Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-11T19:05:25.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“It Was Once a Radical Democratic Proposal”: Theories of Gradual Institutional Change in Brazilian Participatory Budgeting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2018

Françoise Montambeault
Françoise Montambeault*
Affiliation:
Françoise Montambeault is an associate professor of political science at the Université de Montréal.
*
francoise.montambeault@umontreal.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Because of its early positive assessments, participatory budgeting (PB) has been and continues to be praised by several policymakers, and the Brazilian model has become an institutional blueprint around the world. No one questions the way the model has evolved in Brazilian municipalities with a long tradition of PB, but it was institutionalized there through practice and not through state legislation. It is thus highly permeable to political will and evolving ideas. Looking at the case of Belo Horizonte, where it was implemented in 1993, this study argues that while the political rhetoric of PB has remained central to political discourse over time, a significant but gradual policy change has occurred in practice. This change has important implications: not only does it have an impact on the policy outcomes of PB, but it also contributes to delegitimating the process for its participants, abetting its gradual deinstitutionalization.

Keywords

participatory budgetinginstitutional changeBelo HorizonteBrazil
Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 29 - 53
Copyright
© 2019 University of Miami 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Author Interviews

All interviews took place in Belo Horizonte.

Afonso. 2014. Longtime PB delegate; president of a neighborhood association. July 30.Google Scholar
Ananias, Patrus. 2014. PT mayor of Belo Horizonte, 1993–97; originator of PB in Belo Horizonte. August 28.Google Scholar
Claudia. 2014. Ex-PB delegate. July 28.Google Scholar
Efigênia. 2014. Vila neighborhood association president in Centro-Sul; activist. July 29.Google Scholar
Head of City Planning. 2014. City of Belo Horizonte. August 1.Google Scholar
Mônica. 2014. Ex-employee of City Plannimg, City of Belo Horizonte. August 4.Google Scholar
PB Administrator 1. 2014. Employee of City Planning, City of Belo Horizonte. July 25.Google Scholar
PB Administrator 2. 2014. Employee of City Planning, City of Belo Horizonte. July 25.Google Scholar
Pimentel, Fernando. 2008. Mayor of Belo Horizonte, 2000–2008. August 19.Google Scholar
Roberto. 2014. President of a neighborhood association, Centro-Sul; PB delegate. August 28.Google Scholar
Rogério. 2014. PB delegate from Barreiro; activist. August 28.Google Scholar

References

Abers, Rebecca. 2000. Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Ananias, Patrus. 2005. Orçamento participativo: por que o implementamos em Belo Horizonte? In Orçamento participativo: construindo a democracia, ed. de Azevedo, Sergio and Fernandes, Rodrigo Barroso. Rio de Janeiro: Revan. 33–48.Google Scholar
Avritzer, Leonardo. 2009. Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Avritzer, Leonardo. 2012. The Different Designs of Public Participation in Brazil: Deliberation, Power Sharing and Public Ratification. Critical Policy Studies 6, 2: 113–127.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2005. Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, and Ganuza, Ernesto. 2014. Participatory Budgeting as if Emancipation Mattered. Politics and Society 42, 1: 29–50.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, Braathen, Einar, and Teixeira, Ana Claudia. 2013. Transformation Institutionalized? Making Sense of Participatory Democracy in the Lula Era. In Democratization in the Global South: The Importance of Transformative Politics, ed. Stokke, Kristian and Törnquist, Olle. London: Palgrave MacMillan. 217–241.Google Scholar
Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, Heller, Patrick, and Silva, Marcelo Kunrath. 2011. Bootstrapping Democracy: Transforming Local Governance and Civil Society in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Béland, Daniel. 2007. Ideas and Institutional Change in Social Security: Conversion, Layering and Policy Drift. Social Science Quarterly 88, 1: 20–38.Google Scholar
Bittar, Jorge, ed. 1992. O modo petista de governar. São Paulo: Camargo Soares.Google Scholar
Coleman, Stephen, and Sampaio, Rafael Cardoso. 2017. Sustaining a Democratic Innovation: A Study of Three E-Participatory Budgets in Belo Horizonte. Information, Communication & Society 20, 5: 754–769.Google Scholar
Dagnino, Evelina. 2002. Sociedade civil e espaços públicos no Brasil. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.Google Scholar
Donaghy, Maureen. 2013. Civil Society and Participatory Governance: Municipal Councils and Social Housing Programs in Brazil. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fedozzi, Luciano Joel, and Martins, André Luis Borges. 2015. Trajetória do orçamento participativo de Porto Alegre: representação e elitização política. Lua Nova 95: 181–223.Google Scholar
Fonseca, Marcelo da. 2014. Recursos do orçamento participativo não saíram do papel em BH. Estado de Minas (Belo Horizonte), September 29.Google Scholar
Ganuza, Ernesto, and Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2012. The Power of Ambiguity: How Participatory Budgeting Travels the Globe. Journal of Public Deliberation 8, 2. https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol8/iss2/art8 Google Scholar
Goldfrank, Benjamin. 2003. Making Participation Work in Porto Alegre. In Radicals in Power: The Workers’ Party (PT) and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil, ed. Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. London: Zed Books. 27–46.Google Scholar
Goldfrank, Benjamin. 2011. Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America: Participation, Decentralization, and the Left. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Goldfrank, Benjamin. 2012. The World Bank and the Globalization of Participatory Budgeting. Journal of Public Deliberation 8, 2. https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol8/iss2/art7 Google Scholar
Goldfrank, Benjamin, and Schneider, Aaron. 2006. Competitive Institution Building: The PT and Participatory Budgeting in Rio Grande do Sul. Latin American Politics and Society 48, 3: 1–31.Google Scholar
Gurza Lavalle, Adrian, Voigt, Jessica, and Serafim, Lizandra. 2016. O que fazem os conselhos e quando o fazem? Padrões decisorios e o debate dos efeitos das instituições participativas. Dados 59, 2: 609–650.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2005. Policy Drift: The Hidden Politics of U.S. Welfare State Retrenchment. American Political Science Review 98, 2: 243–260.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., Pierson, Paul, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2013. Drift and Conversion: Hidden Faces of Institutional Change. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., Pierson, Paul, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2015. Drift and Conversion: Hidden Faces of Institutional Change. In Advances in Comparative Historical Analysis, ed. Mahoney, James and Thelen, . New York: Cambridge University Press. 180–208.Google Scholar
Hernández-Medina, Esther. 2010. Social Inclusion Through Participation: The Case of the Participatory Budget in São Paulo. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34, 3: 512–534.Google Scholar
Lüchmann, Ligia H. 2014. 25 anos de orçamento participativo: algumas reflexões analíticas. Política e Sociedade 13, 28: 167–197.Google Scholar
Luiz Lara, Fernando. 2010. Beyond Curitiba: The Rise of a Participatory Model for Urban Intervention in Brazil. Urban Design International 15: 119–128.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2010. A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change. In Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power, ed. Mahoney, and Thelen, . New York: Cambridge University Press. 1–37.Google Scholar
Melgar, Teresa R. 2014. A Time of Closure? Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, After the Workers’ Party Era. Journal of Latin American Studies 46, 1: 121–149.Google Scholar
Montambeault, Françoise. 2015. The Politics of Local Participatory Democracy in Latin America: Institutions, Actors, and Interactions. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Montambeault, Françoise. 2016. Participatory Citizenship in the Making? The Multiple Citizenship Trajectories of Participatory Budgeting Participants in Brazil. Journal of Civil Society 12, 3: 282–298.Google Scholar
Montambeault, Françoise. 2018. Uma constituição cidadã? Sucessos e limites da institucionalização de um sistema de participação cidadã no Brasil democrático. Estudos Ibero-Americanos 44, 2: 261–272.Google Scholar
Nylen, William R. 2002. Testing the Empowerment Thesis: The Participatory Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil. Comparative Politics 34, 2: 127–145.Google Scholar
Nylen, William R.. 2003. Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy: Lessons from Brazil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Oliveira, Osmany Porto de. 2017. Internatiomal Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting: Ambassadors of Participation, International Organizations and Transnational Networks. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Paiva Bezerra, Carla de. 2015. Do poder popular ao modo petista de governar. Paper presented at the Encontro Internacional Participação, Democracia e Políticas Públicas, Universidade de Campinas, April.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2003. Public Policies as Institutions. Paper presented at the conference Crafting and Operating Institutions, Yale University, April.Google Scholar
Pogrebinschi, Thamy, and Samuels, David. 2014. The Impact of Participatory Democracy: Evidence from Brazil. Comparative Politics 46, 3: 313–332.Google Scholar
Prefeitura Municipal de Belo Horizonte. 2013. Participação no OP digital. Belo Horizonte.Google Scholar
Prefeitura Municipal de Belo Horizonte. 2014. Plano regional de empreendimentos do orçamento participativo 2013–2014. Belo Horizonte.Google Scholar
Rennó, Lucio, and Souza, Ailton. 2012. A metamorfose do orçamento participativo: mudança de governo e seus efeitos em Porto Alegre. Revista de Sociologia e Política 20, 41: 235–252.Google Scholar
Sampaio, Rafael Cardoso, and Barros, Samuel Anderson Rocha. 2017. A confiança para a manutenção de uma inovação democrática: o caso do orçamento participativo digital de Belo Horizonte. Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania 22, 72: 142–163.Google Scholar
Sampaio, Rafael Cardoso, Maia, Rousiley Celi Moreira, and Marques, Francisco Paulo. 2011. Participation and Deliberation on the Internet: A Case Study on Digital Participatory Budgeting in Belo Horizonte. Journal of Community Informatics 7, 1–2. http://ci-journal.org/index.php/ciej/article/view/654. Accessed June 15, 2018.Google Scholar
Sintomer, Yves, Röcke, Anja, and Herzberg, Carsten. 2016. Participatory Budgeting in Europe: Democracy and Public Governance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sousa, Luciana Andressa Martin de. 2011. Orçamento participativo e as novas dinâmicas políticas locais. Lua Nova 84, 353–364.Google Scholar
Sousa, Luciana Andressa Martin de. 2015. Do local para o nacional: o orçamento participativo (OP) e a institucionalização da participação popular ao longo da história do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT). Interseções: Revista de Estudos Interdisciplinares 17, 1: 226–251.Google Scholar
Sousa Santos, Boaventura de. 1998. Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre: Toward Redistributive Democracy. Politics and Society 26, 4: 461–510.Google Scholar
Spada, Paolo. 2014. The Diffusion of Participatory Governance Innovations: A Panel Data Analysis of the Adoption and Survival of Participatory Budgeting in Brazil. Paper presented at the 32nd Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, May 21–24.Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2005. Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2009. Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies. British Journal of Industrial Relations 47, 3: 471–498.Google Scholar
Touchton, Michael, and Wampler, Brian. 2014. Improving Social Well-Being Through New Democratic Institutions. Comparative Political Studies 47, 10: 1442–1469.Google Scholar
Wampler, Brian. 2007. Participatory Budgeting in Brazil: Contestation, Cooperation, Accountability. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Wampler, Brian. 2012. Entering the State: Civil Society Activism and Participatory Governance in Brazil. Political Studies 60, 2: 341–362.Google Scholar
Wampler, Brian. 2015. Activating Democracy in Brazil: Popular Participation, Social Justice, and Interlocking Institutions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Wampler, Brian, and Avritzer, Leonardo. 2005. The Spread of Participatory Democracy in Brazil: From Radical Democracy to Participatory Good Government. Journal of Latin American Urban Studies 7: 37–52.Google Scholar
Wampler, Brian, McNulty, Stephanie, and Touchton, Michael. 2018. Participatory Budgeting: Spreading Around the Globe. Online Report. Transparency Initiative, January. http://www.transparency-initiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/spreading-pb-across-the-globe_jan-2018.pdf. Accessed June 15, 2018.Google Scholar