Budgeting for Sustainable Governance (B4SG): A Bibliometric Review and Agenda in the Public Sector

Abstract

Collaborative budgeting has been identified as an important governance tool to improve transparency, accountability, citizen engagement, and sustainable public sector management. However, the body of collaborative budgeting research remains incomplete and disjointed, both in its intellectual framework and thematic development in relation to sustainable governance. This study aims to analyse the pattern of publications, influential journals, networks of collaboration, keyword structures, and thematic development in the field of collaborative budgeting and sustainable governance.

This study performs a bibliometric analysis from 2006 to 2026 of 352 articles published in the Web of Science database. The analysis employs descriptive statistics, co-occurrence network analysis, co-authorship analysis, country collaboration network analysis, and thematic map analysis to examine the intellectual structure of the field.

Results indicate that since 2017, scholarly output has strongly risen, underscoring the increasing relevance of collective governance, fiscal transparency, and budget reforms for fiscal governance. The primary themes in the research were accountability, transparency, governance, collaborative budgeting, and performance. The thematic map revealed that the motor themes of governance and collaborative budgeting are well developed and are pushing the field forward, while fiscal transparency and performance management are important yet underdeveloped areas of interest requiring more theoretical and empirical research. The study also illustrates the interdisciplinary nature of the research, mainly located in public administration, governance, sustainability, and public finance management. International networks of collaboration reveal that developed countries, particularly the USA, Spain, and China, are the most productive, while developing regions are under-represented.

The study contributes to the literature by proposing "Budgeting for Sustainable Governance (B4SG)" as a new integrative approach connecting collaborative budgeting with sustainable governance, transparency, accountability, and public participation. The results offer valuable directions for future research, including the development of governance systems in developing countries and collaborative budgeting using digital tools.

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