Diffusing participatory budgeting knowledge: lessons from Korean-language research

Abstract

This study aims to expand the collective knowledge on participatory budgeting by drawing insights from studies of Korean participatory budgeting. From a review of 93 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2003 and 2017 in the Korean language, we present a bibliometric network, a review of the research methods, and the themes of the studies. The findings suggest that participatory budgeting studies in South Korea developed upon both studies of participatory budgeting from Porto Alegre, Brazil, and studies of public budget participation mechanisms rooted in the United States. In addition, the findings demonstrate the distinctiveness of Korean participatory budgeting practices and studies, such as institutionalisation and diffusion, and impact factors that enabled successful participatory budgeting implementation.

Keywords:

• participatory budgeting
• systematic literature review
• citizen participation
• public budget participation
• South Korea

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The central government in this study refers to the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (1998–2008) or the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (2008–present), which are the Korean equivalent of the Department of the Interior in the United States.

2. The first search returned 412 articles from DBpia, 369 articles from the Korean Studies Information Service System, and 746 articles from the Research Information Sharing Service. After merging 548 duplication cases, we initially had 979 articles in total.