Citizens is demanding access to public information as a way to have more control over governments. Been more transparent in the conduct of their activities and political responsibilities, has been the response from governments. Transparency is about government decisions, increasing the effectiveness of government management and look for standards of ethics (Backstrand & Saward, 2004). It is about the availability of information concerning government organizations that allows citizens and other external actors to monitor and assess internal work and performance of public organizations (Meijer, 2013). It is a mechanism used to improve good governance in public services (Bauhr & Grimes, 2014) and to increase the public’s ability to access government information (Roberts, 2006).
Literature about transparency is largely based on the explanations of the agency theory (Zimmerman, 1977) and the legitimacy theory (Patten, 1992). Based on the postulates of both theories, the purpose of this paper is to analyses the main features that are affecting transparency in Portuguese municipalities. It aims to answer the following research questions: What factors influenced Local Government transparency?
Recent literature about local governments transparency claims that the disclosure of information may be conditioned by certain socioeconomic and political characteristics (Cuadrado-Ballesteros, 2014). Since transparency problems are more frequent at local level, the construction of a transparency index for municipalities by a non-governmental Portuguese agency, the Transparency and Integrity Civic Association, open the opportunity to test which factors influence municipal transparency.
This paper contributes to the literature on transparency by empirically testing a theoretical framework that explains the factors influencing Local Government transparency in Portuguese municipalities. It examines empirical evidence from Portuguese municipalities for two reasons: first, (1) to analyse the evolution of the Transparency in Portuguese municipalities, (2) to analyse the factors which influenced municipal transparency. Few studies have been produced for the Portuguese case and this is a contribution to understand municipalities answers to the increasing demands for transparency from Portuguese civil society.
The empirical framework focuses on the factors, which influences transparency, using panel data and hypothesizes two explanations for it: socioeconomic and political factors. Data is collected for all the Portuguese municipalities from official sources.
References
Backstrand, K., & Saward, M. (2004). Democratizing Global Governance: Stakeholder Democracy at the World Summit for Sustainable Development. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Conference, Chicago.
Bauhr, M. & Grimes, M. (2014). Indignation or resignation: the implications of transparency for societal accountability, Governance, 27(2), 291-320.
Cuadrado-Ballesteros, B. (2014). The impact of functional decentralization and externalization on local government transparency. Government Information Quarterly, 31(2), 265-277.
Meijer, A. (2013). Understanding the complex dynamics of transparency, Public Administration Review, 73(3), 429-439.
Patten, D. M. (1992). Intra-industry environmental disclosures in response to the Alaskan oil spill: a note on legitimacy theory, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 17, 471-475.
Roberts, A. (2006). Blacked out: Government secrecy in the information age. Cambridge University Press.
Zimmerman, J. L. (1977). The municipal accounting maze: An analysis of political incentives. Journal of Accounting Research, 15(Suppl.), 107–144.
