International Trends in Participatory Budgeting: Between Trivial Pursuits and Best Practices (Governance and Public Management)

This book analyses the participatory budgeting practice as it has evolved in evaluated countries, focusing on what is substantially at stake concerning the budget and issues involved, the actual participation, the way such processes are organised and administered, and the outcomes of such processes. It concludes that participatory budgeting in selected European countries is far away from the level of 'best practice', but that all experiences are not just trivial pursuits. The information collected serves to check, to what extent participatory budgeting as practiced in the countries involved presents a real attempt to change municipal budgets towards addressing the needs of marginalized groups and to improve decision-making based on local democracy and participation, or whether these processes as such are to be judged to be more important than any output and outcomes. The practices can neither be seen as a process of policy diffusion nor as a process of policy mimesis. The terminology of participatory budgeting remains, but the tools to achieve the goals resulted only in marginal changes in the status quo in municipalities in European countries practicing participatory budgeting, instead of resulting in radical changes to increase spending in favor of marginalized groups. Chapter 15 'Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Michiel S. de Vries is Full Professor of Public Administration at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Juraj Nemec is Professor of Public Finance and Public Management at the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. David Špaček is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1: The Diffusion of Participatory Budgeting: An Introduction to this Volume—With an Intermezzo by Tarso Genro, the Mayor of Porto Alegre Between 1992 and 1996 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Reversing the Main and Side-Effects 1.3 Back to Basics: The Substance of Participatory Budgeting References Chapter 2: Participatory Budgeting in Germany: Increasing Transparency in Times of Fiscal Stress 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Institutional Background and Diffusion of Participatory Budgeting Processes in Germany 2.3 The Design of Participatory Budgeting Processes in Germany 2.4 Evaluation of Participatory Budgeting Processes in Germany 2.5 Summary and Outlook References Chapter 3: Participatory Budgeting in Italy: A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Evolutionary Profiles of Participatory Governance in Italy 3.3 Participatory Budgeting in Italy in 2015–2020 3.3.1 Research Method 3.3.2 Findings Concerning Diffusion 3.3.3 Findings Concerning the Background 3.3.4 Findings Concerning the Contents and the Processes 3.3.5 Findings Concerning the Outcomes 3.4 Conclusions References Chapter 4: Participatory Budgeting in Sweden 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Swedish Model 4.3 About the Participatory Budgeting in Sweden 4.3.1 The Origin of Participatory Budgeting 4.3.2 The Pilot Projects of PB in Sweden 4.3.3 Amounts of Money for Participatory Budgeting in the Frame of Total Municipal Budget 4.3.4 Participatory Budgeting Policy Area and Opportunities for Repetition 4.4 Citizens Participation 4.4.1 The Rules of Participation in Participatory Budgeting 4.4.2 Selection of PB Project and Citizen Participation in Voting 4.5 Organization and Administration of Participatory Budgeting 4.6 Conclusions Appendix: Municipalities That Introduced Participatory Budgeting in Sweden, 2000–2020 (An Alphabetic Order) References Chapter 5: Participatory Budgeting in Belarus 5.1 Introduction 5.2 PB Experience in Belarus 5.2.1 Characteristic of the PB Model in Belarus 5.2.2 PB Organisation and Rules Implementation 5.2.3 PB Performance Process 5.2.4 PB Results 5.3 Findings in Innovations and Lessons Learned 5.4 Thoughts for the Future 5.5 Conclusions References Chapter 6: Participatory Budgeting in Croatia: A Mixed Bag of Good, Bad, and Indifferent 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Introduction of Participatory Budgeting 6.3 Characteristics of Participatory Budgeting 6.3.1 Administration and Subject of Participatory Budgeting 6.3.2 Participation in Participatory Budgeting 6.4 Outcomes of Participatory Budgeting 6.5 Discussion 6.6 Conclusion References Chapter 7: Project-Oriented Participatory Budgeting in the Czech Republic 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Participatory Budgeting in the Czech Republic 7.3 Participation and Voting 7.4 Organisation and Rules for PB Voting 7.5 Classification of PBs in 2019 7.6 Discussion and Conclusion References Chapter 8: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship? Participatory Budgeting in Hungary 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Trends of Participatory Budgeting in Hungary 8.3 Participatory Budgeting in Practice 8.3.1 The Effects of International Trends 8.3.2 The Framework of Participatory Budgeting 8.3.3 The Process of Participatory Budgeting 8.4 Results 8.5 Conclusion References Chapter 9: Participatory Budgeting in Poland 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Participatory Budgeting Models and Experience 9.3 The Scope and Forms of PB Implementation in Poland 9.4 The Method Applied by Polish Territorial Self-Government Units to Design Participatory Budgeting Processes 9.5 Results 9.6 Conclusions References Chapter 10: Participatory Budgeting in Romania 10.1 Introduction 10.2 National Context of Participatory Budgeting Processes Development 10.3 Participatory Budgeting Processes in Romania 10.3.1 The First Public Participation Projects 10.3.2 Youth-Oriented PB Processes: From Com’On Cluj-Napoca to Com’On Europe 10.3.3 Online Participatory Budgeting in Romania: Potentials and Challenges 10.3.4 Case Study: Cluj-Napoca Online PB 10.4 Conclusions References Chapter 11: Participatory (Initiative) Budgeting in the Russian Federation 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Chronology of the Development of Initiative Budgeting in Russia 11.3 Mechanisms for Implementing Initiative Budgeting in Russia 11.4 Financing Initiative Budgeting Projects 11.5 Conclusions References Chapter 12: Participatory Budgeting in Serbia 12.1 Introduction 12.2 The Contextual Analysis of the Serbian Public Budgetary System 12.2.1 Local Administration in Serbia 12.2.2 Contextual Analysis for Participatory Budgeting in Serbia 12.3 Methods 12.4 Results 12.4.1 Analysis of Participatory Budgeting Models 12.4.2 Analysis of the Budgets for Participatory Purposes 12.4.3 Analysis of the Participatory Budgeting Processes 12.4.4 Analysis of Participatory Budgeting Outcomes 12.5 Discussion and Conclusion References Chapter 13: Participatory Budgeting in Slovakia: Recent Development, Present State, and Interesting Cases 13.1 Introduction 13.2 First Participatory Budgets in Slovakia 13.3 Participatory Budgeting in Slovakia 13.3.1 Participatory Budgeting at Regional Level 13.3.2 Participatory Budgeting at Schools 13.4 Conclusion References Chapter 14: Participatory Budgeting in Slovenia 14.1 Introduction 14.2 Participation and Budget in Slovenia 14.2.1 Participation Index in Slovenia at the State Level 14.2.2 Legislative Framework of Participatory Budgeting in Slovenia 14.3 Development of Participatory Budgeting at the Local Level in Slovenia 14.3.1 Participatory Budgeting Practices 14.3.2 Case Study of the Municipality of Komen 14.4 Conclusion References Chapter 15: Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies 15.1 Introduction 15.2 Participatory Budgeting in Selected “Old Democracies” 15.3 Participatory Budgeting in Central and Eastern Europe 15.3.1 Developments of Participatory Budgeting in the CEE Region 15.3.2 The Scale of Participatory Budgeting in the CEE Region 15.3.3 How Participatory Budgeting Is Organized and Administered in the CEE Region? How Many People Participate? 15.3.4 What Are the Outcomes of Participatory Budgeting in the CEE Region? 15.4 Conclusions References Index This book analyses the participatory budgeting practice as it has evolved in evaluated countries, focusing on what is substantially at stake concerning the budget and issues involved, the actual participation, the way such processes are organised and administered, and the outcomes of such processes. It concludes that participatory budgeting in selected European countries is far away from the level of 'best practice', but that all experiences are not just trivial pursuits. The information collected serves to check, to what extent participatory budgeting as practiced in the countries involved presents a real attempt to change municipal budgets towards addressing the needs of marginalized groups and to improve decision-making based on local democracy and participation, or whether these processes as such are to be judged to be more important than any output and outcomes. The practices can neither be seen as a process of policy diffusion nor as a process of policy mimesis. The terminology of participatory budgeting remains, but the tools to achieve the goals resulted only in marginal changes in the status quo in municipalities in European countries practicing participatory budgeting, instead of resulting in radical changes to increase spending in favor of marginalized groups. Chapter 15 'Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Michiel S. de Vries is Full Professor of Public Administration at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Juraj Nemec is Professor of Public Finance and Public Management at the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. David Špaček is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic