Public values and function creep of the financial rating by local authorities

Abstract

As issuers, local authorities have credit ratings that are used in the search for direct funding from the capital markets. However, some local officials also use their ratings as instruments of local public reporting. Does this function creep affect the public values of local authorities? In line with the theory of publicness (Bozeman, 2007), a measurement of this publicness and the detection of public values (Jorgensen and Bozeman, 2002, 2007) are proposed both for the authorities that expressly mention their rating and those that make no mention of it. A textual analysis of their respective discourses reveals a function creep that conveys a lesser degree of publicness and ‘market’-oriented public values, but also generates one public value: transparency.

Points for practitioners

There is nothing neutral about using a financial rating for purposes of political communication, whether on the part of the local communicator or those who are locally elected. This function creep conveys more public values, but with a greater economic and market bent. It thus shapes the content of public values. The function creep is also revealing: it tends to be used by politicians recently elected, as if the first years of mandate focused on management, while the following years are coloured by politics and public values with a high degree of publicness. It raises the question of the restriction of re-election.