The Role of the European Parliament in the Rulemaking Process of the EU Abstract The topic of the thesis concerns the law-making of the European Union. It intends to present the legal framework of the adoption of the adoption of legislative acts and analyse the influence caused by the practice of informal procedures on de facto the situation in this field. Within the organisation structure, the emphasis is placed on the functioning of the European Parliament and within the informal procedures on so-called trilogue negotiations. Firstly, we examine the nature of informal procedures and trilogue negotiations. Secondly, we analyse what the influence of those procedures on the factual state of affairs of the ordinary legislative procedure in the light of its de lege lata concept and thirdly we evaluate the outcome from the EU functioning principles' point of view. After the de lege lata overview and the specification of the trilogue negotiations and other modalities of the informal procedures, we analyse some typical impacts of the trilogue negotiations on the practice of the adoption of legislative acts. We conclude that the trilogue negotiations constituted the so-called early agreements practice as a standard concept of the ordinary legislative procedure and materially substituted the three readings'...

A accountability constitui modo importante para a melhor eficiência e transparência da administração pública, partindo do princípio de que o gestor público deve prestar contas de seus atos de forma clara e eficiente, de forma a garantir o controle social. No Brasil, a partir da Constituição Federal de 1988, criou-se uma série de instrumentos legais, tornando obrigatória a prestação de contas aos gestores públicos, por meio de plataformas digitais: os portais de transparência e de acesso à informação, todos fundados no princípio da Publicidade (art. 37, CF/88), Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (Lei Complementar no 101/2000), Lei de Transparência (Lei Complementar no 131/2009) e na Lei de Acesso à Informação (Lei Federal no 12.527/2011). Observa-se, contudo, que nem sempre esses portais cumprem satisfatoriamente as normativas mínimas exigidas para a disponibilização correta das informações, de forma que a sociedade possa entendê-las e utilizá-las no exercício do controle social da gestão pública. Este trabalho, baseado numa pesquisa exploratória e descritiva, com uma abordagem qualitativa e tendo como amostra os 42 municípios sedes das Regiões de Governo do estado de São Paulo, além da capital, construiu um panorama da situação dos meios de publicização da gestão pública municipal para verificar se eles têm sido capazes de cumprir o que se espera para a efetivação da accountability local. Além da avaliação dos portais através do instrumento elaborado pelo Instituto ETHOS, realizou-se a aplicação de questionário junto às cidades da amostra que mantinham Observatórios Sociais. Os resultados demonstram que ainda que os portais representem modos de relacionamento úteis para o aperfeiçoamento da democracia, na medida em que proporcionam a publicização das atividades da gestão pública, há um baixo comprometimento dos gestores municipais com a realização de uma completa e adequada transparência através dos portais. A precariedade do controle social via participação cidadã, pode ser apontada como hipótese explicativa, haja vista que penas 35% das cidades pesquisadas mantêm um Observatório Social que permite o exercício do controle social de forma articulada. O estudo evidenciou ainda a necessidade de estudos sobre a efetividade dos portais, principalmente quanto ao atendimento do cidadão comum, bem como análises sistêmicas de seus conteúdos, a fim de que isso gere indicações de como os portais de transparência e de acesso à informação podem ser melhorados, para que sejam realmente um referencial para a realização da accountability. / accountability is an important procedure for improving the efficiency and transparency of public administration, assuming that the public manager must be accountable for his actions in a clear and efficient way in order to guarantee social control. In Brazil, from the 1988 Federal Constitution of, a series of legal instruments were created, making it mandatory for public managers to be accountable through digital platforms: transparency portals and information gateways, all based on the principle of Advertising (Article 37, CF/88), Fiscal Responsibility Law (Supplementary Law 101/2000), Transparency Law (Complementary Law 131/2009) and the Access to Information Law (Federal Law 12,527/2011). However, it can be seen that these portals do not always meet the minimum standards required for the correct disclosure of information, so that society can understand them and use them in the exercise of social control of public management. This work, based on an exploratory and descriptive research, with a qualitative approach and having as a sample 42 municipalities of São Paulo State, besides the capital, shows an overview of how effective is local management when it comes to accountability. In addition to evaluating the portals through the instrument developed by the ETHOS Institute, a questionnaire was applied to the cities that held Social Observatories. The results show that although the portals represent useful tools for the improvement of democracy, as they publish public management activities, there is little commitment of the municipal managers with the accomplishment of complete and adequate transparency through the portals. The precariousness of social control, via citizen participation, can be pointed out as an explanatory hypothesis, given that only 35% of the sample cities maintain a Social Observatory that allows the exercise of social control in an articulated way. The study also highlighted the need for studies on the effectiveness of portals, mainly regarding the care of ordinary citizens, as well as systemic analysis of their contents, so that this can give indications as to how portals of transparency and information gateways can be to be truly a reference for accountability.

[pt] Esta tese trata de uma visão de transparência ancorada no principio de informação revelada. A transparência surge como uma importante questão que tem como objetivo conscientizar o estudante sobre processos e conteúdos educativos. A proposta desta pesquisa foi estudar transparência pedagógica, no contexto do uso de aprendizagem baseada em jogos. Transparência na pedagogia objetiva melhorar a qualidade do ensino e as relações entre estudante, professor e métodos de ensino. No contexto de jogos para ensino, o uso de transparência mostra-se através de um experimento, que permite uma compreensão mais precisa dos resultados obtidos, fornecendo um suporte sobre o efeito educacional de jogos . As avaliações foram conduzidas com diferentes grupos de alunos e os resultados indicaram a eficácia desta abordagem, onde i contribui para a transparência pedagógica. / [en] This thesis is about a transparency vision anchored in the information disclosure principle. Transparency emerges as an important issue that aims to makestudents aware of educational processes and contents. This research purpose is to study pedagogical transparency in the context of the use of gamebased learning (GBL). Transparency in pedagogy aims to improve the quality of teaching, and the relationship between student, teacher and teaching methods. In the GBL context, transparency use appears through an experiment that allows a better comprehension of the results obtained, providing support on the educational effect of the use of games. Evaluations with different groups of students were carried out to determinate the effectiveness of the proposal and the results indicated the efficacy of this approach, where i concurred to pedagogical transparency.

In 2016 Chile adopted a new law (Ley N° 20.915) that aims to strengthen the public and democratic character of the political parties and facilitate their modernization. For the political parties in the country this means a set of measures imposing obligations concerning their transparent and democratizing internal processes. The aim of this paper is to examine how the transparency within the Chilean political parties has changed since the introduction of the law 20.915 and how the citizens trust for these political entities has changed during the same period. What have the political parties done to increase the transparency? How has the relationship between transparency and trust in the political parties developed since the introduction of the law 20.915? What factors are important for understanding the relationship between transparency and trust? Is the increased trust in political parties due to the introduction of the law 20.915 or are there other aspects to consider? The theoretical framework resulted in two hypotheses. The first is based on the idea that increased transparency in political parties leads to higher trust for the political parties and therefore expect trust in parties in Chile to increase. The second hypothesis take into account that this effect might be stronger in the short run, but over time the effect will diminsh because there are other aspects to take into consideration as well, and if these are not seen to, the trust won’t continue to increase alongside the transparency. The expectations of the first hypothesis received support as both transparency and trust increased after the introduction of transparency reforms. But the indication of such relationship diverged at the end of the period, when trust decreased despite the continued improvement of transparency. This could be seen as an indication of support for the expected outcome of the second hypothesis, and the discussion concerning the reason for this result focused on the role of perception of corruption, time, medial attention and social media platforms among others. The analysis has been conducted through a qualitative case study based on various documents and scientific articles. The method used is both descriptive and theory trying since the paper aims to answer both questions as “how”, “what” and “which”, and also aims to test the stated hypotheses on the empirical material.

The publication and mass appeal of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness (Nudge), in 2008, illuminated behavioural economics, in the public and political domain. Nudging, a technique derived from behavioural economics, offers a fresh element to the long-time debate between paternalism and freedom, since proponents believe it can simultaneously preserve freedom of choice and serve as a means to influence behaviour. Unsurprisingly, in the decade or so since Nudge, private corporations and governments alike have shown great interest in the behavioural steering techniques derived from behavioural economics. This thesis explores the ethical implications and the various means by which governments and the private sector influence behaviour, specifically individual decision making. Since many of the methods overlap in purpose and practice, I make distinct three techniques: nudging, boosting and market advertising. These steering techniques range from transparent and educative to sub-conscious and manipulative methods; as such ethical justification for their employment varies. This thesis concludes by stating transparency as a condition for ethical behavioural influencing since non-transparent or covert methods do not uphold true freedom of choice, Furthermore, the implementation of non-transparent influences carries the potential for further violations of individual autonomy.

Today's phone could be described as a charismatic tool that has the ability to keep human beings captivated for a considerable amount of their precious time. Users remain in the illusory wonderland with free services, while their data becomes the subject to monetizing by a genie called big data. In other words, users pay with their personal data but the price is in a way invisible. Poor means to observe and to assess the consequences of data disclosure causes hindrance for the user to be aware of and to take preventive measures. Mobile operating systems use permission-based access control mechanism to guard system resources and sensors. Depending on the type, apps require explicit consent from the user in order to avail access to those permissions. Nonetheless, it does not put any constraint on access frequency. Granted privileges allow apps to access to users' personal information for indefinite period of time until being revoked explicitly. Available control tools lack monitoring facility which undermines the performance of access control model. It has the ability to create privacy risks and nontransparent handling of personal information for the data subject. This thesis argues that app behavior analysis yields information which has the potential to increase transparency, to enhance privacy protection, to raise awareness regarding consequences of data disclosure, and to assist the user in informed decision making while selecting apps or services. It introduces models and methods, and demonstrates the risks with experiment results. It also takes the risks into account and makes an effort to determine apps' privacy-friendliness based on empirical data from app-behavior analysis. / Today's phone could be described as a charismatic tool that has the ability to keep human beings captivated for a considerable amount of their precious time. Users remain in the illusory wonderland with free services, while their data becomes the subject to monetizing by a genie called big data. In other words, users pay with their personal data but the price is in a way invisible. They face hindrance to be aware of and to take preventive measures because of poor means to observe and to assess consequences of data disclosure. Available control tools lack monitoring properties that do not allow the user to comprehend the magnitude of personal data access. Such circumstances can create privacy risks, erode intervenability of access control mechanism and lead to opaque handling of personal information for the data subject. This thesis argues that app behavior analysis yields information which has the potential to increase transparency, to enhance privacy protection, to raise awareness regarding consequences of data disclosure, and to assist the user in informed decision making while selecting apps or services. It introduces models and methods, and demonstrates the data disclosure risks with experimental results. It also takes the risks into account and makes an effort to determine apps' privacy-friendliness based on empirical data from app-behavior analysis.

There have been many studies performing experiments that showcase the potential of machine learning solutions for intrusion detection, but their experimental approaches are non-transparent and vague, making it difficult to replicate their trained methods and results. In this thesis we exemplify a healthier experimental methodology. A survey was performed to investigate evaluation metrics. Three experiments implementing and benchmarking machine learning classifiers, using different optimization techniques, were performed to set up a frame of reference for future work, as well as signify the importance of using descriptive metrics and disclosing implementation. We found a set of metrics that more accurately describes the models, and we found guidelines that we would like future researchers to fulfill in order to make their work more comprehensible. For future work we would like to see more discussion regarding metrics, and a new dataset that is more generalizable.

O grande número de websites heterogêneos e sem padronização para divulgar informações sobre transparência pública é uma evidência do despreparo das instituições públicas frente ao movimento denominado Open Government Data ou Dados Abertos Governamentais. Este cenário é encontrado no mundo todo, porém com evidência nas instituições onde os princípios de dados abertos ainda são novidade, sobretudo os governos locais. Esta pesquisa objetiva definir uma arquitetura de referência para estruturação de dados a partir dos repositórios distribuídos caracterizados pelos websites de transparência. Os requisitos de qualidade da arquitetura foram identificados a partir dos problemas de disponibilização de dados em uma amostra de 561 websites mantidos por municípios brasileiros. Uma vez definida, a arquitetura passou por um processo de validação para verificar sua viabilidade e seu potencial de utilidade pela percepção dos usuários externos ao seu desenvolvimento e por meio da implementação em um protótipo de software. Com a arquitetura, e seu aspecto colaborativo envolvido, será possível implementar sistemas de software que disponibilizam ferramentas aos usuários para facilmente abrir os dados de qualquer instituição que utilize a internet para disseminar informações de transparência. / The large number of heterogeneous and non-standardized websites to disseminate information about public transparency is an evidence of the lack of preparation of public institutions in relation to the Open Government Data movement. This scenario is found all over the world, but with more frequency in institutions where open data principles are still new, especially local governments. This research aims to define a reference architecture for structuring data from distributed repositories characterized by transparency websites. The quality requirements of the architecture were identified from the problems of data availability in a sample of 561 websites maintained by Brazilian municipalities. Once defined, the architecture underwent a validation process to verify its viability and its potential of utility by the perception of external users to its development and by the implementation of a software prototype. With the architecture, and its collaborative aspect involved, it will be possible to implement software systems that provide users with tools to easily open data from any institution that uses the internet to disseminate transparency information. Keywords: Transparency. Open Government Data. OGD. Software architecture.

A representação é uma forma de participação política que pode ativar uma variedade de formas de controle e de supervisão por parte dos cidadãos. Em vez de um esquema de delegação, a representação é um processo político que conecta sociedade e instituições. Na democracia representativa o povo soberano delega poder ao representante, mas tem também o poder negativo de destituí-lo. Para que esse poder negativo possa ser exercido o governante deve prestar contas ao povo, o qual, após debate público, reconduzirá ou não o governante ao poder. Para que essa responsabilização ocorra, é fundamental a existência da transparência. Em federações descentralizadas, a transparência não depende apenas das ações do governo central, visto que os entes subnacionais ganham autonomia política, administrativa e financeira e, por isso, a descentralização é vista como uma segunda condição essencial para a consolidação da democracia. No Brasil, a regulação dos conteúdos informacionais das peças que compõem o ciclo orçamentário tem sido definido por legislações provenientes do ente central, o que, em tese, levaria a uma transparência orçamentária parecida entre os entes subnacionais brasileiros. No entanto, não é isso que ocorre na prática, sobretudo quando olhamos para os indicadores de transparência divulgados no Brasil. Se os índices não apontam para uma normalidade entre os números, quais os fatores determinam a transparência do ciclo orçamentário nos estados subnacionais brasileiros? Essa pergunta guiou a elaboração deste trabalho, o qual foi realizado por meio de uma pesquisa descritiva. Inicialmente, foi elaborado, com base nas recomendações internacionais (FMI, OCDE e OBP), um indicador de transparência orçamentária para o ciclo orçamentário brasileiro. De posse dessas informações, foram realizadas entrevistas com os dois estados classificados como mais similares e os dois classificados como mais dissimilares. Essa classificação ocorreu por meio da técnica estatística de Multimentional Scaling (MDS) não métrico, uma vez que as variáveis eram binárias. As entrevistas foram realizadas com servidores da área de planejamento e/ou controle dos estados subnacionais e com conselheiros dos tribunais de contas. Os resultados indicam que no contexto subnacional brasileiro, fatores fiscais e políticos contribuem para a melhoria da transparência. Os fatores fiscais foram confirmados parcialmente nas entrevistas, dado que apenas Déficit e Dívida foram apontados pelos respondentes, enquanto as variáveis receita corrente e superávit não foram citadas. As variáveis políticas (competição do governador e partido político) não foram indicadas como determinantes da transparência no Brasil. Para os entrevistados essas variáveis não fazem diferença no ambiente institucional brasileiro devido às características do processo eleitoral e da forma de governo, que ocorre por meio de coalizões entre partidos sem alinhamento ideológico e com bases definidas localmente. Além disso, outras determinantes foram destacas pelos entrevistados, as quais ainda não haviam sido identificadas na literatura internacional, como: influência das agências avaliadoras e de rating, crises institucionais e financeiras, vontade política e inovação governamental, enforcement das legislações, pressão da imprensa, decisões colegiadas, influência das instituições de controle, coordenação de ações e burocracia especializada. Esses resultados apontam que quanto mais mecanismos institucionais existirem para pressionar os governos a agirem sob o brilho da luz, mais democrática e menos desigual poderá vir a ser a sociedade. / The representation is a form of political participation that can activate a variety of control forms and oversight by citizens. Instead of a scheme of delegation, representation is a political process that connects society and institutions. In representative democracy the sovereign people delegate power to the representative, but they also have the negative power to remove it. In order for this negative power can be exercised the ruler must report to the people which, after public debate, will conduct or not the ruler to power again. In order that accountability occur, it is essential the existence of transparency. In decentralized federations, transparency depends not only on the actions of the central government, since sub national entities gain political, administrative and financial autonomy in these models and, therefore, decentralization is seen as a second essential condition for the consolidation of democracy. In Brazil, the regulation of the informational content of the pieces that make up the budget cycle has been defined by legislation from the central one, which, in theory, would lead to a similar budget transparency among Brazilian sub national entities. However, this is not what happens in practice, especially when we look at the indicators of transparency disclosed in Brazil. If the scores do not show normality between the numbers, what factors determine the transparency of the budget cycle in Brazilian sub national states? This question guided the preparation of this work, which was accomplished through a descriptive research. Initially it was developed, based on international recommendations (IMF, OECD and OBP), an indicator of budget transparency for the Brazilian budget cycle. With this information, we performed interviews with the two states classified as more similar and the two rated as more dissimilar. This classification was made through statistical technique of nom metric Multimentional scaling (MDS), once the variables were binary (presence or absence). Interviews were conducted with the area of planning and / or control of sub national states and counselors of courts of account. The results indicate that in the Brazilian sub national context, as pointed out by the international literature, fiscal and political factors contribute to improving transparency. The tax factors were partially confirmed in interviews since only deficit and debt were cited by respondents. The variables current revenue and surplus were not even mentioned. Political variables (governor competition and political party) were not included as determinants of transparency in Brazil. Respondents said that these variables make no difference in the Brazilian institutional environment due to the characteristics of the electoral process and the form of government, which occurs through coalitions between parties without ideological alignment and bases locally defined. In addition, other determinants were highlighted by the respondents, which didn\'t have yet been identified in the international literature, as influence of rating agencies, institutional and financial crises, political will and government innovation, law enforcement, media pressure, collective decisions, control agencies influence, coordination of actions and specialized bureaucracy. These results indicate that the more institutional mechanisms exist to pressure governments to act under the shining of light more democratic and less unequal could become society

Esta pesquisa investigou os efeitos da estrutura de propriedade e da clareza na comunicação entre empresa e mercado sobre o risco idiossincrático das ações negociadas no mercado brasileiro de capitais de 2002 a 2012. O risco idiossincrático(1-R2) foi medida a partir do coeficiente de determinação da regressão dos retornos da ação em relação aos fatores sistemáticos (R2) e reflete o percentual dos retornos da ação não explicados pelos fatores sistemáticos. Neste estudo, empresas com alta concentração acionária são aquelas em que o maior acionista detém mais de 50% do total das ações ou em que os três maiores acionistas detêm, em conjunto, mais de 70% do total das ações. A concentração acionária afeta positivamente a volatilidade idiossincrática, enquanto o porte da empresa e a liquidez do papel na bolsa têm efeito oposto. Foi observada relação positiva entre a concentração acionária e o risco idiossincrático que, por sua vez, é menor nas empresas do setor financeiro, com alta concentração acionária. Contudo, parte do risco idiossincrático observado nas ações das empresas com alta concentração acionária decorre da menor liquidez do papel como consequência da pequena parcela das ações disponível aos investidores, e supostamente não está relacionada à incorporação das informações específicas aos preços. Nas empresas com alta concentração acionária, a volatilidade idiossincrática está positivamente relacionada à rentabilidade reportada e negativamente associada ao endividamento. As oportunidades de crescimento estão positivamente relacionadas com o risco idiossincrático nos casos em que a concentração acionária não é alta. Esse fato é compatível com a suposição de que as divergências sobre o impacto futuro do aproveitamento econômico das oportunidades com as quais a empresa se depara, gerariam variações nos preços decorrentes de informações específicas, corroborando com a suposição de que o risco idiossincrático reflete, ao menos em parte, as informações específicas incorporadas aos preços. Por outro lado, não foram encontradas evidências de que a clareza na comunicação entre a empresa e o mercado tenha efeito significativo na variabilidade dos retornos idiossincráticos. Se as informações específicas são incorporadas aos preços, a incorporação, ao que parece, não se dá pelos mecanismos atuais de fluxo de informação entre empresa e investidores. / This research investigates the effects of the ownership structure and the clarity of firm activities and performance to outsiders with regard to the idiosyncratic volatility of shares traded on the Brazilian stock exchange from 2002 to 2012. The idiosyncratic volatility (1-R²) is based on the coefficient of determination of regression of stock returns in relation to systematic factors (R²), and reflects the percentage of stock returns not explained by these systematic factors. In this study, companies with high stock concentration are those whose largest shareholder holds more than 50% of the total outstanding shares or whose three largest shareholders together hold more than 70% of the total outstanding shares. Ownership concentration positively affects the idiosyncratic volatility, while the firm\'s size and stock liquidity on the stock exchange have an opposite effect. A positive relationship between the ownership concentration and the idiosyncratic volatility is noted, which in turn is lower in financial institutions with high ownership concentration. However, part of the idiosyncratic volatility noted in stocks of firms with high ownership concentration results from lower liquidity of its papers as a consequence of the small number of shares available to investors and supposedly not related to firm-specific information incorporated into stock prices. In firms with high ownership concentration, idiosyncratic volatility is positively related to reported profitability and negatively associated with leverage. Growth opportunities are positively related to idiosyncratic volatility in cases where ownership concentration is not high. This fact is consistent with the assumption that variances of the future impact of the economic use of opportunities faced by a firm would generate variations in in its stock price as a result of specific information, supporting the assumption that the idiosyncratic volatility reflects, at least in part, firm-specific information incorporated into stock prices. On the other hand, no evidence is found that the clarity of firm activities and performance to outsiders has a significant effect on the variability of idiosyncratic returns. If firm-specific information is incorporated into its stock price, the incorporation, it seems, does not occur by current mechanisms of information flow between the firm and investors.