Fiscal transparency and authentic citizen participation in public budgeting: the role of third-party intermediation
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management
ISSN: 1096-3367
Article publication date: 1 March 2009
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.
Citation
Justice, J.B. and Dülger, C. (2009), "Fiscal transparency and authentic citizen participation in public budgeting: the role of third-party intermediation", Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 254-288. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBAFM-21-02-2009-B005
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009 by PrAcademics Press