The Rise, Spread, and Decline of Brazil’s Participatory Budgeting: The Arc of a Democratic Innovation

✍ Scribed by Brian Wampler, Benjamin Goldfrank

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 138
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book examines the rise, spread and decline of participatory budgeting in Brazil. In the last decade of the twentieth century Brazil became a model of participatory democracy for activists, practitioners, and scholars. However, some thirty years later participatory budgeting is in steep decline, and on the verge of disappearing from Brazil. Drawing from institutional, political choice, civil society, and public administration literature, this book generates theory that accounts for the rise and fall of an innovative democratic institution. It examines what the arc of the creation, spread, and decline of participatory budgeting tells us about the long-term viability and potential democratic impact of this innovative democratic institution as it spreads globally. Will the same inverted trajectory plague other countries in the future, or will they be able to sustain participatory budgeting for greater periods of time?

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Contents
Acronyms
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Arc: 1988–2020
Argument
What Is Participatory Budgeting, and How Did It Work in Porto Alegre?
Theoretical Innovations
Methodological Approach
PB Censuses
Book Outline
References
Chapter 2: Analytical Framework: Internal, Horizontal, Vertical
Internal
Horizontal Diffusion
Vertical
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Creation: Workers’ Party Governments and Civil Society Allies
Internal
Horizontal
Vertical
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The Spread of PB: The Workers’ Party and Beyond
Internal
Horizontal
Vertical
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Outcomes: When and Where Did PB Live Up to the Hype?
Democracy
Civil Society
Governance and Accountability
Public Goods Distribution
Well-Being
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: The Slow Decline of PB from 2005 to 2020
Internal Factors
Horizontal
Vertical
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Conclusion
PB’s Arc in Brazil
Democratic Innovations
Parties and Party System
State Capacity
Civil Society
Deepening the Quality of Democracy
Comparative Lessons
Internal
Horizontal
Vertical
What Does This Tell Us About the Greater Spread of PB Across the World?
Expansion Signs
References