Checks and Balances in Local Governments: The Link Between Administrative Capabilities, Autonomy and the Corruption Consolidation

In democracies, checks and balances (C&B) have been thought and designed to “oversee public officials’ compliance, ensuring the legal use of resources and the lawful performance of personnel” (Meza & Pérez-Chiqués, 2021, p. 12), because it is recognized that elections are not enough to hold the executive accountable. So, C&B are linked with O’Donnell’s idea of horizontal accountability that includes state agencies like ombudsmen, superior audit offices and comptroller’s offices (2004), but also the informal ones like the media, the opposition (Mazepus & Toshkov, 2022) and other institutions featuring the social environment such as culture and ideology (Meza & Pérez-Chiqués, 2021).