Participatory Budget !Case Studies: Buenos Aires, Porto Alegre and São Paulo

“In the city as in all arts is the source of power, but nowhere else power is exercised as immediately as there” -Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

Session Set up

1. Background 2. PB: What is Participatory Budgeting? 3. Case Studies: Buenos Aires, Porto Alegre and São Paulo 4. Stakeholders Analysis 5. Empirical Analysis 6. Critique 7. Conclusions

Participatory Budget !PB is a process by which citizens, either as individuals or through civic associations, can voluntarily and regularly contribute to decision making over at least part of a public budget through an annual series of scheduled meetings with government authorities. !Over 1,500 municipalities, regional and state governments, and institutions around the world use it to engage people in public budgets. (Shah,2007) !A tool of participatory democarcy. (WB,2010) !A local governance initiative. (WB,2007) !A claimed space. (The Power Cube, Gaventa) !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Case Studies

Buenos Aires Porto Alegre São Paulo

GDP p/c40,828 USD

GDP p/c20,900 USD

GDP p/c 39,799 USD

2.965 million 1.409 million 11.320 million

HDI=0.889GC=0.376

HDI= 0.783GC=0.61

HDI=0.865GC=0.64

Unviable Viable Unviable

Data: UN-Habitat, UN ECLAC Data: UNdata

Stakeholders Analysis: Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Stakeholders Analysis: Porto Alegre - São Paulo

São Paulo

Porto Alegre

Why Porto Alegre was a viable PB project?

Porto Alegre: !

•Anti-corrupt behavior •Reduction of clientelism •Demanding and informed citizenship • ‘Segments worked as counter publics’ •Tailored to vulnerability of the actors •Targeted beneficiaries and inclusion of minorities and vulnerable groups

!São Paulo: !

•Conservative middle class •Wider gaps on income inequality •Unabiling environment- capacity vaccum •Different power dynamics •Segmented oriented !Succeeded or failed PB is strongly bound to the urban context and how knowledgeable

you are about the local environment and the multi-level power dynamics. !Capacity dimensions.

Analysis Buenos Aires São Paulo

Problem Political instability and crisis of the central government.

Socio-economic and political polarization.

Solution PB in the local government.

Achieving democratization and social inclusion through participation.

Features

1. Some principles of NPM 2. Objective: To achieve a capable

government and motivated government

3. Type of decentralization: Devolution

4. The Policy Process: Agenda setting of the crisis

1. Three levels of representation in the PB

2. Social inclusion through participation: the ‘socially vulnerable segments’.

3. PB model is the only one to date to combine affirmative

For discussion: !

1. Democratization of Local Governments 2. Crisis of Representation 3. Reduction of Bureaucracy and Clientelism 4. Democracy and Development? 5. What happened with Rational Choice?

Critique

!!!!!Claim on the Democratic Scope of PB

According to Maillard (2007) and Sintomer et al. (2008): Mechanisms of decentralization of local governments do not necessarily engender participatory democracy; some may encourage participation only at the neighborhood level or in a public-private partnership. Thus fall short of the objectives of participatory democracy. !!Importance of Decentralization Synergy

Livack and Seddon (ibid.) claimed that with decentralization the ‘devil is in the details’. Decentralization constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for a PB. It is at once potentially innovative and problematic. Stages of implementation are problematic. Limiting the PB to the infra-local level = discrepancy between the decentralization project and participatory democracy. Montreal case. Inability of actors to intervene at different political levels reflected the overlapping of urban management and participatory democracy. (Patsias,2013)

Conclusions (Rodgers, 2007)

!Politicization of invited spaces of participation does not necessarily work solely in negative ways.!Whether political factors positively or negatively affect participatory initiatives will depend in the specific local political and social dynamics with which the distinct social actors involved and the participatory process itself are embedded.!Limited imperfect form of empowerment in the process.!Success of PB always depends on linked to a broader political project instead of opposing power relations.!Competing of actors and practice , interests that articulate together to draw the whole picture of PB.!For now, political factor plays the most important role than the other, but we should still be aware that we are seeking ways to harness the potential spaces of change, like PB. !!

Bibliography

• Hernández-medina, E. (2010) 'Social Inclusion through Participation: The Case of the Participatory Budget in São Paulo', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34(3): 512-532.

• Rodgers, D. (2007) 'Subverting the Spaces of Invitation? Local Politics and Participatory Budgeting in Post-Crisis Buenos Aires', 'Subverting the Spaces of Invitation? Local Politics and Participatory Budgeting in Post-Crisis Buenos Aires’.

• Shah, A. (2007) Participatory Budgeting. Washington, DC: World bank.

• Patsias, C., A. Latendresse and L. Bherer (2013) 'Participatory Democracy, Decentralization and Local Governance: The Montreal Participatory Budget in the Light of ‘Empowered Participatory Governance’', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37(6): 2214-2230.

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