How Freedom of Information Laws develop over time: Empirical evidence from twelve EU countries

This paper focuses on government transparency, which refers to the extent to which external actors are able to regularly access information that allows them to understand what is going on in government. Access to information helps citizens and civil society organizations make public authorities accountable for their actions and allows public debate to be better informed. It can also improve public confidence and trust if public sector bodies are seen as being open. Over the last three decades, the ideal of government transparency has entrenched itself within the regulatory framework of an ever-increasing number of countries as shown by the diffusion of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws that confer to the public the right to ask for and receive information held by public bodies. Whereas in the 1990 only a few FOI laws existed across Europe, as of 2018 all the EU countries have adopted FOI legislation. This paper takes an overview of the development of FOI laws across 12 EU countries that have been exposed to major critical events like terrorist attacks, fiscal crises and the rise of populist parties. More specifically, the empirical section examines the formal strength of the legal framework for the right to information in countries whose administrative systems are claimed to belong to different traditions (Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Napoleonic, and Post-Communist). An original set of indicators has been developed to track the evolution of specific features of FOI laws on a yearly basis in the period 2000-2022. This allows to assess how the development of FOI laws has been influenced not only by broader institutional variables but also by critical events that triggered major political changes.