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The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of the right to information laws on sustainability transparency in European local governments. This goal is novel, in that previous studies have examined the effects of various factors on the dissemination of government information (demographic, socioeconomic, political and financial) but not the contribution of legal factors to online transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our research question is this: Do information laws contribute to transparency on sustainability? Using the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and a statistical regression analysis, we studied the websites of 106 local governments in ten European countries. The results obtained show that when transparency laws clearly stipulate the rules applicable and the procedures established for appeals, exceptions, refusals and requests, this can favour transparency on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Our findings advance understanding of this field and reinforce the basis for legal reforms to enhance sustainability transparency.

ResumenAlgunos trabajos previos y los pronunciamientos de organismos internacionales (OTAN, GAO) han considerado el coste del ciclo de vida (LCC) como la metodología de selección de inversiones más avanzada para contribuir a la eficiencia del gasto militar, lo que representa una especial oportunidad para los investigadores considerando la obligada austeridad y las restricciones presupuestarias de los gobiernos. En cualquier país, la viabilidad del LCC exige el previo cumplimiento de los requisitos establecidos por tales organismos para la aplicación de este modelo. El objetivo del presente trabajo reside en identificar las mejoras necesarias para posibilitar la implantación del LCC en los sistemas de evaluación económica de las Fuerzas Armadas de España. A tal fin, hemos estudiado la adecuación de los actuales sistemas españoles a los requerimientos del LCC, realizando, además, un análisis comparativo con los sistemas de países europeos y norteamericanos, lo que nos ha permitido identificar reformas de adaptación dirigidas a alcanzar la factibilidad de este modelo en el Ministerio de Defensa español, sobre la base de las debilidades y fortalezas detectadas en nuestra investigación empírica.AbstractPrevious studies and the pronouncements by international organisations (NATO, GAO) have considered the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) as the most advanced methodology for the economic assesment of the efficiency of military spending. This provided a good opportunity for researchers considering the forced austerity and budget constraints of governments. In any country, the viability of LCC requires prior compliance with the requirements issued by such organisations for the implementation of this model. The aim of this paper is to identify the improvements required to enable the implementation of LCC in economic evaluation systems of the Armed Forces of Spain. A study was performed on the adequacy of current Spanish economic systems to the requirements of LCC, as well as conducting a comparative analysis with the systems of European and American countries. This enabled reforms to be identified in order to achieve the feasibility of this model in the Spanish Ministry of Defense, based on the strengths and weaknesses detected in our empirical research.

Although the transparency and sustainability of governments are currently of great interest to researchers, few studies have specifically addressed these issues. Nevertheless, previous research has found sustainability transparency as a key issue in government–citizen relations, especially for local governments (LGs). The aim of this article is to identify factors that promote online transparency regarding the sustainability of public policies, by means of an empirical study of 62 LGs in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Southern Europe. Our results show that the prevailing administrative tradition may influence the degree of transparency of LGs, with population, socioeconomic, and financial factors being relevant.

Meme si les organisations internationales et la litterature existante reconnaissent l’importance des rapports sur la durabilite pour les gouvernements de nos jours, certaines etudes revelent que cette question n’a pas recu l’attention qu’elle merite et qu’elle doit des lors etre examinee de plus pres. Dans le present article, nous etudions la publication par les gouvernements locaux des informations sur les questions de durabilite, en analysant la relation entre les differents niveaux de divulgation des informations sur la durabilite et certaines variables socioeconomiques, financieres et demographiques. Compte tenu du recours accru a l’Internet par les gouvernements, la methodologie appliquee dans la presente etude consiste a analyser les sites Web de 55 grandes villes espagnoles pour y rechercher 61 elements recommandes dans les lignes directrices de la Global Reporting Initiative. En appliquant une regression lineaire multiple, nous avons analyse l’influence de treize facteurs sur les rapports sur la durabilite publies par ces autorites municipales. Les resultats indiquent que les informations sociales sont les plus repandues et que la population inactive a une influence positive sur la divulgation des informations sur la durabilite. Les principaux moyens d’ameliorer les pratiques en matiere de durabilite consistent a ameliorer la divulgation des informations economiques et en matiere d’environnement, par la publication de rapports formels sur la durabilite et en ameliorant la coordination des informations publiees individuellement par differents departements.Remarques a l’intention des praticiensLes resultats obtenus font ressortir plusieurs questions particulierement interessantes pour les gestionnaires. D’une part, la crise financiere dans le secteur public a fait ressortir la necessite de legitimer les actions du gouvernement. De plus, l’incidence de la variable « population inactive » sur la divulgation des informations sur la durabilite indique qu’il existe un lien important entre la structure de la population et la divulgation de ces informations, ce qui fait ressortir la necessite de considerer l’âge de la population et son evolution au fil du temps comme la raison d’etre de la creation de rapports specifiques sur la durabilite. La demande d’informations sur la durabilite de la part du public ne depend pas du niveau d’impots payes. Enfin, le niveau d’autonomie des gouvernements locaux n’a aucune influence sur les informations divulguees a propos de leurs engagements en matiere de durabilite economique.

Citizens increasingly demand an active role in public affairs and decision-making processes. From a critical standpoint, this chapter consolidates existing knowledge and, in turn, provides a better understanding on how social media tools promote the citizens' engagement and participation. The main aim is to assist researchers in the development of their future analyses, identifying trends of research and the methodology used. In so doing, a systematic literature review has been used to examine social media and e-participation research in journals listed in ISI in the field of public administration and information science and library science during the period 2000-2016. The findings reveal that although research on social media and e-participation has increased in the last year, it remains immature. Therefore, further research is needed in order to understand the true impacts of social media tools and their involvement in e-participation.

In several European countries decentralization has promoted the creation of Regional Governments (RGs) with high levels of competence and responsibilities, such as promoting good governance and sustainability. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), and hence, the adoption of e-government has contributed to the adoption and dissemination of government transparency in a usable and accessible way. In this chapter, we study the transparency, accessibility and usability of websites of Spanish RGs.

E-government has enhanced the availability of government information, and expanding access to services, offering greater transparency and accountability for public administrations. However, previous research indicates that there are significant barriers for citizens, assuming major obstacles. In this sense, the EU and, in particular, the Spanish government has formulated policies and legal frameworks to introduce in the field of the provision of public sector services, in order to customize and to access these services. These initiatives seek to promote the development of networks and services, to improve the e-administration and the adoption of digital solutions for efficient delivery of public services, and to promote the inclusion and digital literacy. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to obtain a vision of government strategies adopted by Spanish regional governments to reduce the digital divide.

Although international organizations and prior literature have recognized the importance of sustainability reporting for governments nowadays, some studies have revealed that this is an issue that has received little attention and thus needs further investigation. This article studies the publication of information on sustainability issues by local governments, analysing the relationship between diverse levels of sustainability information disclosure and some socioeconomic, financial and population variables. Based on the increased use of the Internet by governments, the methodology applied in this study is to analyse the websites of 55 major towns and cities in Spain, seeking 61 items that are recommended in the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. By applying multiple linear regression analysis, we analysed the influence of 13 factors on the sustainability reporting provided by these municipal authorities. The results show that social information is the most widespread, and that the dependent population has a positive impact on the sustainability disclosures. The major opportunities to improve sustainability practices lie in improving the disclosure of economic and environmental information, through the publication of formal sustainability reports and the enhanced coordination of information published individually by different departments. Points for practitioners The results obtained highlight several issues of particular interest for managers. On the one hand, the public sector financial crisis has heightened the need to legitimize government actions. Moreover, the incidence of the variable ‘dependent population’ on the disclosure of sustainability information suggests that there is an important relation between the population structure and such disclosure, highlighting the need to consider the age of the population and its evolution over time as the basis for creating specific reports on sustainability. The public demand for information on sustainability does not depend on the level of taxes paid. Finally, local governments are not motivated by their level of financial autonomy with respect to information about their commitments on economic sustainability.

International organisations such as the EU, the OECD and the WBG have recommended that governments provide information to citizens about the sustainability of their public policies. Furthermore, previous studies have concluded that while stakeholders are demanding greater transparency from public entities about the sustainability of their actions, little research has been conducted into governmental information disclosure concerning sustainability. Accordingly, the aim of the present paper is to contribute to our understanding of sustainability practices and information transparency in this respect in governmental institutions, and thus enable improvements to be made in this field. In the view that e-government, based on information and communication technologies, is a key element in good governance aimed at achieving sustainable development, we identify factors that may promote the disclosure of information on the sustainability of public entities, by analysing the information content of regional governments' websites and its relationship with certain variables. Our main findings are that socio-economic factors such as education, population density and access to internet, and e-government factors such as the provision of public information online, the percentage of procedures completed after online start, the level of online services provided and broadband availability, are all relevant to the disclosure of sustainability information by regional governments.

Although the importance of sustainability reporting in the public sector is widely recognized, there are few studies about this issue. This paper analyzed the practices of diffusion of information on sustainability in local governments. So, we observed the Websites of the largest local governments in Spain using a list of items from the guidelines of GRI and comparing the results with the results of the Spanish regional governments. Our findings show that local governments reported some information (50% of the items), but less than regional governments (60%). Social information is the most widespread and environmental information is the least reported.

espanolEn el actual contexto de crisis, los ciudadanos demandan al sector publico mayor transparencia y rendicion de cuentas. Este trabajo pretende avanzar en el conocimiento de las practicas de sostenibilidad en la administracion publica. Para ello proponemos comparar la divulgacion de informacion sobre sostenibilidad realizada por distintos gobiernos regionales, analizando las webs de los mismos mediante un analisis de contenido, usando para ello un listado de items basado en las guias del Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).Nuestros resultados muestran que los gobiernos regionales espanoles difunden dos tercios de la informacion requerida por el GRI, presentando la informacion social un nivel de respuesta mayor y la informacion general un menor nivel de difusion. Ademas, aquellos gobiernos regionales con mayor compromiso ambiental publican mas informacion sobre sostenibilidad. De nuestras conclusiones podemos destacar que la mala situacion financiera que atraviesan no parece impulsar a los gobiernos regionales espanoles a divulgar informacion sobre sostenibilidad EnglishIn the current crisis, citizens are demanding greater public sector transparency and accountability. In this paper, we advance the understanding of sustainability practices in public administration. We propose to compare the dissemination of sustainability of various regional governments, analyzing the websites of these regional governments through a content analysis, using for this purpose a list of items obtained from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. Our results show that Spanish regional governments, spread two-thirds of the information in the GRI guidelines, being the social information which presents a higher level of response and corresponding general aspects which has a lower level of dissemination. In addition, those regional governments with greater environmental commitment are those who publish more information about sustainability. From our conclusions, we emphasize that the poor financial situation of the Spanish regional governments does not seem to promote them to disseminate information about sustainability

In the current socioeconomic context, the question of local government sustainability transparency is of great interest to policymakers, managers, citizens and other stakeholders, and yet one to which previous research has devoted little specific attention. At the same time, the Internet has become an instrument of good governance worldwide and government entities in Europe have strived to promote e-government to improve transparency towards citizens. The aim of this study was to identify factors that can help politicians and managers improve practices of sustainability information disclosed by European local governments. To do so, an empirical study was conducted of 91 municipalities in nine countries, comparing three main administrative cultures. Our analysis of the study results highlights various demographic, socioeconomic, financial and legal factors that may be useful to policymakers and managers in promoting the online provision of sustainability information in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic and Southern European countries.