Abstract
In the acknowledgments of Democracy Reinvented, the first sentence proclaims, “This work is a result of a collective effort spanning several cities, institutions and mentors.” Gilman’s proclamation is truthful because the book’s main strength is the key informant data she gathered during her time as a policy advisor, policy analyst, and researcher-participant for two of the three cases presented in the book. During her professional and academic endeavors, the author had an opportunity to work with the Participatory Budgeting Project in New York City when Josh Lerner, the author of the second book, was leading the organization.
Given their interconnected background, reviewing the two books together makes perfect sense: Each has a focus on participatory budgeting in Brazil, Chicago, and New York City (and Gilman includes a case for youth participation in Boston), but more importantly each is describing these experiences as a foil against which their vision for the potential of these and other civic engagement mechanisms to change democracy in response to citizen discontent can be assessed.
Participatory budgeting is a direct governance activity where citizen delegates are empowered by elected officials to select projects that will be funded by the government. In many cases, a small amount of the capital budget in specific geographic areas of the local government jurisdiction is set aside by elected officials for distribution using participatory budgeting processes. These resource allocation decisions are typically made through a multistage process that involves citizen delegate interaction with local government staff for technical support, identification of projects to be considered, deliberation about the projects, and a vote to produce a ranked list of projects to fund.
Both authors argue that more inclusive processes that empower citizens to become engaged in public decision making will transform governance in the United States. Through descriptions of the accomplishments of the Participatory Budgeting Project, Lerner suggests that expanding public deliberations in ways that makes these activities engaging to the participants has the potential to empower citizens and equalize political power (or at least make officials more responsive to the public’s priorities). To paraphrase him, “it provides a meaningful community experience.” Gilman situates participatory budgeting in a larger set of civic experiments and innovations to reinvent democracy, concluding that the resulting civic rewards (enhanced learning and transformed relationships) create a revitalized political sphere.
Through their explorations, both authors arrive at the same general conclusions. First, empowering citizens cannot be accomplished without designing processes that overcome the potential for political manipulation, including the right people, and creating incentives for the recommendations to influence decision making. They each suggest that participatory budgeting is an important addition to the deliberative governance toolbox. However, like other discursive mechanisms, both authors recognize that most governments have insufficient facilitative resources. This will limit the scalability of a participatory budgeting deliberative governance toolbox that can impact political structures. According to Lerner, one potential solution is to partner with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to develop common tools and resources that are publicly available. While Gilman advocates for greater experimentation with information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide additional opportunities that buttress, but do not replace, participation as a means for engaging citizens.
Critical dimensions for participatory budgeting’s effectiveness and legitimacy identified by Gilman are substantive participation, deliberation, and opportunities for institutionalization (p. 157). According to her, there are three types of participants (p. 73): the usual suspects who are people with whom the organization has an established relationship and regularly interacts as well as active citizens and new citizens who are people with whom participatory budgeting may be their first experience with the organization. The identification of new citizens alerts us to the contribution of participatory budgeting. As initiated in Brazil, the focus is often on disadvantaged citizens and shining a light on the unique service needs they have in the geospatial area in which they live. According to Gilman, new citizens have not been engaged and thus have differing needs for education on government as well as deliberative processes from active citizens or usual suspects. Usual suspects have very low needs in these areas, and in some of the case examples, they use prior knowledge and experiences to their own advantage. In some cases, they even co-opt the process to benefit their preferences. One conclusion that both authors reach, although not in the same language, is that engagement of the “unusual” suspects yields the tangible rewards promised by participatory budgeting because of their gratitude for being invited to participate. Deliberative dialogue with unusual suspects or new citizens also offers the prospect of intangible rewards that can invigorate democracy through enhanced individual political efficacy.
The rules of engagement for the participatory process matter. Both authors provide examples of how the rules advantaged/disadvantaged the preferences of participants and the projects to be considered. Lerner’s book is more detailed about what challenges the process and how the challenges might be overcome. Both Lerner and Gilman contribute by identifying ways to be creative in terms of process such as using ICTs when appropriate, providing signage describing proposed projects at polling places, and situating polling places in the normal life activity paths of the people eligible to vote (an example is being able to vote at a kiosk at bus stops).
The purposes for participatory budgeting can be unique based on the characteristics of the government jurisdiction (which can be both positive and negative). In recognition of this, Gilman thoughtfully elaborates a design structure that can be modified to the local context and preferences. She also prompts reflective inquiry that can assist in designing a participatory budgeting process that is situation-specific. Paying attention to design elements can increase government transparency, encourage civic education, and create new channels for feedback. When successful, participatory budgeting efforts create the potential for greater equity in resource distribution. These aims are quite admirable. However, as can be seen in the reasons for initiating participatory budgeting in Brazil, they are not in alignment with why citizens and civil society organizations may consider participatory budgeting (p. 25). There is a similar concern about the concordance of academic prescriptions with practical purposes in her admonition that, in some of the participatory budgeting sites, there were no calls for innovation in the project selection. There is no evidence to suggest that innovation was a goal; instead, this appears to be a prescription that the author imposes on the evaluation of participatory budgeting outcomes.
One of the observations from both authors is that people tend to express dissatisfaction and reduce their engagement when the projects they personally prefer are not funded. This reminds us that participants will retain some latent level of self-interest. However, there is also room for them to be altruistic and to become concerned not just with what is in it for them but also what is in it for the community in which they reside. Relationships that develop with government officials and geographic neighbors who are also participants do have the potential to improve trust in governance. These conclusions are salient to academics and practicing professionals alike.
As has been suggested in other studies, the amount of money earmarked for participatory budgeting involved is typically small and dedicated resources for the process and facilitation are mostly missing. As the budgetary stakes are so low, the potential for societal impacts such as distributive equity is limited. But when participatory budgeting is viewed through the lens of civic engagement, both authors point to the development of social capital among historically disadvantaged groups. This can contribute to self-efficacy and allow those involved to take advantage of pathways to participation. When pondering the tension between short-term outputs and long-term impacts, Lerner poses a provocative question. Does the small amount of money “. . . distract people from bigger issues?” A shared definition of the big issues of governance that participatory budgeting should answer is a necessity when choosing from among civic engagement mechanisms. This is certainly a question and a challenge that needs to be engaged by scholars and practicing professionals.
Each of these books is written in accessible language and provides succinct but highly descriptive introductions to the experiences, promises, and perils of participatory budgeting. The characteristics of each book make them differentially suitable for three audiences—students, policy practitioners, and scholars.
The Lerner book succinctly captures the process and related challenges of implementing participatory budgeting and concludes with a call for development of the facilitators’ toolbox to scale up participatory budgeting to meaningfully change democracy in the United States. Thus, students and policy practitioners would value this book.
The Gilman book, presents rudimentary typologies and a testable framework with criteria for assessing robustness drawn from the cases. Her tables and boxes do not rise to the level of toolbox additions but do suggest questions that must be considered by policy initiators and implementers. She also articulates democratic governance questions that future theory development will need to answer. These resources, such as the boxes in Chapter 7, would be most appropriate to policy practitioners charged with implementation of participatory budgeting or the design of other deliberative processes as well as the community of participation and budgeting scholars.
Both authors are very clear about their normative preferences and their commitment to civic engagement as a means to reinvent/change democracy. These perspectives can foster provide provocative discussions of the competing values that any civic engagement effort must address. Just as there is tension between efficiency in allocation decisions and innovations in service delivery, there is likewise a tension in prescribing the appropriate relationship between direct and representative democracy. If politics “worked” and trust in government was restored, then how much emphasis (and resources) should be placed on direct democracy? After all, there are statistics suggesting that people jealously protect their time and would be fairly satisfied delegating decision-making authority, so representative democracy may be sufficient.
The main weakness I find with the Gilman book is the amount of space devoted to the presentation of cases that have appeared in other outlets. Toward the end of the book, she presents sticky questions critical to theory development about innovative governance practices, such as participatory budgeting, that are not satisfactorily addressed by her. I would have preferred additional space for the development of these ideas because I find that she underplays the mitigation of important process concerns, especially politically motivated initiation of participatory budgeting, participant attrition, and co-optation. This is especially important if there are incentives to rely on the usual suspects and the staff instead of unusual or new citizens and elected officials, as the cases suggest.
A second weakness arises from the strength of the book. The strength is that Gilman has an exclusive focus on the citizen participants and presents their perspectives in an engaging narrative fashion rather than with the rigor expected from a qualitative academic research design. This contributes to the weakness. She does not consider the perspectives of nonparticipants, city staff, nor city officials. Their assessment of the process and the outcomes compared with what was intended, as well as the participants’ perspectives, could provide valuable comparative data.
The Lerner book is short. It is also heavy in the promotion of his organization, the Participatory Budgeting Project, through advocacy for its mission and for the toolbox that has been developed. He concludes with inspiring questions about how we can use the participatory budgeting experience to improve governance. This is not surprising given the publisher and the series in which it was published. So, I do not judge this to be a weakness. If you are looking for a short read that will motivate you to believe in the possibilities, then this book is for you. If you want to learn about the theory and best (and worst) practices of participatory budgeting, then Gilman would be a better choice.
Whichever book you choose, you will not regret you choice!