CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Poltoratskaya, Viktoriia |
|---|---|
| Title | Accountability of federal systems: Factors of Budgetary Performance in Russia and Germany |
| Summary | This work is devoted to the analysis of two federations - Germany and Russia in the period from 1991 to 2016. This research is answering the question why, despite the existing legacy of federative relations with the substantial level of decentralization and accountability with democratic traditions German regions does not show good budgetary performance, whereas in the absence of historical legacy and accountability mechanisms and with the high level of political centralization in Russia, it is possible to create system with the better budgetary performance. The hypothesis of this research was that indeed, the historical heritage and democratic rules increase the level of decentralization and accountability, but this does not necessarily lead to better budgetary performance because of the weak budgetary constraints and incentives. The results of this study approve this hypothesis. Tested by crisp-set Qualitative Comparative analysis this research shows several important tendencies. Despite of the historical roots, federal legacy and democratic type of regime leading to a greater level of decentralization, budgetary performance is not a direct consequence of such a system. With a relatively high level of decentralization, many of Germany's decentralization mechanisms work towards a worse performance. In particular, a strong level of fiscal decentralization, a lack of transparent budgetary allocation mechanisms (which are mainly related to the type of parliamentary political system), and a large number of equalizing federal transfers together with an uncontrolled regional opportunity to borrow money lead to a worse budgetary performance in that country. On the other hand, a more centralized system with lower level of accountability more often shows the better results in terms of budgetary performance, although some centralization tendencies (primarily political ones) do not contribute to the best level of budgetary indicators. Thus, the main conclusion of this work that hard budget constraints together with transparent responsibilities division allow a higher level of budgetary performance in Russia and Germany. These findings contribute to the literature on political economy of federal systems. |
| Supervisor | Folsz, Attila |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/poltoratskaya_vikt.pdf |
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