ADMINISTRATIVE AND INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY IN PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: A GLOBAL BIBLIOMETRIC AND THEMATIC ANALYSIS

Public financial management (PFM) serves as the institutional backbone of fiscal governance, shaping how governments allocate resources, ensure accountability, and sustain macroeconomic stability. While reform agendas over the past decade have emphasized fiscal decentralization, performance-based budgeting, and governance modernization, the role of administrative and institutional capacity in sustaining these reforms remains conceptually fragmented. This study provides a global bibliometric and thematic analysis of research published between 2015 and 2025 to clarify how institutional capacity is positioned within PFM scholarship. Using 458 Scopus-indexed journal articles, the analysis applies Bibliometrix (RStudio 2025.05.1) and VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) to map publication trends, intellectual structures, thematic clusters, and international collaboration networks. Results indicate accelerated growth in the field, with fiscal decentralization and macroeconomic governance emerging as dominant motor themes. However, administrative and institutional capacity appears structurally embedded rather than foregrounded as an independent explanatory construct. Thematic mapping reveals conceptual fragmentation between fiscal performance modeling and governance reform literature, while collaboration analysis highlights geographic concentration in developed economies. These findings suggest that despite expanding scholarly output, theoretical integration between institutional capacity and fiscal sustainability remains incomplete. The study contributes by systematically mapping the intellectual architecture of PFM capacity research and identifying critical gaps, including the underdeveloped operationalization of institutional capacity, limited cross-regional comparisons, and insufficient integration of human capital dimensions. Strengthening conceptual integration is essential for advancing both scholarship and evidence-based fiscal reform.