Differentiating Participation: Identifying and Defining Civic Capacities Used by Latino Immigrants in Participatory Budgeting

Abstract

Participatory planning has faced challenges engaging predominantly Spanish-speaking immigrants beyond the bottom rungs of Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation. Participating at any level of the ladder requires individual civic skills, or capacities, that are integral to participatory processes. However, the specific skills necessary for collective action are less certain, due in part to a lack of clear definitions and a lack of clarity about how these capacities work in practice. Drawing on two years of data from a participatory budgeting process in an immigrant community in Chicago, Illinois, the authors identify key civic capacities that Spanish-speaking immigrants activated while engaging in civic discourse, and they explore the role these capacities played in moving ideas toward collective decision making. The authors present an organizational schema that aligns the study’s findings of 17 unique civic capacities with capacities identified in the literature as helping participants engage more meaningfully in decision-making processes.

Power and Positionality in Participatory Budgeting

“…Hagelskamp and colleagues (2016) evaluation of PB processes across multiple cities in the United States and Canada show that African American participation in PB elections was proportionate to their presence in their district’s population. Moreover, formally incarcerated persons, unauthorized immigrants, non-English speakers, and youth as young as 14 years old engaged in more civic participation if they participate in PB processes in their community (Su, 2017; Meléndez & Martinez-Cosio, 2021). This engagement from historically marginalized groups in early attempts of PB is impressive.…”

“…It is often taken for granted that because projects are participatory in nature that there are few to no power struggles. Some of the critiques targeted towards PB are: 1) whether participants and conveners reflect the population (Meléndez & Martinez-Cosio, 2021); 2) the authority to produce PB rules and provisions (Su, 2017;; 3) the importance of politicians in the process (Saguin, 2018); 4) that PB projects do not address institutional change (Petite, 2020); and 5) that smaller and/or poorer municipalities lack funding, human capital and structural operations to execute PB projects (Gordon et al, 2017). All these issues are related to power and positionality.…”