Mutual efforts for mutual trust: Impacts of citizens' knowledge and governmental communication channels on trust in participatory budgeting

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Junesoo Lee,Soonhee Kim,Jooho Lee
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2879

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Mutual efforts for mutual trust: Impacts of citizens' knowledge

and governmental communication channels on trust in

participatory budgeting

Junesoo Lee

1

| Soonhee Kim

1

| Jooho Lee

2

1

KDI School of Public Policy and Management,

Sejong-si, South Korea

2

The College of Public Affairs and Community

Service, University of Nebraska at Omaha,

Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Correspondence

Junesoo Lee, KDI School of Public Policy and

Management, Sejong-si, South Korea.

Email: jslee@kdischool.ac.kr

Funding information

KDI School of Public Policy and Management;

Ministry of Education, Republic of Korea;

National Research Foundation, Republic of

Korea, Grant/Award Number: NRF-

2016S1A3A2924956

Since participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated by both theorists and

practitioners of public administration, its adoption has become a global phenomenon.

As of 2017, all local governments in South Korea are legally mandated to operate a

PB system as a policy for inviting citizen participation in local budget decision-

making. Using an impact assessment tool completed by PB managers in local govern-

ments, this research tested two sets of independent variables—citizens' participatory

capacity and the diversification of communication in the PB process—that could be

associated with the dependent variables “citizens' trust in government (CTG)”and

“government officials' trust in citizens (GTC).”The paper presents the three major

findings on the common drivers behind CTG and GTC: (1) citizen participants' knowl-

edge on budget and budgeting process; (2) local government's efforts in gathering cit-

izens' inputs for PB; and (3) the mutual efforts to understand the needs and

limitations of both citizens and the local government. The paper concludes by explor-

ing the implications for the design and delivery of effective PB implementation.

KEYWORDS

citizen participation, participatory budgeting, trust

1|INTRODUCTION

There have been considerable efforts to adopt various citizen partici-

pation practices at all levels of the Korean government to ensure

accountability, improve transparency, and trust in the government.

For example, in line with the global diffusion of participatory budget-

ing (PB) since its inception in the Porto Alegre case in Brazil, PB has

been introduced and utilized in South Korea in the context of (1) citi-

zen-led democratization; (2) NGOs' efforts in dealing with problems of

scarce resources; and (3) decentralization and accountability of public

institutions (Sintomer et al., 2013). Today, a PB program has been

established in every local government under the mandate of the 2011

Local Finance Act.

Does inviting citizens to participate in policy and decision-making

processes foster trust between citizens and public servants? If so,

how does the PB system help enhance mutual trust? Many scholars

have emphasized the role of citizen participation as a means of

achieving public trust in government (Box, 1998; Kim & Lee, 2012;

McLaverty, 2011; Mizrahi et al., 2010; Roberts, 2004; Wang & Van

Wart, 2007). While PB has been discussed and even used as a means

of enhancing citizens' trust in government (Choi, 2009; Ebdon &

Franklin, 2006), empirical studies on the subject are limited. Specifi-

cally, there is little research on the impacts of citizen participation pro-

grams on trust between citizens and public managers. Furthermore,

compared to the literature on citizens' trust in government, there is a

relative paucity of research on public officials' trust in citizens

(e.g., Lee & Yu, 2013; Shergold, 2008; Yang, 2006).

Given these gaps in understanding, this study addressed two

major questions: (1) if the PB system enhances citizens' trust in local

government and local government's trust in citizens; and (2) what spe-

cific features of the PB system influence the mutual trust between cit-

izens and local government. To answer these questions, we examined

the PB system in South Korea, where citizens and public officials

interact for collective decision-making in the policy-making process.

Received: 4 April 2022 Revised: 4 May 2023 Accepted: 13 June 2023

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2879

J Public Affairs. 2023;23:e2879. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of13

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2879