and open data, to strengthen ethical values and public trust, and to raise awareness in society and in the civil service sector of the values of open government2.

1.2. Political parties: from transparency to openness

The publication of information has not only been studied and developed in public administrations, but the private sector has been influenced by transparency as well. Spanish political parties started to offer a section on their websites dedicated to transparency in 2011, as pointed out by Dader, Campos and Quintana (2011).

The activity carried out by various organisations dedicated to promoting openness of information, such as Transparency International3, the Fundación Compromiso y Transparencia4 (Foundation for Commitment and Transparency), and Dyntra5, has also contributed to this situation. These organisations put pressure on political parties by publishing evaluations regarding their transparency, although the lack of a methodological consensus makes it necessary to reinforce these assessments and evaluate not only active publicity, but other aspects of the openness of political parties as well.

Political parties have been forced to comply with several active transparency obligations since the approval of Law 19/2013 of 9 December on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance. However, this regulation is insufficient due to certain shortcomings, such as the low standards required for active publicity and the absence of sanctions for non-compliance (Cotino, 2014). It is therefore necessary for political parties to strive to be more transparent and open than the rule itself requires, thereby demonstrating an exemplary model of democracy.

Political parties should not be transparent only because they are bound to do so by the Law on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance (LTABG). Transparency is a concept linked to the efficiency and honesty of any political activity, and although it is not the solution, it is the basis for restoring citizen confidence in the political class.

It should be highlighted that according to the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), 45.3% of the Spanish population believe that political parties are one of the main problems at the present time. It also bears mentioning that political parties in Spain receive more than 75% of their funding from public sources (Gavilanes, Andrés and Belmonte, 2016). Therefore, political parties must be held accountable to citizens, who provide a large part of the income of such parties and are the ones who the parties want to govern.

All of these reasons reinforce the idea that political parties should not only promote transparency, but participation and collaboration as well, in order to allow access to their information and encourage debate, decision-making and collaboration with citizens. By strengthening these measures, the parties will be held accountable by citizens, as they will have to provide the citizenry with information regarding the ways in which they will have used their financial contributions, thereby strengthening both democracy and the democratisation of their processes.