Requisites for Open Budgeting: A Comparison of the ‘Budget for Citizens’ in Russian Regions Using QCA

The practice of citizens’ involvement in the process of the formation, monitoring and evaluation of performance of the public budget has become one of the most important forms of cooperation of citizens and government. Of particular importance is acquiring a digital form of government where the public use of data creates a solid platform for the modern type of “co-production” of public budgets. Modern budgeting based on cooperation transforms designs of budgetary policy, accountability systems, processes of identifying public values, and others. Ensuring citizen-oriented data relating to the budget here gets particular importance, and sharing the learning of citizens and the government for inclusive budget process becomes the main requisite for successful collaboration. This paper analyzes the Russian practice of open budget and “budget for the citizens” in the context of different requisites: social-economic and informational, which construct an inclusive capacity of the regions. This practice was introduced in 2013 at the federal and regional levels. Though institutions of “budget for the citizens” inure for legitimating regimes, they are also good factors for mutual learning for cooperation. Transparency of budgetary data, its transformation for the citizens, and budgeting, initiated by citizens, affect the character of Russian designs for inclusive budgeting in the regions. On the basis of different ratings of open budgeting and requisites, this paper explains the complex configuration of requisites for the open budget and the ‘budget for citizens’ and three models of introducing forms of e-participation. The main hypothesis of the study is the higher the level of inclusive capacity of the region, the higher the openness of budget data and the “budget for citizens”. For a comparison of 22 Russian regions, the QCA method has been used.