Budgeting structures and citizen participation

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature concerning when and in what way citizen participation can have an impact on budgeting. The first part of the paper conceptualizes, through the literature, five budgeting models, each having both problems and solutions for citizen involvement. The second section of the paper explores intervention designs that can be constructive in dealing with the larger problems connecting budgeting and citizen participation. The paper, therefore, seeks to determine where participation in budgeting can have an impact on citizen anger, estrangement, distrust and pessimism.Administration, Rutgers University at Newark. His teaching and research interests are in public budgeting and financial management, public economics, and methods of policy analysis and research.

Elected officials’ perceptions of governance relationships and budget participation mechanisms

“…Previous research has identified a variety of factors relevant to participatory practices in the budget process. Four aspects have been explored: (1) who participates (Callahan, 2002;Franklin & Ebdon, 2007;Miller & Evers, 2002;Orosz, 2002;Simonsen & Robbins, 2000); (2) the context of when participation is or should be used (Ebdon & Franklin, 2006;Kathlene & Martin, 1991;King, Feltey & Susel, 1998), (3) how participation processes are conducted (Adams, 2004;Blair, 1976;Ebdon & Franklin, 2006;Ferris, 1982;Franklin & Ebdon, 2007;Hatry & Blair, 1976;Webb & Hatry, 1973;Irvin & Stansbury, 2004;Janis, 1982;1991;Morgan, 1997;Roberts, 1997;Thomas, 1995;and (4) what factors demonstrate the effectiveness of participation (Franklin, Ho, & Ebdon, 2009). This research seeks to expand this established body of literature by exploring relationships between participatory practices and governance relationships, and by focusing on perceptions of elected officials.…”

Fiscal transparency and authentic citizen participation in public budgeting: the role of third-party intermediation

“…Process-and mechanism-design characteristics posited as likely to foster meaningful participation and thereby legitimacy, responsiveness, and/or citizenship within U.S. local-government environments include: (a) making the process open and accessible to all; (b) ensuring that a representative sample of citizens participates; (c) providing for two-way communication between officials and other participants, ideally in such a way that all participants learn from one another in the process; (d) ensuring that participants incorporate a realistic budget constraint into their choices and deliberations and confront the resulting tradeoffs, and that citizen participants correctly reveal their preferences under those conditions; and (e) ensuring that participation occurs early enough in the budget cycle-typically during formulation of the budget-to be independently influential, rather than simply reactive (Ebdon & Franklin, 2004;Justice, Melitski, & Smith, 2006;Miller & Evers, 2002;Simonsen & Robbins, 2000).…”

“…In the context of budgeting specifically, there is the additional obstacle of non-specialists' distaste for budget and financial data. There are also particular difficulties associated with achieving adequate understanding of budget constraints and tradeoffs, the long-term implications of allocation choices, the effects of uncontrollable and/or nonnegotiable costs on budgetary discretion, and other "budget knots" (Miller & Evers, 2002). In short, it often seems that "most citizens do not possess the information and cannot afford the time to come to well-reasoned judgments about the complex issues facing government decision makers" (Simonsen & Robbins, 2000, p. 26).…”

Citizen Participation in the Budget Process and Local Government Accountability

“…Initial participants are not always representative of their communities (Ebdon, 2000). In addition, those who come forward to participate may underestimate the structural complexity of budgeting (Miller & Evers, 2002). the specialized knowledge and terminology introduced by experts into the current system may be a serious barrier to meaningful citizen participation (Callahan, 2002;DeSario & Langton, 1987;Fisher, 1993).…”

“…Both Berman (1997) and Ebdon (2002) argue that contemporary budgeting is inherently complex and difficult to understand for many people because they do not know how to obtain answers to their questions. Moreover, as Miller and Evers (2002) insist, most public officials view participation by citizens who lack basic knowledge as a road to increased conflict. thus, many public administrators and elected officials are reluctant to involve citizens in the budget process (Berner & Smith, 2004;Bland & Rubin, 1997;Ebdon, 2000).…”