The “need to know” and the lack of online transparency among political parties

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the level of informative transparency among Spanish political parties and political foundations, according to general and descriptive information (e.g. contact, ideas and values, electoral programmes, members, etc.) and economic, governance and financial information. Design/methodology/approach – The situation of the parties in each year is represented by a biplot, which is a graphical representation of a multivariate sample. The data for this analysis were obtained from the reports published by Fundación Compromiso y Transparencia (Foundation for Integrity and Transparency) for 2011 and 2012. Findings – This paper evidences the existence of serious problems of opacity, especially in relation to financial information (balance sheet, income statement, annual accounts and audit report) and information on the fulfilment of goals and programmes (management report and compliance report). Originality/value – This is the first attempt to analyse statistically the level of transparency of political parties and foundations, showing the need for a robust control system and for mechanisms to penalise conduct that limits citizens’ access to public information.