Empirical analysis of the factors determining citizens' participation in the national budget process

Emerged most of the experience with citizen participation in the public budget process has been at the level of local governments. Additionally, it is seen that legislative bodies, executive bodies and supreme audit institutions have developed various mechanisms in order to ensure citizen participation in the national budget process. The number of empirical studies on the socio-economic and institutional-political determinants that affect citizen participation in the national budget process is only two. We think that this study will contribute to reducing the inadequacy of the number of studies in the field. The use of panel data method for the first time in an empirical study on this subject constitutes one of the original aspects of the study. This study aims to empirically analyze the factors that determine citizen participation in the national budget process. We examined the factors affecting citizen participation in the national budget process using the panel data method, using data from 93 countries included in the 2012 Open Budget Survey for the years 2011, 2014, 2016 and 2018. The factors affecting citizen participation are discussed under two main headings as socio-economic and institutional-political factors. According to Hausman Test results, the factors effecting citizen participation in national budget process Fixed Effect model has been implemented. Empirical findings of socio-economic factors in the model show that as the level of education increases, citizen participation in the national budget process will increase. On the other hand, the findings reveal that as the proportion of the elderly population in the total population increases, citizen participation decreases. In terms of institutional-political factors, the increase in the level of transparency in the analysis results positively affects citizen participation in the national budget process. Similarly, the results show that as the level of e-participation increases, citizen participation in the budget process increases on citizen participation in the budget process. The results of the analysis show that freedom of association and assembly positively affects citizen participation in the budget process. However, the results of the analysis show that; as the level of corruption increases, citizen participation in the national budget process will decrease. Keywords: National Budget Process, Power of the Purse, Citizen Participation in Budget Process, Panel Data Analysis