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

Abstract

Much of the current U.S. academic literature on participatory budgeting is preoccupied with direct citizen involvement in budget formulation, reflecting a particular normative theory of democracy. In this essay we suggest that U.S. academics can learn from a contemporary international community of practice concerned with "civil-society budget work"-a quasi-grassroots, quasi-pluralist movement with member organizations throughout the developing world-as well as from the budget exhibits mounted by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research at the turn of the last century. The budget-work movement employs third-party intermediation and advocacy, through all phases of the budget cycle. U.S. academics and budget-work practitioners can learn from each other, and this represents an unexploited opportunity for all concerned. We propose a program of locally based action research and trans-local evaluative synthesis.

Popular Financial Reports as Fiscal Transparency Mechanisms: An Assessment Using the Fiscal Transparency Index for the Citizen User

“…Essentially, the openness created by the transparency increases the effort of the politicians which, in turn, increases their popularity with the voters. Similarly, fiscal transparency can increase citizen trust and support of the government (Justice & Dulger, 2009). …”

“…In other words, there must be detailed and accurate information that covers accounts, policy, process, and projections so that the public can make an informed assessment of their government's fiscal performance. Furthermore, Justice and Dulger (2009) stated that effective fiscal transparency entails "the intelligibility and usability as well as availability of budget and financial information to non-specialists" (p. 263).…”

Social Capital, E-Government, and Fiscal Transparency in the States

“…It broadly encompasses efforts to make meaningful fiscal information available to citizens, in order to facilitate their ability to directly shape budget allocations and processes and enable them to hold officials accountable for allocations (Ebdon and Franklin 2006;Franklin, Ho, and Ebdon 2009;Justice and Dülger 2009;Justice and Tarimo 2012). Researchers have begun to accumulate a body of conceptual and empirical work focused on the relationships among fiscal transparency, participatory budgeting, and the processes and outcomes of democratic governance.…”

Accessibility of the Management's Discussion and Analysis to Citizen Users of Government Financial Reports

“…Public disclosure of government financial information is important for fiscal transparency and creating an accessible government (Fox ; Pina, Torres, and Royo ), which includes openness to public scrutiny of fiscal policy and outcomes, and the provision of timely, reliable, understandable, and comprehensive information (Kopits and Craig ). Fiscal transparency entails “the intelligibility and usability as well as availability, of budget and financial information to non‐specialists” (Justice and Dulger , 263). Therefore, the information given to citizens must be accurate and accessible (Justice, Melitski, and Smith ; Yang ), in addition to being sufficiently timely, to allow for citizen participation in the budgetary process (Ebdon and Franklin ).…”

“…First, the MD&A should be sufficiently short to accommodate the time demands of the average citizen (Yusuf and Jordan ). Second, the information must be readable (Alt and Lassen ; Justice and Dulger ; Yusuf and Jordan ). Third, it must be issued in a timely manner as to be relevant and usable (Ebdon and Franklin ; Kopits and Craig ).…”