Home
About
Stories
Search

Zvezoskop
Asset Detector

How to explore the data

The title page of Zvezoskop shows the entire network formed by the individual networks of government members, ministerial secretaries, and MPs.

Icon sizes depend on the number of their connections, and the colors denote their individual political functions (purple for the Prime Minister, blue for government ministers, turquoise for their secretaries, and light green for MPs).

Hovering over a person of interest reveals their personal network. By clicking on the icon, you will see only that individual’s network.

It is also possible to compare the networks of two officials by selecting the second person. To remove them, simply click on their icon.

You can reach the title page again by clicking on the project symbol in the top left corner.

In the main view (network of 1 person), you can click the "CV" button to access information about the person's education, career, party affiliation, and leisure activities. And who they may have shared them with.

In the CV view, you can see an overview of all officials whose paths converged at an institution by clicking on it. If you select a political party, you will see the occupational profiles of its members.

The "i" sign denotes more information available.

Have a nice exploration!

PS: If you discover something interesting, you can always write to us at contact@ostro.si.

Exploring Careers of Political Officials

Zvezoskop (roughly translated as Relationscope) is an interactive visualization of careers of government members, ministerial secretaries and Members of Parliament.

Why Zvezoskop?

Slovenia is a small country with a population of 2 million and a widespread belief that personal relationships and loyalty outweigh competence in staffing choices. This perception undermines public trust in government and the Parliament and perpetuates perceived or actual conflicts of interest in the legislative and executive branches.

Zvezoskop provides the public with information about career trajectories of political officials while enabling it to conduct independent research. A decade ago, the German newspaper Die Zeit introduced a similar, albeit simpler, visual representation of government ministers' careers. In Slovenia, this approach is entirely novel.

Following the last four national elections in Slovenia, political parties that were formed (roughly) prior to the elections came to power.

Among the officials featured in Zvezoskop, 40% had never been elected in a general election or appointed as ministers or ministerial secretaries before the 2022 parliamentary elections.

The interactive shows:

  1. Links between political officials, allowing the public to discover their career intersections and gain insights.
  2. Verified information on career paths, spanning from educational years to current political roles.
  3. Current and past positions or roles of political officials in other organizations, institutions, or companies, providing an overview of all the politicians associated with an entity.
  4. Insight into the educational, professional, and interest profiles of political parties represented in Government and the Parliament.

How can Zvezoskop benefit its users?

  1. Independent exploration of information about education, past employment, and political affiliations of officials.
  2. Discovery of career intersections of current political officials.
  3. Independent research of officials’ career paths while tracking revolving door transitions between the public and private sectors.
  4. Providing voters with access to credible and verified information on the careers of ministers, ministerial secretaries and parliamentarians to assist them in making informed decisions.
  5. A tool for journalists, NGOs, academics, and other researchers conducting independent research into political careers and networks.

Project methodology

The team behind Zvezoskop began research by utilizing publicly available CVs of active political officials. Then they employed investigative and data journalism techniques to supplement and upgrade this information.

Research

The team meticulously collected, verified, and analyzed data pertaining to career paths of 160 political officials.

Data sources

Data was verified and supplemented against official press releases, public and specialized databases, social networks and other investigative work.

Evidence

Data available in the interactive is sourced from official documents, data and information, and corroboration by individual officials.

Start and End Date

Only data for which we could verify the start and end dates (at least the year) is included in the analysis. These parameters are crucial for predicting intersections between individuals.

Institution

The term "institution" refers to locations where individuals intermingle and does not necessarily denote actual legal entities.

Right of Reply

All political officials were presented with a timely request to reply to the collected data, and invited to provide corrections and additions, if necessary.

Double-checking

To ensure accuracy, all data underwent double-checking by journalists. Two team members independently collected information on career trajectories of each official by utilizing investigative and data journalism techniques.

Fact-checking

In compliance with Oštro’s Code of Conduct, the data underwent internal verification before publication by team members who were not involved in its collection. All evidence was archived and is securely stored by the newsroom.

Open data

After publication, we will upload the verified data to the free and openly accessible Wikidata and OpenSanctions data repositories.

Wikidata is governed by a community of users and managed by the Wikipedia Foundation, and serves as a central repository for structured data from various sister projects.

OpenSanctions is an international repository of information on individuals and entities linked by politics, crime, or economic interests.

By contributing to these repositories, we aim to promote open access to information for the broader international community.

Other

The data is current as of 1 February 2024. Due to limited staff, Oštro cannot guarantee updates of the data at all times.

For additional information about career paths of officials, please contact us at contact@ostro.si or by post at Oštro, Kotnikova ulica 28, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Impressum

Editor in chief

Anuška Delić

Project leader

Klara Škrinjar

Authors

Maja Čakarić, Samo Demšar, Žana Erznožnik, Martin Justin, Nina Rozman, Klara Škrinjar, Matej Zwitter

Fact-checking

Maja Čakarić, Samo Demšar, Žana Erznožnik, Nina Rozman, Klara Škrinjar, Matej Zwitter, Katarina Bulatović

Expert consultants

dr. Anuška Ferligoj, dr. Vladimir Batagelj

Front-end development

Kirk G. Jackson

Data wrangling

Jan Daniel Bothma, Friedrich Lindenberg

Translation

Sebastijan Maček

Design

Studio Mashoni

The project was co-financed by

Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge

Contact

contact@ostro.si

Oštro © 2024