Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:53:50.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Participatory Budgeting

from Part II - Participatory Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2024

By
Loren Peabody
Edited by
Brian D. Christens
Brian D. Christens
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Get access

Summary

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process that engages citizens in public investment decisions through a mix of deliberation, representation, and voting. This chapter describes how this democratic innovation has been practiced, elaborates its goals, provides an overview of its origins and diffusion, and reviews research on its outcomes for citizen engagement, local governance, and community empowerment. These findings are illustrated by two case studies. Porto Alegre, Brazil, not only represents the birthplace of PB, but also is an example of uniquely pronounced changes in government responsiveness to underserved communities and in the strength of civil society organizations after PB’s implementation. New York City’s program is fairly representative of PB as practiced in the Global North. Controlling a smaller share of city budgets, processes like PBNYC have been more able to replicate Porto Alegre’s model of equitable citizen engagement than to transform urban governance or the organization of local civil society.

Keywords

participatory budgetingparticipatory democracyempowered participatory governancecivic engagementpolitical participationpolitical mobilizationcommunity empowermentmunicipal budgetspublic financeNew York City (NY)Porto Alegre (Brazil)
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Community Empowerment , pp. 216 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abers, R. (1998). From clientelism to cooperation: Local government, participatory policy, and civic organizing in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Politics & Society, 26(4), 511–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allegretti, G., & Copello, K. (2018). Winding around money issues. What’s new in PB and which windows of opportunity are being opened? In Dias, N. (Ed.), Hope for democracy: 50 years of participatory budgeting worldwide (pp. 35–53). Oficina.Google Scholar
Augsberger, A., Gecker, W., & Collins, M. E. (2019). “We make a direct impact on people’s lives”: Youth empowerment in the context of a youth-led Participatory Budgeting Project. Journal of Community Psychology, 47(3), 462–476.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Avritzer, L. (2009). Democracy and the public space in Latin America. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, G. (2003). Participation, activism, and politics: The Porto Alegre experiment. In Fung, A. & Wright, E. O. (Eds.), Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered participatory governance (pp. 45–76). Verso.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, G. (2005). Militants and citizens. Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baiocchi, G., & Ganuza, E. (2014). Participatory budgeting as if emancipation mattered. Politics & Society, 42(1), 29–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baiocchi, G., Heller, P., & Silva, M. K. (2011). Bootstrapping democracy: Transforming local governance and civil society in Brazil. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, T., & Schugurensky, D. (2021). Reinventing Freire in the 21st century: Citizenship education, student voice and school participatory budgeting. Current Issues in Comparative Education, 23(2), 55–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Language and symbolic power. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cabannes, Y. (2015). No blueprint for participatory budgeting: The challenge of diversity. In Cabannes, Y. & Delgado, C. (Eds.), Another city is possible! Alternatives to the city as commodity: Participatory budgeting (pp. 29–40). Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation.Google Scholar
Cohen, M., Schugurensky, D., & Wiek, A. (2015). Citizenship education through participatory budgeting: The case of Bioscience High School in Phoenix, Arizona. Curriculum and Teaching, 30(2), 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Community Development Project. (2015). A people’s budget: A research and evaluation report on participatory budgeting in New York City. Community Development Project. https://cdp.urbanjustice.org/sites/default/files/pbreport.pdfGoogle Scholar
Democracy Beyond Elections. (2021). Case study: Community-driven zoning and development in Chicago’s 35th Ward. Democracy Beyond Elections. www.democracybeyondelections.org/portfolio/community-driven-zoning-and-development-in-chicagos-35th-ward/Google Scholar
Dias, N. (2018). Hope for democracy: 50 years of participatory budgeting worldwide. Oficina.Google Scholar
Dias, N., Enríquez, S., & Júlio, S. (2019). Participatory budgeting world atlas. Oficina.Google Scholar
Dryzek, J. S., Bächtiger, A., Chambers, S., Cohen, J., Druckman, J. N., Felicetti, A., … Warren, M. E. (2019). The crisis of democracy and the science of deliberation. Science, 363(6432), 1144–1146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fung, A. (2003). Deliberative democracy, Chicago style: Grass-roots governance in policing and public education. In Fung, A. & Wright, E. O. (Eds.), Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered participatory governance (pp. 111–143). Verso.Google Scholar
Fung, A., & Wright, E. O. (2003). Thinking about empowered participatory governance. In Fung, A. & Wright, E. O. (Eds.), Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered participatory governance (pp. 3–42). Verso.Google Scholar
Goldfrank, B., & Landes, K. (2018). Participatory budgeting in Canada and the United States. In Dias, N. (Ed.), Hope for democracy: 50 years of participatory budgeting worldwide (pp. 161–176). Oficina.Google Scholar
Goldfrank, B., & Schneider, A. (2006). Competitive institution building: The PT and participatory budgeting in Rio Grande do Sul. Latin American Politics and Society, 48(03), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonçalves, S. (2014). The effects of participatory budgeting on municipal expenditures and infant mortality in Brazil. World Development, 53, 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, V., Osgood, J., & Boden, D. (2016). Participatory budgeting in the United States. In Dias, N. (Ed.), Participatory budgeting in the United States (pp. 161–176). Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayduk, R., Hackett, K., & Folla, D. T. (2017). Immigrant engagement in participatory budgeting in New York City. New Political Science, 39(1), 76–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, T. M. T., & Heller, P. (2003). Democracy and development: Decentralized planning in Kerala. In Fung, A. & Wright, E. O. (Eds.), Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered participatory governance (pp. 77–110). Verso.Google Scholar
Johnson, C., & Gastil, J. (2015). Variations of institutional design for empowered deliberation. Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 11(1), 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, C., Carlson, H. J., & Reynolds, S. (2023). Testing the participation hypothesis: Evidence from participatory budgeting. Political Behavior, 45, 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasdan, A. (2019). Case studies on expanding democracy beyond elections. Democracy Beyond Elections. www.democracybeyondelections.org/portfolio/democracy-beyond-elections-case-studies/Google Scholar
Kogan, V., & McGhee, E. (2012). Redistricting California: An evaluation of the Citizens Commission final plans. California Journal of Politics and Policy, 4(1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landemore, H. (2015). Inclusive constitution-making: The Icelandic experiment. Journal of Political Philosophy, 23(2), 166–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marquetti, A. (2000). Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre. Indicator SA, 17(4), 71–77.Google Scholar
McNulty, S. (2018). Mandating PB: Evaluating fifteen years of Peru’s national participatory budgeting law. In Dias, N. (Ed.), Hope for democracy: 50 years of participatory budgeting worldwide (pp. 147–160). Oficina.Google Scholar
Movement for Black Lives. (2022). Participatory budgeting at the local, state & federal level. Movement for Black Lives. https://m4bl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ParticipatoryBudgeting-OnePager.pdfGoogle Scholar
NAACP. (2019). Our communities, our power: Advancing resistance and resilience in climate change adaptation. NAACP.Google Scholar
Nuñez, T. (2018). Porto Alegre, from a role model to a crisis. In Dias, N. (Ed.), Hope for democracy: 50 years of participatory budgeting worldwide (pp. 517–535). Oficina.Google Scholar
Nylen, W. R. (2002). Testing the empowerment thesis: The participatory budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil. Comparative Politics, 34(2), 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pape, M., & Lim, C. (2019). Beyond the “usual suspects”? Reimagining democracy with participatory budgeting in Chicago. Sociological Forum, 34(4), 861–882.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Participatory Budgeting Project. (2021). Where is PB happening? Participatory Budgeting Project. www.participatorybudgeting.org/case-studiesGoogle Scholar
Public Agenda. (2016, October 5). Public spending, by the people: Participatory budgeting in the United States and Canada in 2014–15. Public Agenda. https://publicagenda.org/resource/public-spending-by-the-people-participatory-budgeting-in-the-united-states-and-canada-in-2014-15/Google Scholar
Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saad, R. (2020). Internet voting and the equity of participatory budgeting outcomes: A study of New York City’s Participatory Budgeting Initiative. The Graduate Center, City University of New York. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3810Google Scholar
Su, C. (2017). Beyond inclusion: Critical race theory and participatory budgeting. New Political Science, 39(1), 126–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touchton, M., & Wampler, B. (2014). Improving social well-being through new democratic institutions. Comparative Political Studies, 47(10), 1442–1469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touchton, M., McNulty, S., & Wampler, B. (2023). Participatory budgeting and community development: A global perspective. American Behavioral Scientist, 67(4), 520–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Touchton, M., Wampler, B., & Peixoto, T. (2021). Of democratic governance and revenue: Participatory institutions and tax generation in Brazil. Governance, 34(4), 1193–1212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B. (2007). Can participatory institutions promote pluralism? Mobilizing low-income citizens in Brazil. Studies in Comparative International Development, 41(4), 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B. (2008). When does participatory democracy deepen the quality of democracy? Lessons from Brazil. Comparative Politics, 41(1), 61–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B. (2012). Entering the state: Civil society activism and participatory governance in Brazil. Political Studies, 60(2), 341–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B., & Avritzer, L. (2004). Participatory publics: Civil society and new institutions in democratic Brazil. Comparative Politics, 36(3), 291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B., & Hartz-Karp, J. (2012). Participatory budgeting: Diffusion and outcomes across the world. Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 8(2), 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B., & Touchton, M. (2019). Designing institutions to improve well-being: Participation, deliberation and institutionalisation. European Journal of Political Research, 58, 915–937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wampler, B., McNulty, S., & Touchton, M. (2017, October 13). Participatory budgeting: Spreading across the globe. Open Government Partnership. www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/participatory-budgeting-spreading-across-the-globe/Google Scholar
Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. Verso.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, M. A. (1995). Psychological empowerment: Issues and illustrations. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(5), 581–599.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×