Participatory Budgeting in Brazil

by Wampler, Brian

• ISBN13: 9780271032528
• ISBN10: 0271032529
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-01
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr

Summary

As Brazil and other countries in Latin America turned away from their authoritarian past and began the transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, interest in developing new institutions to bring the benefits of democracy to the citizens in the lower socioeconomic strata intensified, and a number of experiments were undertaken. Perhaps the one receiving the most attention has been Participatory Budgeting (PB), first launched in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1989 by a coalition of civil society activists and Workers' Party officials. PB quickly spread to more than 250 other municipalities in the country, and it has since been adopted in more than twenty countries worldwide. Most of the scholarly literature has focused on the successful case of Porto Alegre and has neglected to analyze how it fared elsewhere.In this first rigorous comparative study of the phenomenon, Brian Wampler draws evidence from eight municipalities in Brazil to show the varying degrees of success and failure PB has experienced. He identifies why some PB programs have done better than others in achieving the twin goals of ensuring governmental accountability and empowering citizenship rights for the poor residents of these cities in the quest for greater social justice and a well-functioning democracy. Conducting extensive interviews, applying a survey to 650 PB delegates, doing detailed analysis of budgets, and engaging in participant observation, Wampler finds that the three most important factors explaining the variation are the incentives for mayoral administrations to delegate authority, the way civil society organizations and citizens respond to the new institutions, and the particular rule structure that is used to delegate authority to citizens.

Author Biography

Brian Wampler is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boise State University.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	p. ix
List of Acronyms	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Extending Citizenship and Accountability Through Participatory Budgeting	p. 1
Participatory Budgeting: Rules of the Game	p. 45
Authority, Negotiation, and Solidarity: PB Delegates' Attitudes and Behaviors	p. 71
Porto Alegre and Ipatinga: The Successful Delegation of Authority and the Use of Contentious Politics (Among Friends)	p. 103
Blumenau and Rio Claro: Weak Mayoral Support and the Absence of Contentious Politics	p. 147
Sao Paulo and Santo Andre: Co-optation, Limited Delegation, and Signaling	p. 175
Belo Horizonte and Recife: Contentious Politics and Mayoral Shifts	p. 215
Deepening Democracy Through the Expansion of Citizenship Rights and Accountability	p. 255
Appendix	p. 283
Bibliography	p. 293
Index	p. 308
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.