Introduction

This chapter introduces the reader to the theoretical context in which a budgeting lens can be deployed across an international gamut of country case studies so as to address specific questions within Mark Moore’s public value theory. After considering the present state of the literature, including definitional ambiguities and the articulated goals of the theory, the chapter raises a series of questions about approaching public value through budgeting perspectives, which are to constitute the subsequent chapters of the book. This introductory chapter thereby articulates the aims of the book, and provides a structure for proceeding, before explaining why budgeting can help to explain public value conundrums, and thus proposes the various approaches that will be employed in the book to address those public value concerns.