Exercising accountability through open data portals in Spanish Autonomous Communities

Abstract

This article analyses the communication model for accountability based on open data portals used by Spanish regional governments. Based on the theories of agency, new institutionalism and legitimacy, two behaviour patterns are proposed, referred to as “sincere transparency” and “apparent transparency”. Although the data sets available have increased significantly over the period analysed, the results in relation to transparency and accountability remain poor. According to the behavioural analysis, four Autonomous Communities implement policies that evidently strive for sincere transparency, while seven clearly display behaviour of apparent transparency with respect to their open data portals.