Participatory budgeting and the perception of collective empowerment: institutional design and limited political interference

Abstract

Participatory budgeting gains momentum around the world, and increasing evidence provides mixed results about its effects. Under these circumstances, it is unclear if citizens consider it a source of empowerment and an avenue for effective decisionmaking in the life of their local community. We know very little about how participants in participatory budgeting perceive the collective empowerment. This article seeks to identify the factors that shape these perceptions about the empowerment potential of participatory budgeting. It focuses on the critical case of Cluj-Napoca and uses 25 semi-structured interviews conducted in October-November 2020 with three categories of participants. Our findings indicate that participants acknowledge the potential for collective empowerment and praise the limited political involvement but identify design issues and resource allocation as weakening the empowerment potential.

The cost of participation: An analysis of the financial dimensions of participatory budgets in Portugal

“…As regards the spatial distribution through time, scholars have pointed out that the rate of total public investment through PB is a reliable indicator of how much money public authorities provide to citizens in decision‐making (Boulding & Wampler, 2010; Cabannes & Lipietz, 2015; Gonçalves, 2013). Little public investments can decrease citizen power (Gherghina et al, 2022), and variations in public expenditures are key gateways to understand the financial management (Cabannes, 2015). In line with these arguments, Figure 7 below shows public investments in 2019 (or in the last edition) of local PBs 6…”

“…Financial dimensions are not, however, the only factor explaining the potential success of PBs, as scholars highlight the role of its institutional design and arrangements (Azevedo et al, 2022;Boulding & Wampler, 2010;Cabannes, 2015;Cabannes & Lipietz, 2015), support from civil society (Allegretti & Copello, 2018;Bartocci et al, 2022;Cabannes, 2021), and a proactive political will (Slobodova, 2022;Wampler & Goldfrank, 2022). The centrality of budgetary provision is confirmed by outlooks on its reduction, which is expected to demotivate citizens to participate, as well as bring negative impacts in terms of deliberation (Gherghina et al, 2022;Maerøe et al, 2020).…”