Transparency and public complaints: the moderating role of information types and NGOs

This study investigates the effect of transparency on citizens’ complaint behavior, focusing on how this effect is shaped by the types of disclosed information and the involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Using China’s environmental protection as an empirical setting, we introduced a novel index—incorporating both the quantity and quality of disclosed information—to evaluate local governments’ transparency and examined its impacts on public complaints, a prevalent form of citizen political engagement in the country. Statistical analysis shows: 1) The disclosure of policy content and outcome information tends to aggravate citizen complaints, whereas the disclosure of decision-making information and regulatee information does not. 2) Environmental NGOs (eNGOs) play a buffering role, mitigating the increase in citizen complaints associated with regulatee transparency. To further support these findings, we conducted in-depth interviews with four eNGOs. Qualitative evidence shows that eNGOs reshape how regulatee-level transparency translates into public complaints by monitoring firms proactively, substituting for individual grievance filing, and interpreting technical disclosures to contain unnecessary or risky mobilization.