Los gobiernos locales de España han implementado normativas diversas, nacionales y autonómicas, de transparencia en los últimos años. Todo el acervo normativo aprobado establecía principios e imponía obligaciones de índole muy diversa al conjunto de entes públicos, entre ellos los más de 8.000 ayuntamientos. Este trabajo se interesa por el proceso de implementación de la(s) normativa(s) de transparencia en los gobiernos locales españoles de mayor población. Concretamente, se plantea hasta qué punto esta normativa ha impulsado el cambio organizacional e institucional en los entes locales y el nivel de desempeño en términos de publicidad activa. Mediante un cuestionario específico dirigido a los municipios de mayor población y el análisis de las páginas web de los ayuntamientos, obtenemos información sobre el proceso y el nivel de implementación efectiva. En este artículo discutimos sobre dos factores determinantes para comprender el proceso de implementación: la existencia de path dependency interna o el establecimiento de normativa y obligaciones legales. Los resultados apuntan hacia una explicación y efectos combinados de la existencia de normativa específica y la aplicación anticipada de la transparencia, tanto para el nivel de cumplimiento de ésta como para el cambio institucional provocado.

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Oliver Dlabac leads the research group on Local Democracy at the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau and teaches on decentralisation at the University of Zurich. He has published on local and regional democracy in Switzerland and is currently leading a research project on the democratic foundations of urban planning in the city regions of Birmingham, Lyon and Zurich. Lluís Medir lectures in the Department of Political Science at the University of Barcelona, Spain. His research interests include local government and public policy, and his most recent publication is 'Dealing with Austerity: a case of local resilience in Southern Europe' in Local Government Studies, 2017. He researches in the GREL (www.ub.edu/grel). Mariona Tomàs is associate professor of Political Science and member of the GREL at the University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on metropolitan governance and urban policies, publishing several articles, book chapters, and comparative studies in the field. She received the Academic Gold Medal of the General Governor of Canada for her PhD in Urban Studies and she won the first prize of the political book of the Parliament of Quebec.

Southern countries are undergoing a severe economic crisis that has renewed debates about the available strategies to economize their public resources. Political leaders have launched a wide range of different strategies aimed at reducing spending. According to generally accepted political discourse, drastic actions should be taken to guarantee economic and financial sustainability in times of austerity. We explore the main measures adopted by Spanish municipalities in order to examine their impact in budgetary terms. First of all, we identify the most frequently implemented mechanisms including organizational structure, public services and operational economic restructuration. After their quantification, we monitor the presence and impact of each set of policies to analyse the relationship between concrete measures and effective economic impact. The effective reduction of budgets is being implemented but data shows that local governments are resilient to non-compulsory changes. The 'government at a distance' policy pursued by the central state administration has effectively

The hit of the pandemic in Spain has been one of the most important in number of deaths and infected people in all Europe and the central government implemented one of the toughest confinement measures. Aside from this government's performance, opposition parties and, particularly VOX have mainly driven the political tension that has filled Spain during the months of lockdown. In this scenario, VOX has sensed this opportunity and has decided to use the pandemic to direct fierce criticism at the Spanish government, to the point of becoming practically an antiestablishment party. In a complete different role, Podemos has been conditioned by its institutional position as part of the Spanish government. While the two parties have adopted differing strategies towards the government's performance, however, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, both have discarded their populist standpoints to a great extent and, instead, highlighted the ideological content of their proposals.