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Citizen Participation in Budgeting: A Trade‐Off between Knowledge and Inclusiveness?
Author(s) -
Hong Sounman
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/puar.12377
Subject(s) - process (computing) , ideal (ethics) , democracy , political science , public administration , public relations , public economics , business , economics , law , politics , computer science , operating system
Research on citizen participation has noted a tension between fostering an inclusive policy‐making process and simultaneously maintaining a competent pool of participating citizens. This article investigates the implications of this trade‐off by testing the impact of measured levels of inclusiveness and participating citizens’ knowledgeability on two performance metrics: citizen engagement and process efficiency. Results indicate that although inclusiveness may be negatively associated with the level of engagement, both knowledgeability and inclusiveness are positively associated with process efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that policy makers can pursue the democratic ideal of opening policy making to the citizenry while still maintaining an efficient process.