Transport accessibility as institutional barriers of territory budgeting

Abstract

In the context of interest of state policy in expanding the ways of interplay between the state authorities and citi-zens the study and analysis of the initiative budgeting (IB) mechanisms, tools in the administrative territorial units of the Russian Federation and the evaluation of their effectiveness has become one of the most actual questions from the standpoint of involving citizens in local self-government. Often, the implementation of IB programs is based on the achievement of previously planned results (the so-called "disbursement of funds within the framework of national projects", how it happens in the implementation of the national project "Safe and high-quality roads" ), and does not correspond to the very essence of initiative budgeting because it does not take into account the degree of citizens’ activity in decision-making, and it does not assess the institutional barriers (such as transport remoteness of the population from the economic centers of the region) that prevent citizens from engaging in the process of determining directions of public finance expenditures. At the same time the quantitative values of the results is not often so significant since their rapid achievement especially in the first years of the implementation of budget pro-jects occurs with ignoring of such the key issue of IB as whose interests IB is implemented in and why IB programs proposed by the state are not accepted by the population. This research involves studying the behavioral reactions of such main beneficiaries of IB projects as population of municipalities on the Trans-Baikal Territory, identifying institutional barriers to the introduction of IB, determining the role of state and civil society in the development and implementation of IB projects.