Citizen Participation in Budgeting: A Trade-Off between Knowledge and Inclusiveness?

Research on citizen participation has noted a tension between fostering an inclusive policy-making process and simultaneously maintaining a competent pool of participating citizens. This article investigates the implications of this trade-off by testing the impact of measured levels of inclusiveness and participating citizens' knowledgeability on two performance metrics: citizen engagement and process efficiency. Results indicate that although inclusiveness may be negatively associated with the level of engagement, both knowledgeability and inclusiveness are positively associated with process efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that policy makers can pursue the democratic ideal of opening policy making to the citizenry while still maintaining an efficient process.