Central Government Strategies to Promote Local Governments’ Transparency: Guidance or Enforcement?

Abstract

The push to make governments more transparent extends worldwide, as transparency is expected to boost citizens’ trust in government and participation in public affairs. Recent transparency laws and open-government initiatives have encouraged local governments to share more information with their constituents. A growing number of recent studies have investigated the drivers of local governments’ transparency, but have not yet addressed the role of higher levels of government in making local governments more transparent. In light of implementation scholarship arguing the success of centrally designed programs is a function of higher-level involvement, this study contributes to the transparency literature by approaching local governments’ transparency as an intergovernmental implementation process. We assess the explanatory power of two central government strategies: enforcement mechanisms and central government guidance on Chilean municipalities’ transparency levels. Results show that both types of central government strategies can have a substantial impact on transparency over time.