Public Budgets as Expressions of Political Culture and Collective Imagination

This article begins with a suspicion: the presumed neutrality of public budgets is a well-founded illusion. What is the definition of public budgeting, and what is at stake when we reduce it to a technical or administrative routine? This study makes a theoretical intervention into the dominant technocratic approaches by imagining public budgets as culturally embedded and politically contested practices. Drawing on Aaron Wildavsky’s writings, I argue that the post-political vision of budgeting –which frames fiscal decisions as apolitical matters of expertise– obscures the ideological underpinnings of public budgets. Against this ‘rational’ logic, I propose a politicized understanding of public budgeting that calls for a radical break from conventional, depoliticized perspectives. The conclusion outlines emancipatory possibilities that could transform budgets from tools of control into instruments of collective selfdetermination and democratic reimagination.