Political Budget Cycles in Indonesian Local Governments: Budget Recomposition and Fiscal Accountability
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37676/sosj.v3i2.2010Keywords:
Electoral Fiscal Behavior, Public-Sector Accounting, Subnational GovernanceAbstract
Research on political budget cycles (PBCs) in Indonesian local governments reports divergent results across electoral phases, fiscal instruments, political treatments, and institutional settings. This review synthesizes that evidence and asks when, through which budget channels, and under what conditions electoral fiscal responses are observed. A systematically searched integrative literature review identified 53 eligible works; overlapping publications were coded by study family, and evidence was harmonized by electoral phase, fiscal instrument, budget stage, political treatment, quality, and inference level. The evidence indicates that election-year-only specifications are too narrow: adjustments may begin at E-2 or E-1, while post-election evidence remains sparse. Results are more consistent with budget recomposition than universal spending expansion, including targeted-transfer increases, capital-expenditure contraction, intertemporal shifting, fiscal-position changes, and allocation-realization divergence. Reelection eligibility and planning consistency emerge as the clearest conditioning factors, while evidence for fiscal space, regulation, monitoring, and administrative capacity is more context-dependent. The review develops a Dynamic-Conditional Political Budget Cycle Framework that conceptualizes local PBCs as multi-year, instrument-specific, budget-stage-dependent, and institutionally filtered processes. The framework offers a public-sector accounting and fiscal-accountability lens without equating PBCs with opportunistic intent, electoral success, or misuse of public resources.
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