Assessing the Participatory Budgeting Process in Kutai Kartanegara Local Government, Indonesia

conducts five planning approaches in its planning system: political, technocratic, participatory, top-down, and bottom-up approaches. Indonesia's bottom-up development planning method is generally implemented through participatory budgeting with the Development Planning Forum (Musrenbang; Musyawarah Perencanaan Pembangunan). The participatory budgeting method is used to gather aspirations and build a feeling of belonging among these stakeholders by including all stakeholders in implementing development programs and projects. The research aims to explore the relationship between the participatory budgeting process and the process of development projects. To attain this objective, the characteristics of participatory budgeting are studied and analyzed to find its influence on development projects. Therefore, the main research question of the thesis is: 'What impact does participatory budgeting have on the process of development projects Kutai Kartanegara Local Government?'. Six variables are assessed in this research: financial, participatory, legal and regulatory dimensions, accountability, transparency, and effectiveness and efficiency. Semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with ten respondents from Kutai Kartanegara local government officials, head of villages, and an NGO member, who are involved and have experiences in the Kutai Kartanegara Musrenbang. In addition, to complement the primary data, the author also obtains and analyses the secondary data gathered from the local government agencies. The main findings of the research show that: (1) the local government still allocates a small percentage of the local budget to accommodate projects proposed through Musrenbang; (2) the process of participatory budgeting is a model of representative participatory; (3) the process of participatory budgeting is standardized and regulated, which relates to other planning instruments; (4) the participatory budgeting has a relation with accountability and transparency in the process of development projects; (5) there is no link between participatory budgeting and development project effectiveness and efficiency because there is no distinction between bottom-up and top-down projects.