Revisiting Responsibility Attribution within Multilevel GovernmentsThe Role of Information

  1. Ana Herrero-Alcalde 1
  2. José Manuel Tránchez Martín 1
  3. María Eugenia Goenaga Ruiz de Zuazu 2
  1. 1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
    info

    Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02msb5n36

  2. 2 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

Revista:
Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics

ISSN: 0210-1173

Año de publicación: 2018

Número: 226

Páginas: 37-58

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.7866/HPE-RPE.18.3.2 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Otras publicaciones en: Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics

Resumen

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

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Fuente de los datos: Dialnet