good stuff!!
we should work together on it!
We are planning to do something similar as it’s a great voting system…this will be the next step of our project.
There are many things to do in this field, don’t you think? But the problem is always the same: how can we move from the game to the reality?
…it depends…
I finally decide to post one of the most complex answer ever!! 
I am happy that you know PB, and perhaps more than I do: I really like your open PB system and we need to dig deeper into that. Your issue is very demanding, and that was the reason of this delay…
Well, there are several ways of implementing PB, as you said, but I think it is important where we want to get at: empowering people or simply applying an experiment of institutional engineering which we think is cool. Sometimes PB is seen as the end rather than the mean and it is implemented without taking into consideration the social context. I believe that we should be aware of the final end and in this case means can change according to your position and role. Let me explain it better…
Like democracy, PB must be known and understood first. People must be aware that PB is a right of citizenship and a good instrument for the community as a whole, rather for private purposes. This point alone will change any result and the PB system as well. In this sense, unless people will not know it, PB must be proposed, in order to demonstrate and convince them on its merits. Once that has been interiorized, PB can spread, repeated, develop and perhaps become something else, like an open system or perhaps … a new form of democracy…
As an academic, I am definitely more extreme, outlining the hypothetic scenario beyond PB, what it really means in terms of pure democratic and social theory. But when I have to put it into practice, at the concrete social level, I am of course much milder, as I am going to work in the real life, where the context matter and we should take time and any sort of influence into consideration. We should be aware that we are proposing something really new and diverse which could be easily misunderstood, twisted and then rejected. Real life is not am aseptic laboratory and you must consider thousand of factors which could affect any planned result. Therefore, I usually propose to the people bits of PB just to let them experience and “taste” it. I am pretty sure, in fact, of the following: as far as citizens experience with PB, they enter into a new political perspective which have never thought, a new way of participation which is neither just delegating, nor attending boring and demanding assemblies. As soon as they feel realized and happy, this is the starting point for PB to grow up and become more and more sophisticated and efficient, as they will all act to implement and ameliorate it. PB is like a dress: it shows its beauty only when it fits perfectly the body of the model…and when the body is so beautiful to shape it. Of course, it would be better if all the actors, political and social, were fully involved into this process, but you can’t always get what you want! So, the more political actors feed this process, the more PB become strong (and “open”). The less political actors are involved, the more civil society has to be active in demanding such power.
In this sense, if you are supported by the Municipality, PB will be easier to spread as it has all the means to be put into effect (budget, first of all!), even though it should be aware of political influence. If political class is absent, the effort is bigger and bigger as you need to convince people that this is the best way to decide over public resources … otherwise they will simply act as usual (lobbying, begging, demonstrating, or passively delegating).
There are also practical reasons to start with a closed PB. First of all, we are living in a representative democratic system and the legitimate and formal power lies in the Municipality: Mayor and Aldermans are elected and they bear the legal responsibility for public decisions. Second, PB is an experiment and as far as we are not aware of the amount of participants (as well as the reliability of the participatory process) we cannot move the entire decisional power in there, being the decision over the entire public budget or the entire population (the appropriation model).
To sum up, unless the whole community is involved (input legitimacy) or PB become an institutionalized and formalized process (formal legitimacy), decisions about and from PB must always be approved by the Municipality and this is always a close model, no matter the threshold. Isn’t it?
Many problems rise, as you can understand, and there is one which is very crucial: the more citizens decide through PB process, the less political representatives rule and the more they could claim their power back. Conflicts are natural and expectable. That’s the point which makes me feel PB as a new and alternative democracy, rather than a mere crutch to this representative system. And this is truer as PB is a representative system as well! It is different to the traditional one as it is made of single-issue and fluid delegates – representing concrete projects and needs yearly - rather than polymaths (or “know-it-all”) who are elected according to a broad (and sometimes vague and unaccountable) political programme.
That’s all: through PB we simply put different people in charge, according to different (and more direct) decisional mechanisms. And those people mainly come from civil society (which is notoriously sectorial or thematic). Inasmuch as people and mechanisms are diverse things definitely change. That’s the challenge: find the right people within the right (democratic) mechanisms!
What do you think?
Looking forward… to brainstorming this w you, Smarni ++
It is time to pack. Just to give advance notice, that this is the most practical thing that I’ve as yet met on the Edgeryders. So I will likely be following you about. I am not an academic nor a technogeek, I am rather a professional human being. I have always worked with the theatre – not in the buildings, but in the meeting of people over a pile of poetry. I sometimes call my work the Institute for Non-toxic Propaganda. My attraction to the PB work is related to this… How can one re-vamp democractic action in a way that self-ignites enthusiasm for the process? I don’t concern myself with lights and sound systems, but of heightening the rituals around the participation. What key elements, and key arguments could be highlighted so that the method becomes clearly evident, and so logical that noone can resist it…
More tomorrow…
Bembo
THANKS BEMBO!
I'll qoute it as a good synthesis of democracy.so that the method becomes clearly evident, and so logical that noone can resist it…
See you in a while…
just some thoughts
I am not particularly familiarised with this topic, however, I have quickly read the past posts and visited the different links.
The idea sound excellent and will surely constitute a move forward. Also, I totally agree with the idea of co-constitutive structure-agency relationships. Thus, I would like to hear a lot more about this topic at the conference, so that I can understand the depths of the whole mechanism.
From my point of view the advantages are obvious:
creating a more participative budget management system in which the needs of the public are better reflected in resource allocation and the citizen in
as time passes, it could replace the present mentality of a representative democracy with more delegative nuanced notions.
b) It should limit some of the negative effects of corruption or at least keep it in more checks since:
the amounts available or place at a normally elected figure’s (e.g. mayor) discretionary are diminished
resources are not wasted on undesired projects, but on much needed public goods
At a first glance, it is great as it empowers people and delivers to an extent exactly what they want.
However, I just wanted to know what the costs of maintaining such a system are. There must be some public information campaigns so that people know and are able to assess the impact of different projects in accordance with their needs. The voting procedure itself must entail some costs. These are the simplest I could name and, of course, are highly mitigated by e-government as they can be done online. Still, there will be some policy units or departments created for this purpose and an increase in the civil service body. What have been the answers to these issues in Brazil? I’m just saying if such policies are to be accepted by politicians they have to be thoroughly thought through. In Romania, for example, with the current austerity measures imposed, government funding towards mayoralties have completely stopped and most local budgets rely strictly on their own income ore on credits, which makes the situation at times critical. If such a system can be fully implemented without an enlargement of the current public service capacity, it would be a very sound argument for.
Another point I am curious, again based on examples from Romania, is how representative are the decisions. Say you have an asymmetrically developed city with underdeveloped peripheral parts that have a small populace concentration and a high concentration of population in a developed centre. How is balance development achieved? Because if you just resource allocation will be towards projects with more populated areas; will the others not feel disappointed?
The idea is great, however, I am really interested in its applicability. Hope to hear much more on this topic.
Best
Good point
Andrei, these are excellent questions. Let’s see what Stefano has to say.
Beyond Elections
I’m interested in participatory budgeting but haven’t had the time yet to look into it properly. I got hold of a copy of this film ‘Beyond Elections’, which the blurb said has lots about participatory budgeting in Latin America http://www.beyondelections.com/. I haven’t had time to watch it yet, but will try to see if before the conference - I can bring it along if others might be interested?
My concern with local participatory budgeting is the extent to which it fits within (and necessarily accepts and justifies) funding constraints imposed from above. Maybe this is a misconception rooted in the UK political system. Here, I am concerned that if, say, my local District Council instituted participatory budgeting, we would still have the 27% budget cuts over the next 4 years, but would merely have to impose the austerity on ourselves. If we refuse to set a budget or demand more funds, the Government Minister can take charge of the budget himself. So, we face an unfair choice between Government austerity, and our own austerity. Can - does? - participatory budgeting combine with social and political action to make demands of political authorities? (sorry if I’ve missed things in all the text above and in comments, no time to read it all!)
Sorry everybody!
I am very very very sorry for having disapppeared, but I an very very busy at this time, for we are rushing to finish the beta edition of our online platform for participatory budgeting which I hope to show you in Strasbourg as well!
I’d really like to take up the conversation with smari (great: you and perhaps the others also received the draft I deleted! i’ll work on it) and to reply to your last interesting points. And I’d like to interact a bit more with the other edgeryders and their mission. Unfortunately it’s very difficult, but I’ll do my best in this last week, especially to take full advantage of the conference and the chance to meet you all.
I’ll try to follow the tree-shaped structure of the forum…