Beyond the Public Hearing: Barriers to Discretionary Public Participation

Public budgeting has become a prominent venue for novel participatory practice given the salience of budgetary issues to the public. Numerous discretionary participatory engagement mechanisms such as surveys, simulations, social media, and participatory budgeting have been studied as ways to improve policy recommendations and democratic outcomes in public administration. As some of these mechanisms are not statutorily required and can be used at the discretion of public officials, empirically examining the conditions under which they are or are not used is of particular interest to researchers, practitioners, and professional associations. This article utilizes a cross-sectional dataset of public finance officers to understand the factors associated with increased or decreased likelihood of discretionary participation mechanism usage. While a variety of mechanisms are used in a finance context, most finance officials report not using them. Regression estimates indicate that lack of expertise and leadership support are the primary barriers to adoption of discretionary mechanisms. These findings suggest that best practice guidance and professional resources may be insufficient to overcome organizational and leadership barriers to adoption.