Transparency in Public Administrations: The Italian FOIA Case

Abstract

In a society where information is acquiring ever greater value, stakeholders - be they citizens or complex organisations - increasingly emphasise their need to access knowledge. Public administrations, characterised by their close proximity to the public, are even more duty-bound to manage and communicate information to the local community they serve. Emerging as key in this domain is the role of transparency, intended as an instrument able to bridge the gap between the information that public administrations hold and that of the community in which they operate. In a context where information itself is the asset that is the object of stakeholder interest, the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) regulations become a useful framework to regulate the right and means of accessing information.