Transparencia de la información pública en las páginas web de municipios de España y Ecuador

This article addresses the issues of public information and citizen participation as elements for the construction of democracy. The new information and communication technologies allow greater information transparency and efficiency in the exchange between citizens and the administration of the offices accountable for managing public projects and resources. Using Infoparticipa methodology, webpages of Ecuador and Spain municipalities were analyzed in order to compare the levels of communication transparency between two countries that show different political and social conditions, yet at the same time an equal interest in improving their democratic performance on the one hand, and to establish if Mapa Infoparticipa is useful in both cases on the other hand. Municipalities in Ecuador, in contrast to those in Spain, have pages that do not guarantee transparency in the information offered to citizens.