Overview
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.
Full Product Details
Author: Brian Wampler (Boise State University)
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Imprint: Pennsylvania State University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.445kg
ISBN: 9780271032535
ISBN 10: 0271032537
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 15 November 2010
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
An essential text for the curious and discerning reader of one of the most important current innovations in Latin American democracy.... The text offers rich contributions to our conceptual understanding of state-society relations, exploring the nature of contestation and cooperation within PB, and the carefully constructed comparisons of observations in eight different municipalities within Brazil offer systematic explanations for PB outcomes. The lessons Wampler draws from his comparisons will be useful to those interested in the public policy of participation, an element that both developed and developing democracies have struggled with over the years. - Aaron Schneider, Journal of Latin American Studies Brian Wampler's incisive comparative intranational study of the implementation of participatory budgeting (PB) sheds new critical light on this much-celebrated institution, now supported by the World Bank and UN Habitat and adopted in 40 countries and more than 250 Brazilian municipalities. His richly detailed account of the complex workings of the PB process shows conclusively that while it can help deepen democratization, its concrete political results have been mixed. Wampler's nuanced findings and analytical insights about the promise and problems of PB make this a must-read for researchers, students, policy makers, rights advocates, and development practitioners alike. - Sonia E. Alvarez, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Author Information
Brian Wampler is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University.
