Beliefs and attitudes towards transparency in the civil service: the Chilean case

Abstract

Transparency in the public sector involves making information about government management accessible and comprehensible in the processes that determine its operations. How do beliefs and attitudes interact regarding this phenomenon among individuals working within the State? The objective of this study is to quantitatively analyze the impact of organizational, cultural, and individual factors on the attitudes of Chilean public bureaucracy toward transparency. The methodology employed included logit models using data from the “Ninth National Study on Public Officials’ Perception of the Right of Access to Information”, in 2020. The results revealed complexities and contradictions in the relationship between these factors and favorable attitudes toward transparency. Factors with significant impact were cultural and organizational. Regarding cultural factors, the perception of potential retaliation and the lack of importance given to reporting misconduct had a negative relationship with pro-transparency attitudes. As for organizational factors, officials in managerial and professional positions showed a greater propensity to hesitate about reporting acts of corruption, challenging the principal-agent problem's expectations.