THE TRANSPARENCY AND THE DEMOCRACY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS: A SURVEY ON ITALIAN AND SPANISH MUNICIPALITIES’ WEBSITES

The research aims at analysing in a comparative approach which determinants have influenced transparency and democratic participation in two European countries with similar characteristics: Italy and Spain. To this end, we have related transparency and democratic participation practices with some variables to take into account the financial situation of the entities, the level of citizens’ engagement in the political life and the economic and social condition of the territory. The research has been conducted by analysing the websites of all Italian and Spanish local governments with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Descriptive statistics have been coupled with regression techniques for a comparative analysis between the two countries. The results demonstrate that some determinants can affect the transparency and democratic participation. Notably, while dimension of the entity in term of inhabitants, GDP and citizen engagement increased production of financial information disclosed on the web site by Italian and Spanish local governments, the belonging to the country, the size, GDP and revenues per capita affect democratic participation. However, despite specific laws in both countries ask for more transparency and there is a strong pressure for democratic participation, these two issue are still below desirable levels. The research add fresh knowledge in an under-researched field, offering some useful insight for legislator and standards setter: in fact, more specific requirement can support the enhancement of transparency and democratic participation, also in other European countries.