This book analyses the participatory budgeting practice as it has evolved in evaluated countries, focusing on what is substantially at stake concerning the budget and issues involved, the actual participation, the way such processes are organised and administered, and the outcomes of such processes. It concludes that participatory budgeting in selected European countries is far away from the level of 'best practice', but that all experiences are not just trivial pursuits. The information collected serves to check, to what extent participatory budgeting as practiced in the countries involved presents a real attempt to change municipal budgets towards addressing the needs of marginalized groups and to improve decision-making based on local democracy and participation, or whether these processes as such are to be judged to be more important than any output and outcomes. The practices can neither be seen as a process of policy diffusion nor as a process of policy mimesis. The terminology of participatory budgeting remains, but the tools to achieve the goals resulted only in marginal changes in the status quo in municipalities in European countries practicing participatory budgeting, instead of resulting in radical changes to increase spending in favor of marginalized groups.

Chapter 15 'Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Provides a comparative perspective on the use of participatory budgeting across Central and Eastern Europe Highlights how participatory policymaking can be a counter to democratic backsliding in government Assesses the impact of participatory budgeting on the political landscape of countries

Autorentext

Michiel S. de Vries is Full Professor of Public Administration at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is past President of IASIA and member of the editorial board of numerous journals on Public Administration. His research has resulted in over 300 scholarly publications and over 20 edited volumes and monographs.

Juraj Nemec is Professor of Public Finance and Public Management at the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He is the Vice-President of the IASIA and the member of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration at United Nations. He has published over 400 books and scientific articles.

David spacek is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He has participated in various national as well as international projects. In his research and lecturing, he concentrated on various aspects of public management and public administration.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. The diffusion of participatory budgeting: an introduction to this volume: With an intermezzo by Tarso Genro, the mayor of Porto Alegre between 1992 and 1996.- Chapter 2. Participatory Budgeting in Germany Increasing Transparency in Times of Fiscal Stress.-Chapter 3. Participatory Budgeting in Italy: A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes.- Chapter 4. Participatory Budgeting in Sweden.- Chapter 5: Participatory Budgeting in Belarus.- Chapter 6. Participatory Budgeting in Croatia: A Mixed Bag of Good, Bad, and Indifferent.- Chapter 7. Project-oriented participatory budgeting in the Czech Republic.- Chapter 8. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship? Participatory Budgeting in Hungary.- Chapter 9. Participatory budgeting in Poland.- Chapter 10. Participatory Budgeting in Romania.- Chapter 11. Participatory (Initiative) budgeting in the Russian Federation.- Chapter 12. Participatory Budgeting in Serbia.- Chapter 13. Participatory budgeting in Slovakia recent development, presentstate and interesting cases.- Chapter 14. Participatory Budgeting in Slovenia.- Chapter 15. Unraveled practices of participatory budgeting in European democracies.