In the Spanish multilevel Government

We have just lived the European elections with atypical results and I ask myself: are we really aware about which are the political duties of the European Union? I don´t think so.

Last week I took part in the conference “The new reform of the Spanish State of Autonomies: analysis and proposals“, financed by FUNCAS-RIFDE, with a paper related to visibility, transparency and responsibility. There were two intense days full of interesting proposals for improving our Spanish multilevel Government.

In democracy, citizens use votes to control their politicians. In this sense, politicians make efforts to accomplish those public policies that are rewarded by citizens. Nevertheless, there is not much point in political punishments or rewards if citizens are not aware of the correct assignment of the responsibilities to the institution responsible for them.

Good visibility of public policies is required for accountability and political control where citizens are well informed. Responsibilities attribution is even more difficult in federal systems as the Spanish one where responsibilities are shared by several levels of Government. In this sense, do you think Spaniards are sufficiently well informed about what taxes we pay or which public services and goods we receive from them?

According to the results obtained in our paper, Spaniards do not have enough information about their Spanish multilevel Government to assign responsibilities properly regarding expenses and even less about taxes. As an example, the following graph shows the knowledge of  which political level of Government is responsible for the Spanish healthcare system (2005 vs 2010) divided up into Spanish regions. Figures express the number of correct attribution of responsibilities of healthcare system to their autonomous level.

These figures demonstrate that decentralization process is a question of learning: the more time goes by, the easier it is to attribute responsibilities to their correct organizations for citizens. It´s feasible as well to assume a “economic crisis effect” because of the cutbacks on our healthcare system and other public services or goods that make responsibility more visible.

If citizens cannot clearly distinguish spheres of authority across levels of Government, elections may turn out to be an ineffective mechanism to hold Governments accountable.  My point of view on this is that we can pay attention to those who prefer to re-centralize services and taxes and Spain should continue with its decentralization process but taking into account accountability and control. Fundamentally, its a question of transparency and information.

What is your point of view? Are Spaniards well informed enough about the design of our multilevel Government? Who (central, regional or local Government level) would you complain to about any bad management of any public service? If you don´t live in Spain, what is your personal opinion regarding this topic?

Waiting for your opinions!

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