Transparency in Spanish municipalities: Determinants of information disclosure

Abstract

The changes occurred in the management systems of public administration at present allow greater accountability and transparency. The purpose of this paper is twofold; firstly, study the level of transparency in the Spanish Public Administration, in particular we will focus on local governments; and, secondly, to determine those factors or variables that are affecting the levels of transparency. The methodology used to analyze the level of transparency used the transparency index of municipalities build by Transparency International in Spain as a proxy. For the treatment of the data, univariate and multivariate analyses are performed. The pressures exerted by citizens and other stakeholders are leading municipalities to become more transparent in the process of creating legitimacy before citizens and stakeholders. Those municipalities, where citizens have greater access to the Internet, have more population, fiscal pressure is heavier and are governed by left-wing parties, are more pressured to be transparent.