Participation-Based Budgeting Defining and Achieving Normative Democratic Values in Public Budgeting Processes

Article Title: Participation-Based Budgeting: Defining and Achieving Normative Democratic Values in Public Budgeting Processes Contact information: Doralyn Rossmann (Primary Contact) Collection Development Librarian & Assistant Professor Montana State University Libraries P.O Box 173320 Bozeman, MT 59717 E-mail: doralyn@montana.edu Elizabeth Shanahan Montana State University Department of Political Science Wilson Hall, 2-142 Bozeman, MT 59717 E-mail: shanahan@montana.edu Bio Statement Doralyn Rossmann is assistant professor and Collection Development Librarian in the Libraries at Montana State University Her research and teaching focus on public budgeting, bibliographic control, distributed leadership, and organizational dynamics Email: doralyn@montana.edu Elizabeth A Shanahan is an assistant professor of political science at Montana State University Her research interests center on policy conflict and the role that public officials, media, interest groups, and citizens have in developing political narratives to influence policy outcome E-mail: shanahan@montana.edu Title Participation-Based Budgeting: Defining and Achieving Normative Democratic Values in Public Budgeting Processes Abstract Achieving public participation is often a goal for public budgeting entities and yet in practice is difficult to accomplish This study’s purpose centers on three questions: how public representatives interpret and define their democratic responsibilities; what are their insights regarding opportunities and barriers in participation-based budgeting; to what extent are these goals met? To address these questions, this research employs a case study of a public university budgeting committee; interviews of committee members were conducted; analyses result in a conceptual map of a participation-based budgeting process Findings reveal that respondents 1) define their mission structurally and procedurally, 2) identify a need ethical behavior and leadership, and 3) recognize that democratic values such as participation and efficiency come into tension with one another Being open and inclusive comes in the form of the citizen—public administrator dialectic, and it also requires intellectual, ethical and practical engagement with competing democratic values Keywords citizen participation, democratic values, public budgeting, qualitative research Introduction Many public administration and budgeting scholars (e.g., Box 1998; Denhardt and Denhardt 2007; Ebdon and Franklin 2006; Stivers 1990) advocate that decision making in public administration should be a process of delivering democracy by authentically engaging the public While theories and models abound for what constitutes the continuum of successful citizen participation (e.g., Franklin and Ebdon 2007; King, Feltey, and Susel 1998), actualizing this democratic norm is difficult even for the trained, reflective practitioner of public administration Implementing theoretical ideals in praxis harbors challenges when citizens are included late or in a surface manner (Yang and Callahan 2007), when democratic values come into tension with one another (Stone 2002), and when decisions require technical expertise, such as in public budgeting (Beckett and King 2002) As Ebdon and Franklin (2006) correctly identify, struggles in delivering democracy in budgeting decision making through citizen participation has been a constant struggle since the 1900s, with little connection between theory and practice Given the calls from scholars and students alike to both build theory and offer practical solutions, we seek to address how democratic values are actualized and to what extent they are achieved in practice through a case study of a public university budgeting committee This case study moves beyond the repetitive normative prescriptions to an empirical qualitative analysis of a budgeting system that was intentionally built on the principles of openness and inclusiveness The budgeting committee was newly constituted by the university president with an overt, documented democratic charge of being “open to and inclusive of the entire campus community” (University Budgeting Committee Charge 2009) While the list of democratic values is long, openness and inclusiveness are certainly among them This case serves as an excellent one to explore the process of how public servants make budgetary recommendations centered on technical information and democratic values The results of this case study also offer an opportunity to reflect on how we teach public administration students in that murky space between normative political theory and praxis In contrast to other budgetary reform models such as zero-based budgeting, programbased budgeting, and performance-based budgeting, we call such citizen involvement in the budgeting process “participation-based budgeting.” This model reflects public budgeting with a democratic orientation of openness and inclusiveness As such, we seek to address three research questions First, how public representatives from various backgrounds interpret and define their democratic responsibilities, particularly in regard to openness and inclusiveness? Second, what are their insights regarding opportunities and barriers of accomplishing participation-based budgeting? Finally, to what extent these public representatives believe they meet these goals? We begin by exploring the normative definitions of openness and inclusiveness in both the broad public administration literature and that of public budgeting We then describe our case study, detail the methodology, discuss our results, explore the implications for public budgeting processes that are explicitly centered on democratic values, and outline the implications of these findings in the teaching of public administration students Openness and Inclusiveness Openness and inclusiveness are two democratic values espoused to be key components of a legitimate, democratic government (Denhardt and Denhardt 2007; Piotrowski and Rosenbloom 2002) Both values have historic roots in our founding and in the Constitution, and they have been subject to scholarly study in public administration These two values are also addressed in the budgeting literature Following is a review of the historic context, current public administration literature, and recent public budgeting scholarship for each democratic value Openness Three definitions of openness emerge in the literature: lack of secrecy, access to information, and transparency of the process At the founding, openness of government was considered a necessity against the aggrandizement of power (Moynihan 1998) Yet the irony of the closed-door nature of the Constitutional Convention is not lost (e.g., Beard 1913; Dye and Zeigler 2003) Was the deliberative process of the founding of the Constitution sheltered from the public for efficiency in a time of crisis or for elite parochial gain? While it is not the purpose here to detail this debate, the point is that openness has run headlong into secrecy for security or efficiency sake, even at the early stages of our nation’s founding Over time, for example, we have agreed that executive privilege is necessary; however, the extent that executive communiqués are kept classified is hotly debated among constitutional and presidential scholars today (e.g., Rozell 2002) Openness is also defined as access to information for citizens “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives” (Madison 1819, 103) The history of federal information legislation reveals the recurring struggle between security and openness through access to information: the Espionage Act of 1917 criminalized the sharing of national defense information with foreign governments (Jost 2006); Wilson’s 1918 Fourteen Points to Congress speech in which he asserted that “open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall always proceed frankly and in the public view” (Moynihan 1998, 84); the Federal Register Act of 1935 that mandated publication of executive branch materials such as agency regulations (Jost 2006); the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 that put procedures in place to provide accountability of agencies through citizen participation in the rule-making process (Birkland, 2005); the Freedom of Information Act in 1966 which allows anyone to request records held by a federal agency (Jost 2006); the Presidential Records Act of 1978; and the creation of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO 2006) Thus, historically, access to information has tilted more toward openness than secrecy; interestingly, as technology makes access easier, the expectations of information dissemination are higher among citizens (Bertot et al 2009) The third aspect of openness is transparency of the process of governmental decision making How decisions are made and how issues are discussed in deliberation should be open to public scrutiny (Bunting 2004) Public administration scholars often refer to transparency in tandem with governmental accountability A legitimate democratic government is accountable to it citizenry through transparency (Florini 2004) Rules usually comprise transparency; sunshine laws at local, state and federal levels mandate transparency through means such as open meeting laws, and public access to representatives Rules, however, not necessarily translate into the spirit of openness to which they aspire; in many cases, it is up to the specific organization to decide to communicate well to the public (Fairbanks, Plowman, and Rawlins 2007) Rubin (2006) also describes the variability in transparency in budgeting, depending on the ethical nature of the executive Similarly, Franklin and Ebdon (2007, 91) assert that disclosing public budgeting information to the public is a way “to enhance trust through increased transparency.” An additional definition of openness in the public budgeting literature is that of understandability Because of the complexity of budgets, there is a general resignation that while this information is available as a public consumption document, it is not necessarily understandable (Beckett and King 2002; Robbins and Simonsen 2002) Possible inequities are created for the citizen who may lack of knowledge of budget complexities; “budgetary processes tend to remain closed because of the belief that citizens not have the knowledge and expertise needed to make the complex and technical decisions involved in allocating public funds” (Beckett and King 2002, 465) Thus, among public budgeting scholars, there is a clear call that to be truly open, the budgets must also be understandable Inclusiveness Two definitions dominate the democratic ideal of inclusiveness in the literature: representation and participation Representation is based on the question of how to include or represent the values of constituencies Normative questions arise over how representation is achieved The differing representational structures of the House and Senate reflect two different ways of achieving equity in the form of representation: population and geography This debate continues today in bureaucratic groups with members who are to represent a certain aspect of the population The theory of representative bureaucracy is centered on studies of how representation in public agencies affects or shapes policy outcome (Meier and Crotty 2006; Wilkins and Williams 2008) Studies informed by the theory of representative bureaucracy explore how the public interest is achieved through the inclusive nature of representation in public administration Citizen participation, a second definition of inclusiveness, has a deep literature (e.g., Barber 1984; Denhardt and Denhardt 2007; Pateman 1970) While the common theme is that a legitimate democratic government is based on the efficacy of citizen participation, other scholars focus on barriers to effective public participation, such as citizen discouragement and apathy (King, Feltey, and Susel 1998), cynical citizens (Berman 1997), a decline in social connectedness (Putnam 2000), and technical information (King, Feltey, and Susel 1998) Such studies focus on both portals: the structural avenues for participation and the level and quality of engagement on the part of the public Similarly, some public budgeting scholars (Beckett and King 2002) advocate that inclusiveness is achieved through active participation in budgeting processes, such as community visioning, citizen university models, panels and focus groups, open house informational discussions, opinion survey responses, and listening-based public meetings However, one of the greatest barriers identified to such participation is the experience of and perception by citizens that budgeting processes are closed, controlled atmospheres which are elite dominated (Beckett and King 2002; Orosz 2002) Orosz (2002) proposes an authentic participation-based approach to budgeting, whereby citizens are invited to participate early in a process which is “listening based” (434) Similarly, Mikesell (2003, 24) notes that while finance in a representative democracy may not be easy, governments have a responsibility to have budget systems that are responsive to the public and, in particular, minority positions Another aspect of active citizen participation is providing education for citizens on budgeting complexities, as was done through the publication It’s Your Business: Local & State Finance, distributed by the National Municipal League following a financial crisis in New York City (Ecker-Racz 1976) Thus, public budgeting scholars write about both opportunities for and barriers to achieving inclusiveness In sum, the literature regarding openness and inclusiveness identifies normative definitions that address both structural or mechanical avenues (e.g., open meeting laws; posting information for the public, and having representatives) as well as procedural channels (e.g., deciding what information to disclose and to whom, and on what basis is representation decided) The goal is resoundingly the same: to achieve a legitimate democratic process In this study, we seek to explore the extent to which such theoretical definitions of openness and inclusiveness are reflected by our street-level bureaucrats as well as to assess the degree to which the goal of participation-based budgeting is achieved The Case In 2001, a university president took a dramatic step to change the budget decision making process from a centralized one involving a few top-administrators who met in unpublicized, administrative conference room meetings to a decentralized one within a larger, representative body of the campus and community The goal of this new committee is to help the university “identify specific, institutional priorities through our long range plan; develop strategic initiatives to achieve those priorities; guide all budget decisions with our priorities and strategies; regularly assess the success of our plans, strategies, and budget decisions; and develop the university's general operating budget each year” (University Budgeting Committee Charge 2009) Importantly, the university president clearly articulated two values that should guide this new committee’s budgetary processes “I expect this process to be open to, and inclusive of, the entire campus community” [italics added for emphasis] (University Budgeting Committee Charge 2009) The committee’s new charge embodies the orientation that others scholars (Ebdon and Franklin 2006; Franklin and Ebdon 2007; Orosz 2002) refer to as citizen participation in public budgeting and that we call participation-based budgeting The composition of the committee reflects the university president’s desire to flatten the decision making hierarchy The committee is chaired by the provost and vice-chaired by the vice president of administration and finance Voting membership of the committee includes administrators (deans and vice presidents) and those representing constituent groups (faculty senate, professional council, staff senate, the associated students of the university, and a citizen representative from the community) The purpose of this study is to understand how committee members comprehend their democratic mission of participation-based budgeting, how they assess their accomplishments toward this goal, and what factors contribute to or inhibit success Methodology A qualitative research strategy with a case study design is utilized to apprehend committee members’ meanings and assessment of the participation-based budgeting mission Our methodology consists of individual semi-structured interviews, with six open-ended questions Of the 25 current and former committee members, all were asked to participate; 24 agreed to be interviewed, with the remaining member being one of the researchers (who, thus, was not interviewed) All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are replaced with ‘respondent.’ The interviews ranged from 20 to 75 minutes They were digitally recorded and transcribed Using NVivo8, we independently open-coded the interviews into nodes or concepts Based on Strauss and Corbin (1998), we worked together to identify how these concepts clustered into properties and, in turn, into larger constructs or categories Our analysis resulted in a conceptual map (see figure 1) of the group’s definitions of openness and inclusiveness and assessment of its efficacy and responsibilities of achieving these goals Because this participation-based model is so strongly representative in its design, we also analyzed the data according to the criterion of position held within the university, to determine if properties had higher levels of responses from one particular group Attempts were made to assure high levels of reliability and validity or ‘trustworthiness’ (Guba and Lincoln 1994) in this study First, the concepts, properties, and categories have moderate to high levels of internal consistency between coders The two coders initially agreed on concepts (nodes) an average of 78 percent, properties 94 percent and categories 100 percent They will say, ‘You should this and you should that’ but they won’t go to any of the meetings and listen They’ll grab onto the rumor that something bad is happening and spread it around, but not actually take the time to go find out what’s really happening” (UBC Interviews 2007) When the public does not participate, but still forms public opinion, then distrust and perceptions of government as the “other” are created In this regard, the onus of the public to participate is to ground criticisms not in rumor but in fact Thus, the reach of ethics in democratic processes goes beyond the public entity charged with a specific public duty Ethical responsibilities permeate the whole political system; the ability to participate is a structural venue, a right for citizens Participating is not a just a right, but it is also a responsibility Similarly, another property that engenders individual responsibility to make democracy happen is need for members to communicate back to constituents (24 references) “There’s a large onus on the representatives on the committee to be properly communicating, to fully understand what’s happening, and properly communicating what’s going on before there’s a big uproar” (UBC Interviews 2007) While there is consensus that giving good and timely information to constituents is crucial to a committee member’s ethical responsibilities, the evaluation of how well this responsibility is being carried out and why it may not be being carried out is mixed Some acknowledge that individual members are, indeed, reporting back: “Anytime we’ve had a committee meeting, I report back and I put something out of what’s been going on” (UBC Interviews 2007) Others describe concern that individual members are not following through with their responsibility: “I think the times that it [being open and inclusive] has not been successful as potentially it could have been was again, when individual committee members may not have been as diligent about communicating outside the room as they might have been” (UBC Interviews 2007) Still others describe an inability to communicate back—at 20 all or in a timely fashion—because the information in the meeting has been determined to be confidential “Part of the way that the committee is not open…is that although we’ve got a representative structure there and they delve, as a group, into a lot of planning and strategic direction questions, very often that information in its detail is held confidential within the group so that, in some processes, there is not an opportunity for the representatives there to go back and fully inform their constituencies” (UBC Interviews 2007) The ability of individual committee members to communicate back to constituents is articulated as a critical role in achieving openness and inclusiveness A third property identified by interviewees that addresses ethical responsibilities is titled a need for members to leave their hats at the door (24 references) This idea suggests the importance of members leaving their parochial interests behind to both understand and serve the broader university public interest “As easy as it is to fall into the trap of thinking of our own little domains—what college you belong to, are you professional or faculty—thinking of it in those contexts, it’s difficult to leave that hat at the door, but it’s important that we do” (UBC Interviews 2007) From another respondent: “When we walk through the door to the committee, we are to look at the larger campus community” (UBC Interviews 2007) These comments reflect the classic tension found in the literature between self-interests and public interests, and it requires a reflective practitioner to achieve an ethical balance between constituent representation and broader campus interests The final property identified as ethical behavior moves the focus from the individual committee member to the group as a whole, that of need for the committee to get information out to the public (eight references) Information includes meeting announcements, minutes, summative information, and issues with which the committee is dealing There are no reasons 21 identified for not disseminating information, but there are observations that there are easy technological fixes to this issue, i.e., the Web Thus, achieving openness and inclusiveness includes public education in a broad sense as well Outside Influences One last category that arose from the interview data is that of “Outside Influences” (54 references) Each of the three properties identified are discussed in how they either positively or negatively impact being open and inclusive One property that is consistently framed as having a positive effect is that of leadership (17 references) All of the leadership references identify the university president as committed to the shared governance “The first step, the major factor in creating this successful, open process was the president making that decision, empowering the committee to that extent and trusting the committee” (UBC Interviews 2007) Additionally, the president gave instructions about “leaving your luggage at the door,” thus guiding both the individuals and the committee as to expectations of ethical behavior that would, in turn, build trust A second property in this category is that of the presence of the press (25 references) The theme here is that the presence of the press means that the meetings are open, but that when the press is there, openness of discussion is curtailed by an unwillingness to have frank discussions for fear of getting out in front of the process “There is a problematic piece to its open nature Clearly, the meetings are very different when we have the press there versus when we don’t have the press there—they are much more productive when we feel comfortable in not having to worry about what kind of public image we are going to put out I think that some of the difficult conversations having to simultaneously worry about how we’re communicating everything that we’re doing can really stifle the conversation” (UBC Interviews 2007) There is an implied 22 ethical responsibility for the press to responsibly report the discussion versus sensationalize for profit A third property of outside influences is that of state-level oversight entities (12 references) Such entities include the board of regents, the commissioner of higher education, and the state legislature “There are sometimes when the board of regents give us instructions on how to things that they don't want discussed in front of the press or in front of the whole campus and we have to remind them that that's still our process The committee has been less successful in being open and inclusive when it has had very short notice of very dramatic changes in the way the commissioner's office or the board of regents expect a budget to be developed” (UBC Interviews 2007) While the university’s goal may be to be open to and inclusive of the entire campus community, external parties may have different priorities which are in conflict with these values This property is an example of one organizational culture embedded within a larger organizational culture and how changes occur therein In sum, outside influences are just that—influences on all three categories identified by the interviewers The leadership, the press, and high-level administrative organizations both positively and negatively have an impact on the definition of open and inclusive, the committee’s efficacy in operationalizing these values, and the ethical behavior of those involved Thus, in this case, the dialectic relationship between the university community and the committee is not insulated, but, rather, situated in proximity to other dialectic relationships, i.e., state entities and legislative demands, the press and the readership [Table here] 23 Results by Position in the University Thus far, these results reflect the committee’s responses in the aggregate; however, are there any properties which receive stronger emphasis by those with a particular position in the university? In table 1, results are presented for number of responses for each property by position held in the university (Vice Presidents, Deans, and Constituent Group) Deciding upon a standard of what constitutes a ‘stronger emphasis’ was difficult, because unlike t-tests or Chi-squares, there is no standard in qualitative research to determine difference Because there are three subgroups in the trait ‘position in the university,’ we decided that if 50 percent or more of the comments were held by one subgroup, we would look closely at their responses Using this standard, differences in emphasis on particular properties by position in the university arise The Constituent Group consists of those who represent specific constituencies on campus and the community-at-large This group has four properties across two categories in which their responses represent half or more of the comments in that property The first two properties with higher levels of responses from the Constituent Group reside in the efficacy category and are properties which identify challenges to achieving openness and inclusiveness The first one is that of not equal representation (50 percent); these results make sense, given that they comprise only 25 percent of the participants and Deans and Vice Presidents comprise of the remaining 75 percent Those in this position at the university also have higher concentrations of comments regarding information constraints (53 percent) Since the primary purpose of the Constituent Group member is to represent a part of the campus community, it is understandable why having information tagged as confidential may be put them in an awkward position Additionally, being given summary data is frustrating while trying to work toward understanding budgetary processes and lingo Finally, two properties within the ethics category arise: need for members to 24 communicate back to constituents (54 percent) and need for committee to get information out to the public (50 percent) Both of these ethical responsibilities reflect the primary purpose of the Constituent Group These results demonstrate how this group harbors a nuanced understanding of their responsibilities In tandem, they highlight both their individual responsibility in communicating back to constituents as well as the ethical responsibility of the committee as a whole to disseminate budgetary processes and decisions to the community at-large There are five properties across three categories which contain half or more responses from the Deans The first property is in the definition category, that of representation (52 percent) By virtue of their positions, the Deans are both representatives and executives They understand deeply the import of being a legitimate voice for a large body of constituents The Deans have three properties in the category of “Efficacy,” in which their responses are strikingly high The first property is that of time constraints (62 percent) It makes sense that the Deans feel the crunch of time constraints, given the fullness of their respective plates of running their colleges or units They also identify frustration with group too big (65 percent); while representation is important, they also feel the tug of their executive roles and hence the inefficiency of having such a large group making budgetary decisions The Deans have very high concentrations of responses regarding rubber stamping (88 percent) The feeling that decisions had already been made by a select few is a large source of frustration for some Deans Finally, the Deans identify the presence of the press (56 percent) as having a stifling effect on robust dialogue These results indicate the heightened sense of tension between democratic values, efficiency and legitimacy The Vice-Presidents have only one property in which they hold half or more of the responses In the outside influences category, 50 percent of the responses relating to state-level 25 oversight come from the Vice Presidents As the conduit for information from these state-level entities, it is the upper administration who directly receives the outside pressures and demands in the budgetary processes from various state entities Also of import are the six properties that have no great differences in the distribution of responses, despite position in the university Participation and low participation reveal that all members of the committee share the import of the ability and practice of public participation Responses regarding closed doors are necessary reveal a consensus for the need for some executive privilege to freely discuss ideas without fear of being misquoted out of context Interestingly, all three groups articulated the ethical responsibility of the public to participate as well as the committee members’ ethical responsibility to leave their hats at the door and think broadly about the broader campus’ public interest Across all committee members, an understanding exists that running a democracy is a dialectic relationship, not unidirectional Finally, all see leadership as key to achieving democratic values in public service It is through the leadership that both procedural and ethical expectations are set Conclusion Let us return to the three research questions First, how public representatives define their democratic responsibilities? As reflected in the literature, the committee members define their participation-based budgeting mission both structurally (representative structure of the campus community and opportunities for others to participate) and procedurally (ethical behavior of individuals members of the committee, the public at large, the committee as an organic whole) Both facets are interdependent in conceptualizing openness and inclusiveness What makes this case study different from municipal, county or state budgeting processes is its intentionally representative structure Yet, instead of being a niche case, it is exemplary As with 26 the university president, public administrators could take a constitutive role in achieving the ends of participation-based processes by inviting people to the table in a role that carries with it ethical obligations and responsibilities Instead of simply providing the ability for citizens to engage, appointing representation from community constituents necessarily engages people in the dialog and, hence, in democracy Second, what are the insights regarding opportunities and barriers of accomplishing the goal of participatory-based budgeting? The committee members’ responses seem paradoxical in nature For example, democratic organizations are not necessarily organic; it takes leadership to flatten the organizational structure and make conscious ethical responsibilities as individuals and as the committee as a whole In another example, the structural need for transparency to achieve the democratic goals means that the press is present and yet the presence of the press inhibits the procedural need for robust discussion Or, while representation is a cornerstone to participationbased budgeting, the group being so large has an affect on the efficiency of the group In turn, when assessing the extent to which the committee is successful at achieving the participation-based budgeting mission, what emerges is not an answer, but, rather, a situation The respondents’ focus is on their internal struggles with the enormity of tensions between their theoretical definitions and praxis Similar to what other scholars have identified as tensions (Franklin and Ebdon 2007; Stone 2002), the respondents desire representation, participation, and leadership to achieve democratic values, and yet they quietly express a need for privacy or security for brainstorming ideas to run their full course and for a more efficient process As we stated at the outset, delivering democracy is difficult But most theorizing about citizen participation remains prescriptive and ignores these tensions The data lead to a simple question: what we about these tensions? 27 Stivers (2008) insightfully asserts that there is no need to reconcile democratic politics and scientific efficiency (i.e., politics-administration dichotomy), but, rather “keep the tension between the two alive, because it is at the intersection between them that public administration comes into its own” (56) Similarly, Cook (1996) suggests putting an “and” versus an “or” between these value tensions Perhaps the reason why there is a frustrating disconnect between participation theory and practice is that both as a society and in our classrooms, we try to artificially resolve or avoid these tensions What our case study reveals is that much of the work in public governance exists in that space of tension between democratic values with magnetizing forces pulling in opposing directions Since Minnowbrook, public administration scholars have brought democratic values to the heart of public administration It is now time to go further and work towards working and making decisions at the intersection of competing democratic values How practitioners their work in this disequilibrium? How we teach in this disquieting space? Being in the tension instead of resolving it by choosing one side or saying that the dichotomy is false requires a willingness to be uncomfortable We suggest that wrestling with such practical situations and intellectual arguments reside not only in a course on ethics or foundations of public administration, but, rather, in every public administration course The more exposure students have to being uncomfortable in these tensions, the better In this case study, the committee tends not to struggle with the complexities of the budget as much as the tensions found in making the budgeting process democratic While the committee members express discomfort with this tension, we assert that it is a natural element in democracy to embrace With its participation-based budgeting approach, the committee is delivering democracy Being open and inclusive comes in the form of the citizen—public administrator dialectic, but it also resides in the intellectual, ethical, and practical engagement with competing democratic values 28 Figure Conceptual map DEFINITION OF “OPEN AND INCLUSIVE” (63 references total) OUTSIDE OUTSIDE INFLUENCES INFLUENCES Representation of campus and (54 references (54 references total) total) community (31 references) Ability to participate (32 references) Leadership Leadership (17 (17 references) references) Presence Presence of of the the press press (25 (25 references) references) State-level State-level oversight oversight (12 (12 references) references) EFFICACY OF OPENNESS AND INCLUSIVENESS IN ACHIEVING DEMOCRACY (130 references total) Low participation from public (32 references) Closed doors are sometimes necessary (11 references) Time constraints (16 references) Group is too big (17 references) Not equal representation leads to biased decisions (18 references) Information constraints (19 references) Rubber stamping decisions (17 references) ETHICAL BEHAVIOR (71 references total) Need for public to participate (15 references) Need for members to communicate back to constituents (24) Need for members to leave their hats at the door (24) Need for Committee to get information out to public (8 references) 29 Table Responses by property and position within the university Position within the university Constituent Group Deans Vice Presidents (n = 6) (n = 11) % (n) % (n) % (n) Representation (31) 19 % ( 6) 52 % (16) 29 % ( 9) Participation (32) 15 % ( 5) 41 % (13) 44 % (14) Low participation (32) 22 % ( 7) 37 % (12) 41 % (13) Closed doors necessary (11) 45 % ( 5) 45 % ( 5) 10 % ( 1) Time constraints (16) 19 % ( 3) 62 % (10) 19 % ( 3) Group too big (17) 29 % ( 5) 65 % (11) % ( 1) Not equal representation (18) 50 % ( 9) 44 % ( 8) % ( 1) Information constraints (19) 53 % (10) 42 % ( 8) % ( 1) Rubber stamping (17) 12 % ( 2) 88 % (15) % ( 0) 27 % ( 4) 40 % ( 6) 33 % ( 5) 54 % (13) 29 % ( 7) 17 % ( 4) 33 % ( 8) 29 % ( 7) 38 % ( 9) 50 % ( 4) 12 % ( 1) 38 % ( 3) Leadership (17) 47 % ( 8) 24 % ( 4) 29 % ( 5) Presence of the press (25) 20 % ( 5) 56 % (14) 24 % ( 6) State-level oversight (12) % ( 1) 42 % ( 5) 50 % ( 6) Properties by category (n) (n = 7) Definition (63) Efficacy (130) Ethics (71) Need for public to participate (15) Need for members to communicate back to constituents (24) Need for members to leave their hats at the door (24) Need for committee to get information out to the public (8) Outside influences (54) Source: University budget committee interviews 2007 NOTE: One person may have offered more than one response; 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