This document presents the latest of three rounds of the EQI data on regional governance in EU countries (Charron, Dijkstra and Lapuente 2014, 2015; Charron, Lapuente and Rothstein 2013). While this round of data largely builds on the work of previous rounds, there are several alterations based on suggestions from a Rauch analysis of the 2010, and 2013 rounds of the EQI data (Annoni and Charron 2017). In this document, we highlight the sample, summary statistics and question items that are included in the 2017 round of the EQI. Together with national estimates from the World Bank Governance Indicators (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi 2009), we report data on Quality of Government (‘QoG’) for all EU 28 countries and for NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions for 21 EU countries, totaling 185 regions12. The QoG questions are aimed at capturing average citizens’ perceptions and experiences with corruption, and the extent to which they rate their public services as impartial and of good quality.
In addition, we highlight broad patterns as we see them in the data and more specifically analyze trend in the EQI over time within regions. Using several statistical and observational techniques, we elucidated four interesting case studies from Spain and Poland, which were undertaken to better draw out ‘best practices’ to improve governance at the sub-national level in other EU regions.