How Institutional Culture Trumps Tier Effects: Evidence from Government Responsiveness to FOI Requests

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Poole, Ed Gareth
• 署名单位: Cardiff University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muy039
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 210-226
• 关键词: information-act 2000; local-government; fiscal transparency; united-kingdom; freedom; decentralization; CORRUPTION; determinants; performance; FEDERALISM

摘要

Claims that decentralization could improve government accountability and responsiveness led to its adoption as a policy objective across the globe. But recent empirical work finds little evidence of tier effects in practice; instead, significant variation exists even between most-similar bodies. Recognizing the value of Freedom of Information (FOI) in facilitating large-scale data collection, and that the UK's institutional diversity offers an important source of between- and within-tier variation, I compile a large new data set by emailing two separate FOI requests to 812 UK public bodies with an executive function. Identifying significant variation in timeliness and quality between UK territories, I argue that differing foundational motives can help explain patterns of responsiveness between institutions established by transparency-facing reforms and those designed to resolve conflict. A lack of evidence that lower-tier governments are generally more responsive reaffirms the recent challenges to the more fundamental claims about decentralization that informed academic debate and real-world practice.