Revisiting responsibility attribution within multilevel goverments: the role of information

Recent research has shown that citizens living in decentralized countries struggle to identify which level of government is designing and implementing public policies, thus hindering the due accountability process of democracy. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of citizens...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Herrero Alcalde, Ana, Goenaga Ruiz De Zuazu, María, Tránchez Martín, José Manuel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/94429
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/94429
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:336.1/.5
Visibility
Responsibility attribution
Decentralization
Regional governments
Hacienda Pública
5301.02 Hacienda Pública (Presupuesto)
Descripción
Sumario:Recent research has shown that citizens living in decentralized countries struggle to identify which level of government is designing and implementing public policies, thus hindering the due accountability process of democracy. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of citizens´ responsibility attribution by analyzing the Spanish case. A novel methodological approach is used by separately analyzing those citizens who fail to identify the competent level of government and those who did not even give an answer. Besides, two novel hypotheses are tested regarding the process by which information is transmitted to and absorbed by citizens: the impact of regional media and the territorial group bias. After confirming that the methodological strategy is correct, we find strong evidence that the existence of regional media helps responsibility attribution, thus fostering accountability; while co-official languages, used as a proxy of a group bias, hamper the process by which citizens identify the competent level of government.