Local compliance with national transparency legislation

The quality of transparency at the local level affects the provision of essential services such as health, education, and security. Most scholarship on local compliance with national transparency legislation focuses on active forms of transparency (e.g., obligatory online disclosure) in rich countries. Yet recent work emphasizes the particular weakness of local transparency compliance outside of rich democracies, especially with regards to passive forms of transparency (e.g., responsiveness to information requests). We contribute to this literature by examining a series of electronic freedom of information audits of municipal compliance with transparency regulations in Brazil. Unlike other studies, we examine both the determinants of compliance on parchment (de jure compliance) and in practice (de facto compliance). Our findings, which speak to socioeconomic, political and administrative concerns, reveal telling distinctions between de jure and de facto compliance. The paper offers important lessons for policy-based efforts to improve new transparency measures.