Participatory budgeting and democratic innovation: Some analytical variables

Abstract

Having originated in Brazil, participatory budgeting (PB), notably the model created in Porto Alegre in 1989, has served as a reference for democratic innovation in Brazil and abroad, instigating diverse evaluations of its potential and limitations for promoting social, cultural and political-institutional change. This chapter maps the debates on the theme to identify the definitions of PB used in the literature and the analytical references that have been used not only to understand the rise, maintenance and success of PB programs, but also to assess their benefits to democracy, identifying variables and mechanisms which have a greater or lesser capacity to bring about democratic progress, such as the dimension of associativism, or of civil society, and the political will and or commitment of governments, as well as their institutional designs. Aiming at making a contribution to the field of studies on processes of democratic strengthening, the central issue consists in, based on studies on PB programs, discussing to what extent the process of diffusion and pluralization of participatory budgeting has not only affected its definition, but also challenged approaches centered on those variables and mechanisms.