Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 31st NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG5: Public Finance and Public Financial Management Author(s) Soňa Kukučková Mendel University Brno Czech Republic Eduard Bakoš, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic Title The fate of participatory budgeting based on the interest of its stakeholders: The case of the Czech Republic. File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Soňa Kukučková Abstract Participatory budgeting is a tool to involve citizens in deciding on financial resources and supporting their civic activities. However, their long-term implementation is often uncertain, and it makes sense to look for indicators that could clarify their future fate. Based on the identified process barriers and possible stakeholder groups, indicators were chosen to estimate the fate of participatory budgeting processes. The interest of two groups of stakeholders, politicians and officials, and citizens as potential voters and proposers of PB projects is reflected in the development of the following selected process specifications – the amount spent on participatory budget projects, the share of this amount in the total municipal expenditure, the participation of citizens in voting on projects and the number of project proposals. We used panel data from municipalities in the Czech Republic (2017-2021) to show that concerning each of chosen criteria their upgrading status between the two following years indicates a higher probability that the process will continue. This expectation was confirmed in most cases. Another assumption was that their downgrading status would be associated with a higher probability of the process being abandoned. However, the findings are less clear in this case. The evaluated period contains also the COVID-19 crisis, but the outcomes were similar in the whole analysed period despite this extraordinary situation. The results indicate the relevance of the proposed criteria and, due to their simplicity, they can be easily used to clarify the actual situation regarding stakeholder interest in implementing a PB process in different countries.
