Controversies, Authority, and the Limits of Participation: Chicago's 49th Ward

Abstract

This article analyzes an innovative, and relatively successful, experience in Chicago: its participatory budgeting (PB) process. Treating it as process‐in‐the‐making, we are attentive to moments of uncertainty and controversy over the first year of its development. As a process of direct democracy, PB is profoundly ambiguous: it is, in principle, open to all, but it has no way to adjudicate between different ways of knowing and making claims by technical experts, democratically elected office holders, and newly established neighborhood leaders. Because it is a bottom‐up process that in principle does not privilege certain groups, it generates ambiguity over who gets to speak for and on behalf of the whole. In Chicago, each of these ambiguities generated controversies, which generated political talk that implied utopian alternatives that were then settled in ways that closed off these alternatives, in the end reinforcing the power of experts and revaluing the role of established community leaders against newcomers. We contend that the critical literature on participation should be more attentive to moments of conflict, ambiguity, and closure when the outlines of participatory processes are collectively produced.

Beyond the “Usual Suspects”? Reimagining Democracy With Participatory Budgeting in Chicago

“…Approaching PB Chicago as a real‐life example of a democratic process based on principles of direct decision making and deliberation, we focus on analyzing which residents participated, not only as voters but across other more demanding phases of the process. We have taken seriously the claim that when participatory processes are open to all residents without adequately accounting for the political and social inequalities among them, they ought to be approached as interventions that––regardless of stated good intentions––have the potential to reinforce and even deepen existing exclusions within relations of decision making between the state and citizens (Baiocchi and Ganuza ; Baiocchi and Summers ; Fung ; Lee ; Levine ; Murray ; Walker ).…”

“…Both PBNYC and PB Chicago allocate capital works budgets of a similar scale, and the intentional strategies employed by PBNYC administrators to reach less politically and civically engaged residents and make the process more accessible are similar to those of PB Chicago. However, outreach efforts for PBNYC appear to have been strengthened by the prominent role played by grassroots organizations with strong community ties (Baiocchi and Summers ; Hayduk, Hackett, and Folla ; Kasdan et al ; Lerner and Secondo ; Weber, Crum, and Salinas ).…”