An Analysis of Bureaucratic Attitudes towards Budgeting in Turkey

Recent experiments and the findings of researchers have shown that budget-makers would not act towards budgeting in the way of what Weber (1946 and 1947) had assumed. He described budgetmakers; bureaucrats acting efficiently in their bureaus since they are motivated by concern of the public interest. In contrast, some theorists (such as Tullock, 1965; Downs, 1967; and Niskanen, 1971) viewed bureaucrats as self-interested and rational individuals, trying to pursue and give priority to their private objectives in the course of their work. The aim of this chapter is to analyse local budgeting in Turkish case with regard to the attitudes of bureaucrats towards budgetary change. For this purpose, the chapter is divided into three sections: The first section briefly looks at theoretical assumptions of the attitudes of bureaucrats towards budgeting. The second section provides descriptive background on local budgeting in Turkey and the last section is an empirical work based on an interview survey launched in 1998 in Turkish municipalities. The chapter ends with concluding remarks