Statecraft

What Can We Learn From Estonia?


Listen Later

What can we learn from Estonia? It’s not a question you hear often — the nation of under two million residents doesn’t mean much to many. But for good governance advocates, it’s long been a touchpoint for its “e-government” model. The New Yorker wrote in 2017 that, “apart from transfers of physical property, such as buying a house, all bureaucratic processes can be done online.” Wired called Estonia “the world's most digitally advanced society.” On its “e-Estonia” site, the country itself brags, in a mod font, “We have built a digital society and we can show you how.”

The Estonian model has a lot going for it from the perspective of a citizen. For example: Taxes take a few minutes to file, you can see every time the government looks at your data, and you never have to give the government a piece of information more than once. And it makes governance easier: the bureaucracy is leaner, information is shared across agencies, and data is more secure.

But how much of this model could be adopted here in the US, or in the rest of the West? And how much is reliant on a cultural and societal context we just don’t have here? To get answers, I talked to Joel Burke, author of the new book Rebooting a Nation: The Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government and the Startup Revolution. Joel is an American who worked with the Estonian government, and I learned a lot from his book.

For the full transcript of this conversation and others, visit www.statecraft.pub.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

StatecraftBy Santi Ruiz

  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7

4.7

25 ratings


More shows like Statecraft

View all
Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,392 Listeners

Odd Lots by Bloomberg

Odd Lots

1,780 Listeners

The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

10,693 Listeners

The Good Fight by Yascha Mounk

The Good Fight

893 Listeners

Radio Atlantic by The Atlantic

Radio Atlantic

2,304 Listeners

ChinaTalk by Jordan Schneider

ChinaTalk

269 Listeners

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat by New York Times Opinion

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

6,751 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

401 Listeners

The American Compass Podcast by American Compass

The American Compass Podcast

52 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,443 Listeners

Volts by David Roberts

Volts

591 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,237 Listeners

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg by Turpentine

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg

145 Listeners

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins by Heatmap News

Shift Key with Robinson Meyer and Jesse Jenkins

93 Listeners

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) by Patrick McKenzie

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

123 Listeners