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The model

A proposal for depersonalised elections and public management, centred on projects and responsibility for their implementation.

OpenGov3 seeks to address the gap between what is promised, what is decided and what society can subsequently monitor. It proposes organising elections and public management around clear, comparable projects, linking each choice to the resources required, the teams responsible and the outcomes to be examined.

Depersonalising means reducing dependence on charisma, fame and loyalty to a political figure. People continue to make decisions and remain accountable for them. Each project must make it possible to identify who proposed it, who decided, who implemented it and who verified the information. Focusing on projects requires clearer personal and institutional responsibility.

How it would work

From the presentation of projects to evaluation, each stage would need to make clear what was decided, who is accountable and what information allows the commitment to be monitored.

  1. Projects

    Each proposal would present the problem, the starting situation, the people affected, the intended outcome, the alternatives, initial and ongoing costs, funding and timelines. Comparison requires showing what each option delivers, the risks it takes and what it leaves unfunded. Using the same form does not make proposals equivalent: objectives, quality, reach and dependencies between projects must remain visible.

    How to examine a proposal

  2. Choice

    Voting would focus on public priorities and projects. People may agree on the data and favour different priorities; the options would need to set out benefits, costs and consequences in understandable language. How to vote, represent priorities and fit projects within the budget remains under study. Collective choices must preserve rights and enable participation by people with less time, fewer resources or limited digital access.

    Management, legitimacy and democracy

  3. Implementation

    The selected project would need identified teams, demonstrable capacity and the conditions required to carry it out. The design must distinguish who authorises, funds, implements, oversees and is accountable for each stage, including when a decision depends on another institution. Selecting and replacing those who implement projects requires public criteria and the management of conflicts of interest.

    What makes policy implementation possible

  4. Monitoring

    The commitment would remain public after selection, with its initial version and a history of stages, spending, delays and justified changes. Each record would need to identify its source, date and responsible person or institution. Documents and verification would support monitoring, allowing a claimed output to be distinguished from one that has actually been demonstrated.

    How to monitor a commitment

  5. Evaluation

    Evaluation would examine what was delivered and what changed in people's lives: quality, access, differences between groups, costs and unintended effects. It would be necessary to investigate how much of the change can be attributed to the project. Insufficient outcomes would require analysis of the causes and justified decisions about corrections, continuation and responsibilities.

    What the evidence allows us to conclude

An example to follow the process

A hypothetical situation to explain the proposal.

Imagine a fictional service network with a median waiting time of 60 days: half the observed cases waited up to that length of time, and half waited at least that long. The illustrative goal would be to reach 45 days within 12 months. The starting situation would also need to include people still in the queue, the longest waits and the quality of care.

One proposal might reorganise scheduling; another might expand service capacity. Making a choice would require comparing implementation and maintenance costs, team availability, timelines, risks and expected effects. The comparison would also need to show which other services compete for the same resources and which estimates remain uncertain.

The selected proposal would become a commitment with a defined scope, funding and responsibilities. The measurement rule would be known from the outset. During implementation, the public would monitor stages, spending, justified changes and developments in the queue, through records that could be checked.

If waiting times did not fall, the cause would need to be investigated: a shortage of staff, increased demand, a design problem or a failure to fulfil an assigned duty, for example. Correcting the project, changing those responsible or stopping an intervention would require justification, the authority to decide and protection for continuity of care. The rules for these decisions still need to be developed.

If the waiting time reached 45 days, the reduction would be 15 days, or 25% of the initial value. Evaluating the service would still require examining quality, those still waiting and differences between groups. Excluding difficult cases or changing the definition of waiting time could improve the figure without solving the problem. Attributing an improvement to the project would require an appropriate comparison with what would otherwise have happened.

What still needs to be defined

Priorities and values remain open to debate. Technical analysis helps clarify costs, alternatives and consequences; the legitimacy of choices depends on participation, representation, rights and constraints on power. The design is under development, and rules that remain open are part of the public discussion of the proposal.

Voting and representation
How should choices be presented and combined, different priorities represented and conflicts between projects resolved?
Budget and continuity
How can projects be reconciled with the budget, their future expenditure and services that already need to continue?
Teams and accountability
How should those implementing projects be selected, overseen and, when necessary, replaced, using public criteria and with an opportunity to defend themselves?
Rights and participation
How can rights be protected, people with less time or digital access included, and capture of the process through resources or influence prevented?
Criteria and oversight of evaluators
Who defines what counts as an outcome, verifies the data and examines challenges? How can conflicts of interest be made public and these decisions made open to review?
Institutional transition
Which rules would need to change, which institutions could decide on those changes, and how would the transition be overseen and evaluated?

Criteria for examining the model's instruments

Institutional design under study

The same problem, three possible institutional designs

Use the Ceará education case as a reference for a public policy that has already been studied. Imagine a society deciding whether to adapt a combination of incentives, technical support and evaluation. OpenGov3 has not yet defined how this choice would translate into public authority. Comparing alternatives makes this gap explicit.

A hypothetical institutional exercise. It does not describe current legislation, replace constitutional analysis or represent an approved OpenGov3 rule.

View the Brazilian case used as a reference

A. Choose the priority; design the intervention afterwards

The population chooses the problem and public objectives. The competent bodies formulate and compare interventions within those limits.

What it makes easier

  • Allows the design to be adapted to evidence and technical capacity.
  • Avoids turning premature operational details into an unchangeable promise.

What it makes harder

  • The voter chooses fewer details of the project.
  • The technical stage may be captured or drift away from the expressed preference if its limits are vague.

B. Choose a complete project with identified people responsible

The choice includes scope, costs, timeline, indicators and the proposed people responsible. Material changes require a specific procedure.

What it makes easier

  • Improves comparability and clarity about who promised what.
  • Makes changes easier to monitor against the original commitment.

What it makes harder

  • May make an intervention inflexible in the face of new facts.
  • Changing people or estimates may raise questions about how far the original authorisation remains valid.

C. Choose priorities and assemble a portfolio within the budget

Eligible projects are ranked or combined under a public rule that respects the budget, rights and mandatory services.

What it makes easier

  • Makes explicit that choices compete for the same resources.
  • Allows the consequences of funding one set rather than another to be presented.

What it makes harder

  • The portfolio selection rule may be complex and alter the collective outcome.
  • Ties, dependencies between projects and protection of minorities require their own normative decisions.

The same institutional question, three possible answers

Entering the agenda

Who can formulate a need, and who decides whether it is ready to be put to a choice?

  • A: public criteria turn priorities into technical alternatives.
  • B: proponents must submit a sufficiently complete project before the choice is made.
  • C: projects enter an eligible pool before being combined within the budget.

Still to be decided: Technical requirements must not become a barrier for groups with fewer organisational resources.

Representation and rights

How do minority preferences and rights that do not depend on majority support enter the decision?

  • A: the priority guides the design, but rights define which alternatives are admissible.
  • B: projects incompatible with rights should not reach the selection stage.
  • C: the portfolio must make provision for obligations and essential services before allocating discretionary resources.

Still to be decided: No tally should turn a fundamental right into a mere aggregate preference.

Budget

When does popular support become authorisation to spend?

  • A: the choice guides planning; financial authorisation remains within the competent budget procedure.
  • B: the approved project states its cost ceiling and trajectory, but still needs legal authority for committing funds and making payments.
  • C: the available budget is a constraint on assembling the portfolio itself.

Still to be decided: Social benefit, fiscal savings and available appropriations remain different accounts.

Teams and implementers

Is the team part of the choice, or is it selected afterwards?

  • A: implementers are selected afterwards, using public criteria suited to the role.
  • B: key people responsible may form part of the commitment; significant replacements require justification and criteria set in advance.
  • C: the portfolio approves projects; implementation may be distributed among bodies and suppliers according to their responsibilities.

Still to be decided: Civil servants, political authorities, managers and suppliers have different legal relationships; a “winning team” cannot erase this distinction.

Changes during implementation

Which changes can take place without a new collective decision?

  • A: greater operational flexibility, provided the objective, budget and rights are preserved.
  • B: material changes in scope, cost or expected outcome trigger a review procedure.
  • C: changes may require the portfolio to be reassembled if they consume resources reserved for other projects.

Still to be decided: Materiality must be defined before a crisis, not after the change has already occurred.

Challenges

Who can challenge data, implementation or a review decision?

  • A: an appeal targets the administrative decision and the evidence used in the design.
  • B: an appeal may also challenge a discrepancy between delivery and the approved commitment.
  • C: alongside the project, it may be necessary to challenge the application of the rule that assembled the portfolio.

Still to be decided: Correcting data, suspending a payment, replacing a responsible person and annulling a decision are different remedies.

Service continuity

What happens when a project is delayed, fails or loses support?

  • A: existing services continue under institutional duties while the intervention is reviewed.
  • B: closing the project must include transition arrangements for people, contracts, data and operations.
  • C: replacing a project in the portfolio cannot automatically interrupt ongoing obligations.

Still to be decided: A project and a public service do not necessarily have the same lifespan.

Institutional transition

What would need to change to test the model without rewriting the state all at once?

  • A: consultative pilots can test presentation and monitoring without transferring legal powers.
  • B: binding decisions would require a legal basis and responsibilities appropriate to each act.
  • C: a binding portfolio would require planning, budgeting and oversight to be integrated, with rules for transition and reversal.

Still to be decided: The safe sequence is to test smaller mechanisms, observe failures and only then discuss larger institutional change.

Guardrails shared by all three alternatives

  • Secrecy of the electoral choice and transparency of implementation serve different functions and need their own protections.
  • Every significant operational decision needs an identifiable person or institution responsible for it.
  • Rules for measurement and change must be known before they are used to reward, penalise or replace anyone.
  • Conflicts of interest, data sources and opportunities to challenge decisions must remain visible.
  • Essential services and rights cannot depend solely on a project's performance or the popularity of a priority.

Before choosing a design

  1. What exactly is the citizen authorising: a priority, a project, a portfolio, a team or some combination?

  2. Which body retains the authority to turn that authorisation into a legal act and expenditure?

  3. What change would be significant enough to require a new deliberation?

  4. Who maintains the service while a decision is being challenged?

  5. What evidence would show that the institutional arrangement made the decision worse and should be reviewed?

Values that guide the design

The starting point is simple: society exists through individuals with dignity, differences, life plans and the capacity to learn. Institutions should support that capacity. Public resources, technology, economic growth and political organisation are means of improving people's lives.

The project embraces these values and makes its choices explicit. It does not seek to prove that politics can be free of values. It seeks to reduce the scope for automatic allegiance, promises without consequences and disputes that prevent people from examining a problem.

Agreeing with the author is not a requirement for learning. Being able to challenge him with better arguments is a desirable outcome.

Individual dignity
Each person matters in their own right, including when they need lasting care or support. Income, productivity, education and political opinion do not measure human worth.
Autonomy
Expand people's ability to lead their own lives, with information and basic material conditions. The state, the market and the project itself should not impose a single way of living.
Individual responsibility
Encourage effort, initiative, fulfilment of commitments and consideration of the consequences of one's actions. Attributing every difficulty to individual choice ignores starting conditions and risks beyond a person's control.
Public responsibility
Those who decide on resources and rights must explain their decisions and be accountable for them. Charisma, office, affiliation and good intentions do not remove the duty to account for one's actions.
Freedom of thought
Allow criticism, doubt, access to different arguments and changes of opinion. Understanding must not become a requirement to adopt the author's view.
Pluralism
Recognise that reasonable people may advocate different priorities. Disagreement does not justify belittling a person or presuming their psychological motivations.
Democracy and limits on power
Maintain participation, representation, rights, checks and the possibility of changes in power. Economic efficiency does not justify dictatorship or the suppression of rights.
Ethics and impartiality
Apply public criteria to allies, funders and founders too. A good cause does not justify privilege, corruption or favouritism.
Understandable transparency
Make decisions, money and outcomes verifiable by people unfamiliar with bureaucracy. Making an incomprehensible file available does not fulfil the duty to explain.
Respect for scarce resources
Examine costs, maintenance, forgone opportunities and alternatives. A worthwhile social intention does not make every design viable.
Initiative and competition
Facilitate business creation, work and innovation, allowing new participants to enter and grow. Favouring an established company is not the same as supporting entrepreneurship.
Solidarity and protection
Protect people against severe deprivation and risks they cannot bear alone. Support should neither create avoidable dependence nor abandon those who will continue to need it.
Learning and self-correction
Publish errors, update explanations and change instruments that have failed. The prestige of an idea cannot shield it from evaluation.
The long term
Consider children, future generations, the environment and service continuity. Immediate electoral or economic gains are not enough to justify future costs.

Autonomy, protection and choices in practice

Questions about the project's values

How the content helps examine the model

Civic understanding helps people understand, question and improve the model. The knowledge base can also be used by those who disagree with it. Each collection of content has a role in this investigation.

Countries and models
Experiences with information, evaluation, services and funding, including limits to their application in Brazil.
Government explained
Concepts and tools for comparing proposals, examining resources and monitoring outcomes.
Brazilian overview
Data and context on Brazilian problems, with their periods, sources and limitations.
Founding texts
The author's reflections explaining the values and concerns from which the project originated.
Policy proposals
Directions on which policies to advocate for Brazil, with their own questions of funding, implementation and political party organisation.

Read the current whitepaper and check its references

Project history

The original presentation

A reproduction of the opening of the previous version. The figures, diagnoses and announcements below retain their original context; they are not updated indicators or confirmation of an already available system.

Rethinking our political model

OpenGov3 explores a third way, which is simply data-driven management.

Our team has been developing a data-driven system that will soon help our citizens hold public managers to account more effectively.

Did you know that more than 500,000 tax rules have been issued since 1988? (An average of 2 new tax rules per working hour.) While public debate gets lost in labels of "left" and "right", the country still faces 1,501 hours a year to pay taxes, more than 7.8 million rules, 84 million court cases, 100 million people without adequate sewage disposal, homicide rates far above the global average and functional illiteracy among almost 1 in 3 adults. The central problem is not one of narrative: it is public management.

This project looks at Brazil without ideological passion, but with the coolness of data. In Work, Corruption, Education, Health, Security, Mobility and Housing, we show how poor decisions, excessive bureaucracy and the absence of clear priorities turn time, money and lives into waste. With every new round of empty polarisation, we postpone the obvious choices: simplify rules, focus on implementation, measure outcomes and hold those who govern accountable. Here, the axis is not left versus right — it is a state that works versus a state that holds us back.

Original whitepaper