The role of parliamentary websites in the budget process: The case of the Turkish parliament

Abstract

The "power of the purse" is one of the fundamental powers of the parliament. This power is defined as a parliament's authority to determine the amount of public expenditures to be made and the category and amount of taxes to be collected from citizens. To exercise this power, parliaments must debate and review the budget drawn up by the government to ensure that it reflects the preferences of citizens. Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that parliaments today do not sufficiently debate government budgets and do not completely exercise their existing authority. This development weakens the political function of the budget process and sometimes leads to non-optimal budget outcomes. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly websites, are significant tools that parliaments have at their disposal to address this problem. When they are effectively designed, parliamentary websites can contribute to more efficient outcomes to the budget process by enabling the members of a parliament and the citizens they represent to involve themselves in that process. This chapter addresses the potential contributions of parliamentary websites to the budget process. These contributions promise to make budget information more transparent and understandable. This chapter engages in this task by using a content-analysis methodology to examine the website of the Turkish parliament. © 2012, IGI Global.