The Politics of Public Spending

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the distribution of public money and its political and societal implications. Drawing on evidence from central and eastern Europe, it offers an innovative insight into public responses to various strategies of public spending. Given that public expenditures are funded mainly from tax revenues, it also assesses public attitudes to politically motivated allocations of funds. The book seeks to identify how people evaluate the material benefits of funding in light of the fairness - or lack thereof - of the distribution process, whether popular acceptance of variations in public spending depends on the framing of the beneficiaries, and the implications of money allocation for political trust in political institutions.