Participatory Budgeting (Public Sector Governance) | 
 enlarge | Creator: Anwar Shah
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $31.37
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 866477
Media: Paperback
Pages: 296
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0821369237
Dewey Decimal Number: 352.48214
EAN: 9780821369234
ASIN: 0821369237
Publication Date: April 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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Product Description
This book presents an authoritative guide to the principles and practices of participatory budgeting (PB). PB represents a direct democracy approach to budgeting. The PB offers citizens at large an opportunity to learn about government operations and deliberate, debate and influence the allocation of public resources. It is a tool for citizens education, engagement and empowerment and strengthening demand for good governance. Enhanced transparency and accountability brought about by this tool can help reduce government inefficiency, waste and curb clientele-ism, patronage and corruption. PB also strengthens inclusive governance by giving the marginalized and excluded groups of the society to have their voices heard and influence public decision making vital to their interests. PB is noteworthy because if done right, it has the potential to make governments more responsive to citizens needs and preferences and accountable to them for performance in resource allocation and service delivery. In doing so, it can improve government performance and enhance the quality of democratic participation. This book provides a careful analysis of potentials and perils of participatory budgeting as observed from practices around the globe. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents the nuts and bolts of participatory budgeting. This is followed in Part II by regional surveys of experiences. Finally, Part III presents a review of PB practices in seven countries.
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The Best Book on the Topic, with a CD-ROM, Totally Rich April 15, 2008
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
This is the very best book on Participatory Budgeting I could find (other than those on Puerto Alegre specifically, I will review one of those later) and once in hand, it has fully satisfied. The higher than normal cost for a book of this type is fully justified by the CD ROM.
Use the Search Inside This Book line under the book cover to see the Table of Contents and other elements of the book. I did not do that but if you have any doubts at all, reading the Table of Contents should be more than enough to overcome them.
For my purposes the two most important parts of the book were overview by the editor Anwar Shah (top expert with the World Bank); the guide to participatory budgeting by Brian Wampler; and the concluding appendix by Alan Folscher, on Citizen Participation and State Effectiveness, and also--very important--Preconditions and Enabling Factors for Citizen Engagement with Public Decisions. The rest of the book is regional case studies, and the CD ROM is country case studies.
From the Overview
+ Participatory Budgeting is direct democracy
+ It empowers citizens to deliberate, debate, and influence
+ It is a tool for educating, engaging, and empowering citizens
+ Transparency can reduce inefficiency as well as corruption
+ It strengthens governance by including the marginalized
+ It comes with significant risks (this was the new stuff for me)
- Process can be captured by interest groups
- Can cover up existing injustices
- Tyranny of group dynamics can overpower good intentions
- Tyranny of method can exclude other democratic means (much as the fine print in many legal agreements excludes access to courts and juries by including a concealed agreement to abide by arbitration)
Introduction to Participatory Budgetng
+ Four factors for success
- Strong mayoral support
- Civil society willing and able to engage in the debate (harder to find that I realized)
- Supportive policy environment that can withstand legislative pressure\
- Financial resources to actually fund programs sponsored by citizens
Guiding Tenets Include:
+ Division of municipality into regions for easier discussion and implementation
+ Government-sponsored meetings throughout the year
+ Quality of Life Index is created to weight program toward less well off
+ Deliberation and negotiatiion is public
+ Bus caravan visits all the proposed projects before voting on them
+ Elected representatives vote on all the projects (open or secret)
+ Municipal councel is elected with two representatives from each region
+ Year end report is published
+ Everything in monitored publicly year round
The above cannot possibly capture the nuances and complexities of each individual case study, so that is where ethnographic specificity must be applied.
Appendix on Citizen Participation
+ Types of participation
- Information sharing
- Consultation
- Joint decision making
- Initiation and control by citizen stakeholders
+ Preconditions and Enabling Factors
- Openness and democratic depth of the political and governance systems
- Existence of enabling legal frameworks
- Capacity for participation inside and outside government
- Existence of functional and free media institutions
- Willingness and capacity of government to make budget information open
What most surprise me as a lay reader (i.e. I claim no expertise at all, I simply believe to direct democracy) was the MANY OBSTACLES to participatory budgeting. I have heard that WikiCalc is coming along, which would along for budget information to be commented on and then different perspectives aggregated from the individual to the neighborhood or political preference level; and I hope that EarthGame will become a reality in which each person plays themselves and has access to full information, but in the context of populations that struggle day to day, it is going to take much more than an "invitation" to achieve participatory budgeting. In a nutshell, we know now that it can work, but getting it to work anywhere is going to be a real challenge.
Great book. A solid academic endeavor that if I were repeating my MPA this year, should certainly be in the Budgeting Course.
See also:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
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