Does Transparency Reach Citizens? National Accountability Mechanisms and Public Perceptions in Europe

Governments worldwide have introduced transparency and accountability regulations so that citizens can hold officialsaccountable for their actions and fulfill their role as “watchdogs” of the state. In the long term, this should legitimize gov-ernment by mitigating information asymmetries between citizens and the government. Therefore, if adequate mechanisms thatempower citizens to increase government transparency and the accountability of public officials are properly stipulated in thelaw, do citizens also perceive it that way? Understanding public perceptions of decision‐making processes and governmentactivities is crucial for policymaking because citizens are the ultimate evaluators of policy outcomes. Thus, this study examineswhether such institutionalized regulations reach citizens and (positively) affect citizens' perceptions of government trans-parency. Using individual‐level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and country‐level data from the European PublicAccountability Mechanisms Dataset (EuroPAM), we analyze the impact of five accountability indicators on citizens' perceptionsof transparency in 28 European countries. Using the large‐N sample data from the ESS, we control for socio‐demographicvariables and thus also shed light on covariates of citizens' perceptions of transparency. Contrary to our hypotheses, we findthat the scope of accountability mechanisms is not indicative of perceived transparency. Rather, our findings point toward amore complex relationship between national policies and citizens' perception, and underline the importance of distinguishingbetween de jure, de facto, and perceived transparency.