The People’s Voice, The People’s Choice: An Overview of Participatory Budgeting in the United States (original) (raw)
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Policy Brief No 28 - Making Participatory Budgeting work: our money, our voice!
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Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a democratic innovation that strengthens local democracy by including citizens in budget decisions. By doing so from formulation to execution, it allows for more responsible, equitable and transparent spending. This policy brief highlights key issues that should be observed for effective implementation. Recommendations 1. Design PB as a binding deliberative process; 2. Make a reasonable amount of money available for deliberation; 3. Make PB as inclusive as possible; 4. Ensure deliverance on the projects that emerge from deliberations; 5. Create and strengthen networks of PB promoters
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Regular Issue, 2012
This article develops two conceptual models, based on empirical data, for assessing deliberation and decision making within United States adoptions of Participatory Budgeting (PB). The first model is results oriented whereas the second model is process oriented. The two models evince the tension between inclusiveness and efficiency that emerge as U.S. PB tries accommodating the dual goals of improved short-term service delivery and democratic deepening. Each model satisfies one of these deliberate goals better. Results oriented deliberation is more effective at producing viable projects whereas process oriented is better at ensuring that all participants’ voices are heard. Variation suggests that decision-making in PBNYC exceeds citizens’ ability to make collective decisions with rational discourse. Rather, the structural conditions of district constitution, bureaucratic constraints, and facilitator skill impacted decision-making.
Participatory Budgeting: Core principles and Key Impacts
This essay is a reflection piece. I identify key principles at the core of how PB functions and to discuss the scope of change we might expect to see generated by these institutions. I move beyond the idea that there is a specific model or set of "best practices" that define PB. Rather, it is most fruitful to conceptualize PB as a set of principles that can generate social change. The weaker the adherence to these principles, the less social change generated. The second purpose of the essay is to reflect on the impacts generated by PB. How do these institutions matter? My assumption is that ordinary citizens are more likely to be supportive of new democratic processes if they are able to clearly identify positive changes created by their participation in the new democratic institutions. Ordinary citizens are unlikely to continue to participate in new political institutions unless they perceive that these institutions produce tangible, positive changes in their lives. In this short reflection piece, I analyze how PB may affect democratic legitimacy, social well-being, and civil society.
Participatory Budget : A Tool for Democratizing Democracy
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First of all, I would like to thank the Catalyst Centre and the 10x10 network for organizing this meeting. For those who are not familiar with them, the Catalyst Centre is a popular education NGO based in Toronto, and the 10x10 network is a local coalition of organizations and individuals promoting the ideas of participatory budgeting in Toronto. I also want to thank them for their hard work during the past two years to coordinate our limited local resources in order to build capacity and to generate an interest for participatory budgeting in Toronto and in other parts of Canada.
Participatory Budgeting in Canada and the United States
This chapter, from Hope for Democracy: 30 Years of Participatory Budgeting Worldwide, examines why PB in northern North America continues to be limited in terms of the number of cities that adopt it, the number of participants, and the share of funding allocated through it. At the same time, PB in Canada and the US has demonstrated the potential to play an important inclusionary role in an era of rising xenophobia and racism, especially in the US, where PB began to show signs of faster growth over the past two years. This chapter examines why PB has remained generally limited in Canada and the US thus far, where its transformative potential may still exist, and what the prospects are for its future expansion.