Explaining budget transparency through political factors
| Author | Marco Bisogno,Francesca Citro,Beatriz Cuadrado-Ballesteros |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852319847511 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Explaining budget
transparency through
political factors
Francesca Citro
University of Salerno, Italy
Beatriz Cuadrado-Ballesteros
University of Salamanca, Spain
Marco Bisogno
University of Salerno, Italy
Abstract
This study analyses various factors that can affect the level of budget transparency. It
focuses on several political characteristics, investigating a pool of 95 countries for the
years 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2015. Findings from this study indicate that both govern-
ments’ characteristics and the characteristics of political and electoral systems affect the
level of budget transparency. These results extend findings from previous literature on
determinants of open budgets by using a more extended period and additional political and
electoral features, and also by adopting an international comparative approach.
Points for practitioners
The findings show essential elements for a sustainable transparency policy, suggesting
that to be successful, budget transparency requires certain characteristics of both
governments and electoral/political systems. Therefore, politicians are advised that
reforms affecting these systems can limit their intent for opaqueness; similarly, over-
sight bodies are encouraged to consider the political conditions that may exert pres-
sure to make budgeting processes public. The findings highlight the importance of the
relationship between budget transparency and public-sector reforms, especially those
affecting the political characteristics of a government and the institutional rules guiding
Corresponding author:
Beatriz Cuadrado-Ballesteros, Campus Unamuno, FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain.
Email: u77171@usal.es
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2021, Vol. 87(1) 115–134
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852319847511
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its behaviour. Budgeting is not only an essential management device, but also a crucial
political medium to allocate powers and resources, and a pivotal accountability tool to
boost citizens’ involvement and to increase its transparency.
Keywords
budget transparency, open budget, political economy, public administration
Introduction
Budgeting plays a crucial role in public-sector entities, with its primary functions
being allocative, managerial and external accountability (Anessi-Pessina et al.,
2016). The allocative function means that the budget is intended to assign resour-
ces to organisational units, establishing spending limits. The managerial function
means focusing on objectives assigned to line managers, who will then be account-
able for them. The external accountability function means that a government is
held responsible to the legislature and external stakeholders. This study deals with
the third function, which has been less investigated than the others (Anessi-Pessina
et al., 2016).
Although knowledge concerning the budget may vary among the citizenry, it
can be assumed that citizens, especially those who pay high taxes, have a general
interest in how governments handle public money. For that, the budget is essential
because it represents financial plans that specify how public resources will be used
to achieve policy objectives (OECD, 2006, 2015). Therefore, budget transparency
is promoted to facilitate policy analysis and to enhance accountability (IMF, 2007,
2014). However, scholars (Carlitz et al., 2009; De Renzio and Masud, 2011) have
denounced the deplorable situation of budget transparency around the world.
Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the determinants that can affect
budget transparency. Adopting a political-economy approach, it focuses on the
characteristics of political institutions. Political conditions, such as electoral com-
petition, political ideology, checks and balance tools, political rights, and so on,
can create pressure to open up the budgeting process to public scrutiny (see
Khagram et al., 2013). R
ıos et al. (2013) found evidence that the central govern-
ment’s budget disclosure in 2010 was affected by the electoral cycle and incum-
bents’ ideology. This study intends to investigate additional factors, such as
various characteristics of the government, as well as other facets of political and
electoral systems.
Budget transparency is represented by the Open Budget Index (OBI) published
by the International Budget Partnership (IBP), a non-governmental organisation
that promotes transparent and inclusive governmental budget processes. Due to
the limited availability of these data, this study uses a pool of 95 countries for the
years 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2015. In so doing, it extends the findings from the
116 International Review of Administrative Sciences 87(1)
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