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This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes.

This paper examines how interpersonal social networks relate to the voting behavior of men and women. We argue that underlying the gender gap in voting is related to social processes that depend on the partisan and sex composition of networks. Analysis of the 2000 American National Election Study identified two ways that sex differences are relevant to network explanations of voting behavior. First, men have more sex homophily in their networks than women. As men are more likely to be Republican than women, this leads to different discussion environments for men and women. Second, men—and not women—are more likely to share the political opinion of women discussants, but only when they are pro-Bush and the remainder of the network is also supportive. The results support a social model of voting behavior that highlights the importance of social factors (in this case sex) other than just partisan differences.