Participatory democracy is not real if citizens are not given some degree of control over the budget, be it national or local. Participatory budgeting means above all transparency in budgetary decisions and proper means to openly debate such decisions before they are applied. It is a process allowing citizens to identify, discuss, and prioritize public spending projects, giving them the power to influence government decisions about how money is spent. The main problem that must be tackled is how to prevent clientelism as a result of action groups within the debates. Another important problem is that minorities may find their interests being ignored or sidestepped.
Participatory budgeting: A laboratory for democratic learning
May 20.─ Participatory budgeting, democratic deliberation and decision-making by citizens (or residents, though usually of local neighbourhoods), is a fast-growing practice of participatory democracy that began in 1989 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and is now being applied in hundreds, perhaps thousands of municipalities around the world (it can also be applied in organizations, such as non-profits, or within schools as well as many other sites where budgeting can benefit from democratic participation).
It usually involves hundreds to thousands of citizens who, through many meetings and a tremendous amount of voluntary work, debate and decide how to spend a portion of a municipal (or city ward/district) budget. When first developed in Porto Alegre, 20 per cent of the municipal capital budget was devoted to this process.
There are now hundreds of examples of participatory budgeting being successfully applied in municipalities and organizations around the world. Right here in Toronto, Canada (from where I write) there has been a PB process developed and applied within Toronto Community Housing. Here's a 2009 report on the process from TCH and here's a page that describes TCH's process.
The most recent success is that of the northern California port city of Vallejo which just concluded its voting (May 18) on $3 million to be spent city-wide. I learned of this the Vallejo PB process a few weeks ago at the second international conference on PB in Chicago. Very impressed with the representation from Vallejo, I was also deeply moved by the presence of a Vallejo youth delegation -- all teens -- and a model of youth involvement that deserves praise. The Vallejo process decided on 12 projects (with almost 4000 people voting) which you can read about here.
I also learned of over 50 municipalities in Germany that are applying PB ...
[ Full text ]