The Korea Local Administration Review

This study aims to suggest measures to activate citizen participatory budgeting after analyzing the current status of the budgeting system, and identifying areas for improvement. Participatory budgeting was mandated to Korean local governments a decade ago and the system is exposing external development in terms of its scale of budgets and projects. However, it is not yet clear whether the system achieves quantitative expansion through substantial citizen participation. There is skepticism about whether the central government-initiated system is effectively operated based on active citizen engagement. Previous studies are still in a normative approach to the issue and neglect the systems in Korean Metropolitan cities. This study conducts a comparative study on the current status and operation of citizen participatory budgeting in Metropolitan cities and confirms the actual procedure and limitations of the system. Based on the results, this study suggests institutional improvement measures for the citizen participatory budget in Metropolitan cities in consideration of theoretical discussion.