Measuring the Quality of Government at the Sub-National Level

This document presents the latest of four rounds of the EQI data on regional governance in EU countries (Charron, Dijkstra, and Lapuente, 2014; Charron, Dijkstra, and Lapuente, 2015; Charron, Lapuente, and Rothstein, 2013; Charron, Lapuente, and Annoni, 2019).

While this round of data largely builds on the work of previous rounds, there are several alterations based on suggestions from a Rasch analysis of the 2010, and 2013 rounds of the EQI data (Annoni and Charron, 2019), as well as an expanded number of regions and several small adjustments based on the Covid-19 situation.

In this document, we highlight the sample, summary statistics and question items that are included in the 2020 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 27 countries and for NUTS 2 regions for all available EU countries (save Germany and Belgium at NUTS 1), totaling 209 regions. 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, analyse trends in the EQI over time within regions. Using several statistical and observational techniques, we elucidate a list of potentially interesting case studies that can be undertaken to better draw out ‘best practices’ to improve governance at the sub-national level in other EU regions.