The Transformative Potential of Participatory Budgeting

Creating an Ideal Democracy

George Robert Bateman, Jr.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367334031
• eBook ISBN: 9781000762020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this book, George Robert Bateman, Jr. presents a philosophical examination of the potential benefits of participatory budgeting (PB), with recommendations of how they might be realized.

The work of social philosophers like Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, Robert Putnam are studied to better understand the potential benefits and their effect on individuals and communities. Using social provisioning and John Fagg Foster's theories of instrumental value and institutional adjustment, Bateman demonstrates how participatory budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) can realize its full potential and transform individual participants into their better selves and also transform their communities. This transformation can occur when participants are able to make decisions about things that matter in their lives. As more of us become empowered and actively engaged in deliberations concerning local economic/political issues the more we will experience public happiness, greater understanding of others, greater development of our morality, and an increased sense of belonging.

The Transformative Potential of Participatory Budgeting will be of great interest to scholars in the fields of normative political theory, political philosophy, local politics, heterodox economics, institutional economics, political sociology, urban sociology, and community sociology.

1 Introduction

The purpose of this research monograph is to identify the potential benefits of participatory budgeting (PB), learn how they might be realized, and explore the implications of achieving these benefits. PB is a process where people gather in neighborhood assemblies to decide how to spend a portion of their municipal budget, which has proven to be successful and very popular since its invention in 1989 (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2012). It is a form of local direct democracy. The PB process decides which public goods and services to purchase and how these goods and services will be distributed, within the bounds that city officials have authorized.

Since human beings are social beings, it makes sense that increasing our ability to work with and help others would be beneficial for both individuals and the community. This research explores how we might find our better selves by becoming empowered and actively engaged in public deliberations about local economic/political issues. It is proposed that this can be done by making improvements to PB.

The hypothesis of this research monograph is that as PB processes become more deliberative, more empowered, and greatly expanded the more participants will experience public happiness, greater understanding of others, greater development of morality, and an increased sense of belonging. It is proposed that PB processes be expanded until they become local direct democracies. This is a study about how the ideal of democracy can be achieved and how achieving this ideal can transform individuals, communities, and nations. The benefits of increased public happiness and greater development of morality are not expected to emerge until PB’s responsibilities are greatly expanded.

PB is examined to learn how PB processes can fully realize its potential to transform individuals and increase its contribution to the social provisioning process. Many heterodox economists find the concept of social provisioning to be useful because it considers factors that are outside the scope of orthodox economics. Social provisioning expands on the orthodox definition of provisioning by including intangible benefits as well as the tangible benefits of food, clothing, and housing. In this case, the intangible benefits are increased public happiness, greater understanding of others, greater development of morality, and an increased sense of belonging.

Institutional Economics is one school of thought in heterodox economics which is used to examine the PB process. One part of Institutional Economics is the theory of institutional adjustment, which explains how change occurs in institutions (Foster, 1981). In the case of PB, this theory points to the need to change the relationship between PB and city agencies in order to fully empower PB participants. The theory of institutional adjustment is based on the instrumental theory of value which provides criteria to make judgments by identifying what promotes harmonious relationships for individuals and provides for the communities’ well-being. The methodology of this study is based on the concepts of social provisioning, philosophical research, and the Institutional Economics of Dewey and Foster, which are explained in Chapter 2.

The potential benefits in the hypothesis are examined in Chapters 4 though 7 by reviewing the relevant work of social philosophers, for each benefit, in order to gain a better perception of how these benefits can be realized and how they can change individuals’ lives and community life. The social philosophers provide a vision of a better society and a better political system and show how it can be done. A clear vision will help people to commit to implementing a new social innovation such as transforming PB processes into local direct democracies.

Recommendations are made, in Chapter 3 that should allow PB assemblies to reach their full potential and develop into direct democracies. These recommendations are based on a case study of PB in New York City (PBNYC), an ethnographic study by Talpin of three European PB processes, and Foster’s theory of institutional adjustment (Chapter 2). The benefits generated from improving PB should include increasing our public happiness, becoming more understanding of others, develop our morality, and increase our sense of belonging. Once the recommendations begin to be implemented the benefits should have transformative effects on individual participants regarding their social relationships and their sense of belonging to a community. This should cause participants to want to spend more time supporting PB by attending meetings. These benefits should increase participation though word of mouth as they begin to be realized.

The greater the participation in a PB process, the greater the percentage of the public will be voting on how to allocate the public goods and services that city officials have authorized the PB process to distribute. This means that the distribution of public goods and services will more closely reflect the will of the people. As PB participation increases, the PB process approaches the most democratic way to distribute public goods and services. When PB approaches its full potential, the benefits should become more apparent and further increase participation. Thus, as the potential benefits are realized the more democratic PB processes become.

This study proposes that the hypothesis can be tested by improving two areas of PB and measuring the results. The first one is political, which includes reorganizing the city’s administrative bureaucratic hierarchy. PB participants will be further empowered to make decisions by placing the city’s bureaucratic administrative offices under PB in the bureaucratic hierarchy in order to prevent bureaucratic priorities from superseding PB decisions. The other part of the political aspect is the need to greatly expand PB’s funding and the range of projects and programs that PB is able to propose, authorize, and monitor. Both of these can be accomplished with the help of civic groups. The incentive for civic groups is that some, or all, of their priorities could be addressed in an expanded PB process. Civic groups can help mobilize people to peacefully demand that both of PB’s political recommendations be implemented, which will help transform PB by empowering participants to make meaningful decisions. This is expected to be a long process because it will take time to convince city officials that these changes will benefit everyone.

Achieving the political aspect will transform PB processes into local direct democracies. This will allow participants to experience public happiness as they become the local government (see Chapter 4). Local direct democracy is a form of participatory democracy. And participatory democracy was the theme of the Port Huron Statement, which was the founding document for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The SDS was successful in getting people to participate in peaceful demonstrations and raising awareness, which helped several social movements in the 1960s (see Chapter 6).

The other area in need of improvement is public communication. Improving public communication should benefit the individual participants as well as the community. The communicative aspect concerns improving public deliberation in the public forums by offering training for participants and facilitators. This is important because very little deliberation currently takes place at PB assemblies (Talpin, 2011). Open discussions among a diverse group of people will likely generate better ideas than experts and bureaucrats because people with different points of view will likely offer unexpected and novel ideas to be discussed. Public deliberation is also a good way to break down barriers between people resulting in better understanding of others and an increased sense of belonging to the community. In Chapter 5, Schutz’s research showed that well-run public assemblies can promote understanding of others. In Chapter 7, Baiocchi’s research looked at conditions in PB assemblies that resulted in participants having a sense of belonging.

The primary methodology of this study is philosophical research. The work of social philosophers is examined to learn how working toward the ideal of democracy will benefit individuals and communities. Chapters 4 through 7 comprise the philosophical research. One reason for the philosophical approach is that the ideal of democracy is a moral concept, since it is about treating everyone with dignity and respect by giving everyone an equal voice and an equal vote. Philosophy can do a good job of presenting moral choices as well as presenting the wisdom of different choices (Dewey, 1993). Chapter 2 presents additional information about the philosophical approach.

Next, the two areas of PB where recommendations are being made are further clarified. For the political area, an example is given of a successful PB process that had implemented a reorganization of the city’s administrative organizations. For the communication aspect, the benefits of public deliberation are explored and an example of a deliberative society ruled by consensus is given.

One part of the political aspect was the need to reorganize the city’s bureaucratic hierarchy to further empower participants. One might ask why this has not been done since PB was first invented in Brazil in 1989. The fact is that the first PB process in Porto Alegre, Brazil was designed with PB above other city bureaucracies within the administrative hierarchy.

Baiocchi and Ganuza outline part of the reason why Porto Alegre’s PB was declared a “best practice” at the United Nations Habitat II meeting in 1996 (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017).

The mayor [of Porto Alegre] created a budget planning office that centralized management accounts and PB; administratively it was positioned above municipal departments. The idea was to “ring-fence” the capital budget from other sources of pressure. By privileging the office above municipal departments, the administration ensured impartiality in implementation.

(2017, p. 60)

The alternative to allowing the people to make local decisions is to allow experts within bureaucracies to make decisions. Later in this chapter the short-comings of expert bureaucratic rule are examined.

The other part of Porto Alegre’s empowerment of PB was to ensure that PB received expert opinion from the bureaucracies before decisions were made.

The administration required all municipal departments to create positions for community facilitators. Community facilitators were the “face” of each municipal department in each of the city’s districts. They attended all PB meetings with the express purpose of helping participants prepare technically viable projects and to be accountable for ongoing projects. That is, they were responsible for interfacing between community and technical experts within the departments. All community facilitators attended a weekly forum to synthesize participatory processes.

(Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, pp. 60–61)

While the bureaucracy was prevented from interfering with PB’s decisions, they were required to help the PB process.

Unfortunately, PB in Porto Alegre might no longer be considered a best practice of local governance. The reason is that PB’s invention and history were tied to the PT political party (Worker’s Party) and in 2004 PT lost the local elections. The winning party did not consider PB to be a high priority and did not provide the needed support (Marquetti, da Silva, & Campbell, 2012).

It seems surprising that the PT party would have lost in Porto Alegre, since PB was such a success. “The reasons for the electoral defeat were not straightforward” (Baiocchi, 2005, p. 158). But it seems that the winning mayor (Fogaca) ran a well-organized campaign.

With respect to OP [PB] in particular, Fogaca cited administration materials about currently delayed projects and promised an improved and more responsive OP [PB]; unable to claim that a vote for the opposition was a vote against the OP [PB], the PT lost one of its trump cards in its bid for a fifth municipal term.

(Baiocchi, 2005, p. 158)

The PT party could not effectively use PB as a reason they should be re-elected. Thus, the lesson is that PB should not be connected to a political party. In North America a nonpolitical nonprofit organization, Participatory Budgeting Project, supports PB processes.

Why is it that the vast majority of PB processes around the world do not have this design feature concerning city bureaucracy? The answer is that the design of PB has evolved. Baiocchi and Ganuza find it useful to disaggregate PB into two components in order to better understand the process and explain how PB has travelled around the world.

We [Baiocchi and Ganuza] describe these two sides of participatory budgeting – participation and administrative reform – as the communicative and the sovereignty dimensions of PB. We use the term communicative dimension to describe the open structure of transparent meetings to deliberate on projects and priorities.

(Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, p. 141)

The sovereignty dimension describes the administrative reforms needed for city bureaucracies to be able to interact with the public and work with the PB process to develop new projects, while preventing bureaucrats from overruling PB (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017). The political dimension, as used in this study, includes the sovereignty dimension plus working to expand the amount of funding and the scope of projects and programs that the PB processes are able to authorize and monitor. Since PB has proven to be very popular, asking local politicians to strengthen and expand a popular program might not be as difficult as it seems.

The reason Baiocchi and Ganuza chose to examine PB in such a manner is that as PB has travelled the world, it has lost the sovereignty dimension. “The globally replicable version of participatory budgeting and its best practices had no elements of administrative reform, and PB was essentially reduced to a set of meetings” (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, p. 71). One reason this has happened is because it is easier. “By not defining participation as part of the administration but as an external tool that influences it, it became much easier to implement” (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, p. 76). This might be one reason PB has expanded so rapidly.

Another way that PB has changed is that it seems to have lost its social justice component. As PB travelled around the world it has become known as a tool of good governance. “Yet the process of translation from one context to another turned PB into an instrument abstracted from a political project altogether, one associated with the neutral idea of ‘good governance’” (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, p. 69). PB was just seen as a way to deliver city goods and services. This may have made PB easier to sell to a variety of governments.

How did PB transform into a value-neutral idea? The way PB is presented may have a lot to do wit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theoretical Framework
• 3 How can the Hypothesis be Tested?
• 4 Public Happiness
• 5 Increased Understanding of Others
• 6 Individual and Community Morality
• 7 A Sense of Belonging
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix
• Index