector. While the action plan saw high levels of completion, most of the commitments resulted i...

A technical report assessing the design of the Slovak OGP action plan 2017 - 2019: "Slovakia’s third action plan focuses on open data agenda in several policy areas. The consultation process for developing the action plan was open and inclusive with opportunities for various civil society groups to provide input. Establishing a formalized multi-s...

Lately national governments have started to provide their citizens with government information pro-actively as open data. In some countries, providing government information as open government data (OGD) has represented a natural extension of freedom of information (FoI). However, OGD has also been made available in countries that are known for the...

A technical report assessing the design and implementation of the Slovak OGP action plan 2015: In mid-2017, the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) of the Open Government Partnership published a Special Accountability Report for Slovakia's second action plan. The report covers the full action plan implementation period of 11 February 2015 throug...

In 2016, the Czech Republic will join Slovakia in introducing a new transparency measure, making a bold move from passive transparency by demand to proactive transparency by default in public contracting. With certain exceptions, all government entities, including large municipalities and state-owned companies, will disclose the full texts of their...