Abstract
International Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting by Osmany Porto de Oliveira provides an overview of the origins of participatory budgeting (PB) in Brazil, contextualized in a politically tumultuous environment, and the vectors by which the policy concept has disseminated and been adopted by governments beyond Brazil’s borders. The author contends that the role of “ambassadors of participation” serves a key role in international dissemination. These ambassadors consisted of municipal representatives, including the mayor of Porto Alegre and other high-ranking government employees, whose political influence and access, along with early participation in the process, allowed them to drive PB onto the international agenda.
The author argues that three distinct moments in policy history (legitimization of PB as a policy tool in the 1990s, the tipping point at the World Social Forum in 2001–2003, and policy spillover, where support for PB reached critical mass, leading to mass diffusion of PB internationally, circa 2003–2019) served as critical turning points, leading to the current state of PB as an international practice.
Porto de Oliveira employs a qualitative methodology to understand the diffusion of PB on local, regional, and global scales, using process-tracing analytical technique. He describes his research strategy as a “transnational political ethnography” which identifies three fundamental stages of international PB diffusion: internationalization, legitimization, and large-scale diffusion (27). He arranges the book in three parts, in which part I, labeled “Dynamics,” discusses the dynamics of policy diffusion in two chapters. Part II is labeled “The Process” and discusses the mechanism by which PB became internationally diffused over three chapters. Part III is labeled “Effects” and demonstrates the practical outcomes of PB diffusion through two chapters of case studies in Andean America and sub-Saharan Africa, and a final chapter discussing overall conclusions from the study.
The book begins with an overview of the research, a brief background on the Brazilian political landscape from which PB emerged, and an assessment of the challenges involved in accessing and analyzing international policy diffusion as a phenomenon. Noting that the rise of globalization has eased the flow of “ideas, institutions and social practices” (4) from one area to another, the author describes Brazil as a historical recipient of such diffusion from outside nations. This recipient status is credited to Brazil’s political legacy left by its colonial history, as well as its use of public administration models that originated in the United States and France. In more recent years, however, Brazil has become an exporter of policies such as PB. The author ties this phenomenon to a decline in the influence of the so-called Washington Consensus (11), a set of economic policy prescriptions originating in Washington, DC focused on promoting economic recovery of Latin American countries. The term is also used more broadly to describe a neoliberal market-based economic philosophy first promoted by economic leaders in Washington in 1989. The decline of its influence reflects greater value placed on a nation’s own policy development within its own borders, rather than originating from global leaders elsewhere.
The author evaluates the phenomenon of international policy diffusion by examining various actors, causal mechanisms, the nature of the policy that is diffused, and flow of political elements at various levels. Part of the challenge of policy diffusion analysis is the esoteric and somewhat fragmented nature of the process of diffusion. Without a formalized structure to rely on, the author applies a series of questions to his framework relating to the nature of policy travel and the forces and actors responsible for such change. He describes the policy pathway of diffusion as “a constant movement of flux and reflux” (4) which necessarily does not lend itself to a rigid analytical framework.
The author traces the process of Brazil’s transformation from a policy importer to a source of international policy diffusion through its twentieth-century political history. In particular, the emergence of New Public Management in the 1990s and the influence of the Washington Consensus along with democratization created “a great space for innovation” (8) in which domestic policy issues took center stage.
Part III of the book opens with an exploration of the role of “ambassadors of participation” in the international diffusion of PB beyond Brazil. The section is largely an empirical examination of PB diffusion, beginning with three Brazilian cases thought to be significant in the diffusion process. Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, and Recife are described as key to the genesis of modern-day PB diffusion. Porto Alegre, thought to represent the origin of Brazilian PB writ large, demonstrated the critical role that international relations play in policy diffusion, where the role of the “Extraordinary Secretariat for Fund-Raising” (74) was tasked with identifying international sources of funding. This entity represented a subnational Brazilian government seeking relationships with foreign partners, a practice that was then largely unknown and which provided a natural vector by which the concept of PB could spread internationally.
Porto de Oliveira identifies a number of mechanisms for diffusion “operating along the process of [PB] internationalization” (89), including overlapping and complementary democratization networks, as well as internal networks within Brazil which supported early diffusion within the country and among foreign partners. Other mechanisms include international support from organizations such as the Urban Management Programme of the United Nations (UN), the URB-AL program from the European Union, and the World Bank; construction as a means to illustrate a desired vision of the given municipality; external scanning, which facilitated coordination between and across international organizations, such as the World Bank and the government of Porto Alegre; and networking between organizations, governments, and key stakeholders.
In chapter 4, the book focuses on the significance of networks as transnational policy conductors, particularly where participatory democracy is concerned. Networks are shown to have strong impact on diffusion from Porto Alegre to Europe, and to a lesser extent, sub-Saharan Africa as well, as the notion of participatory democracy gained a foothold. The emergence of the French RDD network, using activist relationships and elevating the message of Porto Alegre, created a diffusion point that facilitated PB diffusion throughout Europe. This was facilitated by the emergence of a “para-diplomatic” arrangement, wherein the mayors of Porto Alegre and Saint-Denis, France, visited and formed relationships with the other country, thus cementing a key aspect of the network success.
The author shows the mechanism by which strong leadership and effective leveraging of cooperation between activists and institutional leaders, including those in local government, are essential to creation and maintenance of international PB diffusion channels. These networks are described as “a space for reflection and producing ideas about PB as well as an instrument of legitimation” (123) of the practice. Present-day PB networks extend beyond those described in the book, as the process of policy diffusion continues onward.
In chapter 5, Porto de Oliveira describes the “spillover” or “tipping point” for the mass international diffusion of PB as an institutionalization of what the author characterizes as the “Spirit of Porto Alegre.” This involved the role of the UN and the Urban Management Programme, along with the World Bank, in legitimizing PB as a valuable policy initiative on the global stage. This transition also served to more closely link policy relationships as well as interpersonal connections between leaders in Latin America and Europe, creating a more symbiotic policy dynamic, in place of the unidirectional process that had existed previously.
Part III discusses the immediate and long-term effects of PB dissemination, with case studies in Andean America and sub-Saharan Africa. In Peru, the author describes the diffusion of PB as being tied to a “national ambition” and realization of national goals. In Ecuador, the constitutionalization of PB led to a nationwide implementation of the policy. PB diffusion in sub-Saharan Africa is described in regional terms, where institutions are constructed from less well-defined territories, and cities such as Dakar are critical points of mass diffusion across the region. The author provides four cases of transfers, in Fissel, Senegal; Ampasy Nahampoana, Madagascar; Maputo, South Africa; and Makhado, Mozambique, showing the impact of PB diffusion across African countries with widely varying characteristics.
The author concludes part III with a summary of limits on existing research, as well as gains in research related to the diffusion of PB. The author notes that limitations on this research include the tendency toward reductionism due to the breadth and complexity of actors in study. He also indicates that further research on diffusion ought to incorporate multi-level analysis, including local, regional, and global implications.
In sum, Porto de Oliveira effectively and clearly outlines the birth of PB in Brazil and its channels of international diffusion. The book provides useful case studies, both of success and of challenges, which may be of use for planning scholarship and policy strategy. The frameworks represented need not be limited only to applications relating to PB, but rather may be extrapolated for study of other types of international policy diffusion and democratization.
However, the book also has a few weaknesses. For example, the author could have gone further in contextualizing the environment of Brazil’s political environment within South America as well as globally, particularly for readers who are not previously steeped in Brazilian political history. In addition, while the book is appropriately Brazil-focused, its brief treatment of PB in the United States, in the form of a brief epilogue, represents a missed opportunity. At the time of writing, the Participatory Budgeting Project reports at least ninety-three known PB projects within the United States in 2019 (https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/case-studies/). Further discussion of PB diffusion into the United States and Canada could have drawn comparisons between North American cities using PB, such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or San Antonio, Texas (both of which are similarly sized to Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte), and successful cases in Brazil or elsewhere.
The success of PB diffusion and legitimization as a policy tool is reliant on buy-in from policymakers and top-level stakeholders, and Porto de Oliveira effectively outlines a roadmap for that aspect of its international growth. But for PB to be effective in an ongoing manner, it requires contributions from activists and grassroots-level nongovernmental organizations, who bring participants from the community to the process. The author briefly touches on this stakeholder community in his discussion of diffusion to France and the RDD network, but does not discuss the ways in which community-level participation in Porto Alegre and elsewhere supported the ongoing success of PB as a practice. In sum, PB is an emergent and evolving policy tool. This book provides a valuable showcase of its origins as it traces the journey from Porto Alegre to the World Social Forum and around the globe.