ComparativePolitics

Published quarterly byThe City University of New York

Volume 41, Number I,October 2008

When Does Participatory Democracy Deepen the Quality

of Democracy?

Over the past two decades participatory institutions have been initiated throughoutthe developing world in order to deepen the quality of democracy. Local governmentsin countries as diverse as Brazil, India, Venezuela, South Africa, and Indonesia haveexperimented with participatory institutions to promote accountability, create active andknowledgeable citizens, and establish the conditions for achieving social justice. 1 Theinitial body of research on participatory democracy programs has largely extolled thepositive benefits of these institutions, highlighting how participatory institutions havebeen able to produce specific social and political advances that deepen the quality ofdemocracy.2 According to this research, social capital is being generated, citizens are beingempowered, and governments are becoming more transparent.3

Despite a rich literature on participatory institutions in democratizing countries, acoherent theoretical explanation to account for where and when these participatoryexperiences are likely to be successful is still lacking. Institutions as diverse as the WorldBank, the United Nations, Brazil's leftist Workers' Party, and India's Communist Partycurrently promote the adoption of participatory institutions, which means that it is crucialto develop a generalizable theoretical framework that will better explain a wide range ofoutcomes.

The absence of a generalizable theoretical framework to explain the divergentoutcomes produced by participatory institutions has methodological and conceptual roots.Methodologically, most studies on participatory institutions are single case studies andhave focused on the most successful cases.4 Although these studies have greatly advancedan understanding of how participatory institutions can deepen democracy, their theoreticalfindings are not generalizable because they select on the dependent variable.5 A significantconceptual problem is that civil society has received the lion's share of scholars' attentionwhile the actions of state officials have been downplayed despite the integral role they playin these participatory processes.

Comparative Politics October 2008

Participatory institutions have the potential to deepen the quality of democracy,through the actions of government officials and citizen-participants, by extending rightsand benefits to individuals who were previously denied access. According to KennethRoberts, ••the logic of deepening democracy is one of intensifying popular sovereigntyin the political sphere, that is, moving from hierarchical forms of elitist or bureaucraticcontrol to forms of popular self-determination by means of more direct participation inthe decision-making process."6 Brazil's participatory budgeting programs represent aneffort to build new institutional arrangements that create opportunities for low incomeindividuals to engage in collective decision making in order to allow them to exercisepolitical rights as well as to grant them social rights and benefits that have not traditionallybeen provided to Brazil's lower classes. When citizens are able to exercise new rights, it is

. possible to confirm that democracy is being deepened.However, participatory institutions also have the potential to undermine efforts to

deepen the quality of democracy because citizens may be incorporated into state-sanctioneddecision-making processes but not given meaningful levels of authority. Roberts pointsout "that strategies for the deepening of democracy have been obstructed by problemsof collective action and political coordination that arise in the process of translatingLatin America's popular social majorities into political majorities with the organizationalstrength required for the exercise of popular sovereignty.''1

Why do some participatory institutions succeed, some fail, and others producemediocre results? This article helps to account for how participatory democratic institutionsaffect democratic outcomes by analyzing the strategies and behaviors of governmentsand citizen-participants. The substantial variation in the outcomes is best explained byidentifying the incentives of local governments to delegate authority in conjunction withthe capacity of civil society organizations to use contentious politics inside and outside ofthese new institutions.

Participatory institutions complement representative democracy. Government officialsmust decide if delegating decision-making authority to citizens coincides with their owninterests. Elected officials must determine if they can accommodate the demands presentedby citizens in participatory institutions within their broader electoral, intraparty, governing,and policy agendas. As governments' willingness to delegate authority decreases, so toodoes the quality of the participatory program, which then limits efforts to improve thequality of local democracy.

When mayors are willing to delegate authority, citizens and civil society organizationsmust choose how they will make use of this new type of authority. Citizens must bewilling to engage in intense cooperation with government officials; without cooperation,government officials have a diminished interest in supporting a participatory program.Yet close cooperation can quickly led to cooptation. The presence of contentious politicsprovides a means for citizens to place pressure on the government that allows citizen-participants to avoid cooptation.

This article draws from the best known case of participatory democracy in thedeveloping world, Brazil's participatory budgeting, to show how government officials

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and citizens have managed this balancing act. Some participatory budgeting programshave been managed very skilfully (most notably the famous case of Porto Alegre), whichcontributes to the deepening of democracy. Other participatory budgeting programs havenot been managed similarly, producing weak and/or failed outcomes. This article drawsupon nearly three years of field research, a citizen-participant survey, budgetary analyses,elite interviews, and hundreds of hours of participant observations to substantiate theseclaims.s

Brazil's federal system provides municipalities with nearly fifteen percent of all publicspending, which helps to explain why civil society organizations and politicians havefocused so much attention on budgets at the municipal level.9 Brazilian mayors enjoyconsiderable autonomy, allowing them to initiate new programs with only minimalinterference from municipal legislative chambers.10 Participatory budgeting is aninstitution that emerged from direct negotiations between government officials and civilsociety leaders, as they sought to produce practical solutions to pressing needs. 11 Theseprograms are housed within the mayoral administration and complement the legal andpolitical responsibilities of mayors and municipal legislators. Participatory budgetingprovides multiple opportunities for citizens to debate and vote on policy projects specificto their neighborhood and to the city more generally.

Participatory budgeting is a year-long decision-making process through which citizensnegotiate among themselves and with government officials in organized meetings over theallocation of new capital spending on public work projects, such as health care clinics,schools, and street paving. In the more successful cases, citizens have the authority tomake policy decisions, which has the potential to alter the basic decision-making processin Brazilian politics. Citizens are mobilized to attend meetings during which they vote forpublic policies and elect community representatives. These programs combine elements ofdirect democracy (mobilization of citizens in decision-making venues) and representativedemocracy (election of representatives). They also pay increased attention to transparencyand social justice, both of which are designed to change how local governments inBrazil have long functioned, which is often described as clientelistic and personalistic. 12

Research on participatory budgeting in Brazil has demonstrated that the broad majoritiesof participants and elected delegates have low incomes and low levels of educatiOn.13

Therefore, these programs have the greatest potential to affect the political behavior andstrategies of individuals from historically excluded groups.

Benjamin Barber's Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age calls for

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citizens and government officials to design institutions that--will directly incmporatecitizens into decision-making venues. Barber asserts that a fundamental problem of actual,existing liberal democracy is the lack of active participation, which limits the quality ofdemocracy because so few citizens are actively engaged in contnbuting to decision-makingprocesses that affect their lives. Barber was concerned about the lack of institutionalinnovation and redesign in the United States, but his call for Strong Democracy has beenheard in developing world democracies as reformers have sought to overcome limitationsassociated with representative democracy. Barber lays out several basic criteria that wouldallow for the "viability and practicality as well as to the coherence of the theory" of StrongDemocracy.14 Participatory institutions should:

be realistic and workable. For all practical purposes, this means that they ought to be a productof actual political experience.complement and be compatible with the primary representative institutions of large-scalemodem societies.diIectly address liberal anxieties over such unitary propensities of participatory communitiesas irrationalism, prejudice, uniformity, and intolerance.deal coocretely with the obstacles that modernity appears to place in the way of participation:namely, scale, technology, complexity, and the paradox of parochialism.give expression to the special claims of strong democracy as a theory of talk, judgment,and public seeing by offering alternatives to representation, simple voting, and the rule ofbureaucrats and experts.15

Participatory budgeting's basic set of rules meet Barber's criteria for Strong Democracy,suggesting that these programs offer the empirical means to assess how participatorydemocracy might create active citizens who are involved in collective decision making.16Participatory budgeting programs are designed to create active citizens, but it remainsunclear if the institutional structures in which they are embedded as well as the competingsets of interests among civil society organizations, citizens, and government officials willhelp to deepen the quality of democracy.

Researchers have proposed a range of explanations for participatory budgeting outcomes.Abers' work on Porto Alegre's participatory budgeting program asserts that there is a"synergy" between governments and interested citizens that helps to create the conditionsfor the expansion of civil society.17 According to Abers, municipal government officialsworked with established civil society organizations to promote the direct incorporationof existing and new civil society organizations into this state-sanctioned participatoryprocess. The local state was able to foster the growth of social capital, which then helpedto improve the quality of Porto Alegre's local democratic processes. Abers' noteworthyinsight is that a democratically elected local government and civil society allies sharedinterests that prompted them to work together to develop participatory budgeting as a

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legitimate decision-making venue as well as to foster the growth of social capital. Theprincipal drawback to Abers' approach is that she does not sufficiently explain the political,electoral, and governance incentives for a government's involvement in participatorybudgeting.

Nylen demonstrates that the majority of participatory budgeting participants arelong-time civil society activists. Thus, these programs may not generate new forms ofsocial capital but will rather allow activists to have new access points into the state. Mostimportant, Nylen finds that participatory budgeting helps to "democratize democracy," byopening up the state to individuals and groups that have been historically marginalizedfrom public decision-making processes in Brazil.IS Nylen's findings contrast with those ofAbers, possibly because Abers analyzed perhaps the most successful case (porto Alegre),whereas Nylen looked at two cases (Belo Horizonte and Betim) that produced mixedresults.

Avritzer and I argue that participatory budgeting programs developed within the"participatory publics" that emeIged within Brazil's civil society during the 19808 and19905. Many civil society organizations reorganized their internal processes in moredeliberative and democratic fashions to exert more influence over state affairs, to create aVIbrant and more inclusive public sphere, and to limit the pernicious effects that clientelismhas on localized and low income groUpa.I' 1berc was a strong emphasis on deliberation,public votes, and transparency. Institutional innovations were then incorporated intostate-sanctioned institutions, such as participatory budgeting, as civil society activistsand reformed-oriented politicians sought to transform basic state-society relationshipsby overhauling state institutions. However, the dIawback to this approach is that it, likeAbers, provides few clues about why governments would be willing to delegate authorityto citizens.

Baiocchi draws from two years offieldwork in three of Porto Alegre's regional districtsto show how deliberative decision-making venues are constructed in a contested politicalarena.20 Conflict and tension are present in the analysis, as is close coopemtion betweengovernment officials and participating citizens. Yet the political and policy interests of thegovernment, the politicians, and political parties are absent from the analysis. Baioccbi'ssociological approach helps to show how and why individuals and groups engage inboth cooperation and contestation, but, again, the clear drawback to his work is that thegovernment is seemingly above the political fray.

Goldfrank, in a comparative analysis of participatory programs in Caracas,Montevideo, and Porto Alegre, argues that variation in outcomes among these three casesare best explained by the interaction of two factors: the degree of decentralization affordedto municipal governments by the national state and the degree ofparty institutionalization. 21

With regard to decentralization, Goldfrank finds that greater levels of authority provided tomayors will result in stronger outcomes. In the eight Brazilian municipalities studied here,the degree of authority afforded to mayors is held largely constant; therefore, the degree ofdecentralization can not explain different outcomes among Brazilian municipalities. Withregard to party institutionalization, Goldfrank finds that a strongly institutionalized party

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system has a limiting impact on participatory institutions because politicians will havefew incentives to reach out to civil society actors. Conceptually, this argument marks animportant turn in the debate, as it moves away from a narrow focus on civil society to abroader focus on the political processes that envelop participatory institutions.

The scholarly debates on participatory budgeting have emphasized how civil societyorganizations contribute to these programs, how civil society has been transformed, andwhy some specific political moments are conducive to initiating participatory democracy.Insufficient attention has been paid towards explaining how and why citizens andgovernment officials pursue their own interests within these new institutions.

The two most important factors that account forthe wide variation in participatory budgetingoutcomes are the level of mayoral support for the delegation of authority to citizens and theability of civil society organizations to use contentious politics. In order to produce strongprograms, it is necessary to have high levels of mayoral support for delegation and a civilsociety that can engage in both cooperation and contentious politics. As mayoral supportdrops, and as civil society organizations are unable to engage in both forms of politicalbehavior, outcomes weaken. Two factors interact. An increase in contentious politicsby civil society organizations often leads governments to delegate additional authorityand resources, but there is also the ever-present possibility that too much contestationwill lead to a decrease in mayoral support. Conversely, the lack of contentious politicsremoves pressure that could have been placed on government officials, thereby reducinggovernments' responsiveness to citizens, which can then lead to a withdraw of support bymayors for the delegation of authority.

Mayoral Support Participatory budgeting is a form of participatory democracy withdirect and representative elements, but it is also falls within Brazil's historical legacy ofmayoral domination of municipal agenda-setting.22 Ironically, mayors must first centralizeauthority in their own hands before they can hand the authority back over to citizens. Forparticipatory budgeting programs to work well, mayors need to decentralize the municipaladministration, create internal procedures to prepare information to allow citizens to makesense of complex policy issues, retrain staff and bureaucrats to work directly with citizens,and, perhaps most importantly, transform the process through which projects are greenlighted towards implementation. 23In Brazil the principal focus of most of these programsis on new capital projects (discretionary spending). The implementation of this funding isat the discretion of the mayor, which helps to explain why mayors must be at the center ofthe analysis.24

Why are some mayors willing to delegate authority? Mayoral interest is derived byanalyzing four interactive factors: rewarding party loyalists; reaching out to interestedconstituents; branding the party-in-government as "democratic and participatory"; and

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linking top government officials to participatory public civil society organizations.First, participatory budgeting provides a means for government officials to allow their

political base to practice democracy by having adircctrole in governmental decision making.The political base is able to exercise voice and vote in a state institution, thereby satisfyingthe basic demands of party activists to be directly involved in decision making. Since themid 19808,Brazilian civil society activists, particularly those aligned with leftist politicalparties, have argued that democracy can be deepened through the direct incorporation ofordinary citizens in decision making venues. Although party activists are not necessarilyordinary citizens due to their high levels of political activity, the incorporation of lowincome party activists allows participants and party officials to demonstrate that they havetaken the first step towards the expansion of decision-making venues. When the party-in-government's base wants to be directly involved in participatory decision-making venues,there is a greater likelihood that the mayor will delegate authority.

Second, mayors delegate authority to citizens as a means to reach out to theirmunicipality's most active civil society participants as well as to encourage the formationof new civil society organizations, which may become part of the government's base ofsupport. Through participatory budgeting, mayors have direct access to community leaders;it serves as a potential recruitment site of activists as well as a foJUDl for governmentofficials to discover their community's most pressing problems. Participatory budgetingallows the mayoral administration to reach out to citizens and activists who were notinitially part of the mayor's political coalition.

Elections are held every two years in Brazil. Presidential, gubernatorial, and stateand federal legislative elections are held at the same time (1994, 1998,2002,2006), whilemayoral and municipal legislative contests are held in the mid term years (1996, 2000,2004). Mayors and municipal legislators are nearly constantly campaigning. Therefore,these participatory processes provide mayors with close and constant access to the mostactive civil society leaders. This access allows party officials to identify which civil societyleaders do the best job at turning out their supporters. When there are robust numbersof citizens who can potentially be recruited into the mayor's electoral and governingcampaigns, there is a greater likelihood that a mayor would support the delegation ofauthority.

Third, governments are more likely to delegate authority if they seek to develop aparty brand that allows them to present the party-in-government as promoting changethat will positively affect democratic processes while simultaneously helping to alleviateBrazil's intense social inequalities. This branding is an effort to demonstrate to voters, thevast majority of whom do not participate in participatory budgeting, that the government isengaged in substantial reform efforts. When the party-in-governmentseeks to brand itselfdifferently, then there will be a weaker interest among government officials to delegateauthority because they are more likely to spend scarce resources on other policy or politicalprojects.

Fourth, government leaders with stronger ties to participatory public civil societyorganizations will more likely support the deliberative and democratic processes embedded

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in participatory budgeting's rules.25 The political leadership that came of age during themobilized opposition to Brazil's military government in the 19708 and 1980s stronglysupported the direct incorporation of ordinary citizens into state institutions as a means toempower these citizens and to transform how the Brazilian state functioned.26 The politicaland ideological composition of mayors and their closest advisors strongly condition theextent to which mayors may be willing to gamble their political future on the delegationof authority. When mayors or members of their inner circle (micleo duro) have these links,then there will likely be an increase in support for the delegation of authority.

Type of CivU Society Activity: Cooperation and Contestation How do·civil societyorganizations and individual citizens act inside and outside of participatory budgeting?What strategies do they pursue vis-A-visgovernment officials and their fellow participants?Civil society organizations and individual citizens must be willing to cooperate in agovernment-sponsored program while also being able, when necessary, to engage incontentious behavior.71 Cooperation and contestation are both needed, since there aredeliberative and competitive decision-making components to participatory budgeting.Citizens must cooperate closely with government officials in order to gain access totechnical, legislative, and budgetary information, as well as to facilitate meetings andnegotiation processes.

The cooperation that is a necessary part of participatory budgeting can easily breedcooptation, whereby the government's agenda supplants the interests of citizens withinparticipatory decision-making process. Contentious politics gives citizens the opportunityto defend their projects vigorously in the face of governmental doubts and potentialindifference. The use of contentious politics is more likely when there is a broad base ofcivil society organizations, the presence of participatory public civil society organizations,and the presence of a right to have rights movement, as during the 19808and 19908.28

A broad plurality of civil society organizations enables the use of cooperation andcontestation because a broader base of groups, with diverse sets of interests, increasesthe cost of cooptation for the government Civil society organizations have a lower fearof reprisal because the government has a more difficult time punishing outspoken groups.Density, therefore, is important because it provides civil society organizations with awider range of possible political strategies. However, density by itself is not sufficient(see the case of Blumenau below) because citizens must be able and willing to engage incontentious politics to pressure government officials publicly.

A history of contentious politics in a municipality makes it easier for civil societyorganizations to use direct confrontation inside and outside of participatory budgeting.In these cases contentious behavior is not viewed as exceptional behavior, but as alegitimate means for citizens to express their political voice. In Brazil the developmentof participatory public civil society ()rganizations helped to create citizens who are ableand willing to use both cooperation and contentious forms of politics inside and outsideof state institutions. Similarly, the presence of a right to have rights movement during the1980s and 1990s created the political foundations from which citizens are more likely to68

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act as rights-bearing members of their polity rather than as clients of the state.29 Whenmunicipalities lack the presence of a right to have rights movement or participatory publiccivil society organizations, there is an increased likelihood that participants will utilizepolitical strategies of accommodation that reproduce traditional elite-mass relationshiprather than contentious politics.

There are three subfactors that affect participatory budgeting outcomes.30 First,variation in participatory budgeting's internal rules affects policy and political outcomes.The specific types of decision-making authority delegated to citizens as well as the internalorganization of citizens appear to matter most31 When citizens have a clear understandingof the degree of authority that they are able to exercise, it becomes much easier for themto develop negotiation, deliberative, and voting strategies that allow them to use these newpolitical rights to win public works or policies for their communities. When governmentshave a clear implementation system in place, it becomes more difficult for citizens orgovernment officials to manipulate the rules. In addition, when citizens exercise authorityat regional and municipal levels, there is a greater likelihood that participatory budgetingoutcomes will be positive. For example, the lack of a municipal council fragmentsparticipants (Belo Horizonte), and the holding of too few meetings stifles deliberation(Rio Claro).32

Second, mayoral-legislative relations are largely tangential to participatory budgetingoutcomes, but acrimonious mayoral-legislative relationships in which mayors are unableto establish a stable voting majority can undermine these programs. Brazilian mayors arevery strong, and legislators have few legislative, policy, or budgetary powers.33 WhenBraztlian mayors enjoy stable voting majorities, they have the ability to delegate authoritywith few interventions from municipal legislators. When Brazilian mayors do not enjoystable voting majorities, they must increase their side payments to legislators, thus limitingthe level of resources that mayors might otherwise dedicate to participatory budgeting.34

Finally, mayors must have access to sufficient levels of new capital investmentsto allow the local state to implement projects that can substantially modify citizcn-participants' neighborhoods. Municipalities with limited financial resources are unable toallow citizens to make meaningful decisions. Under these conditions, debates are morelikely to be vacuous or focused on issues unrelated to participatory budgeting becausecitizens have limited authority. -Due to space considerations, these three subfactors willnot be analyzed in this article because they more weakly affect the outcomes than the twoprincipal factors.3'

Table 1 is a typology of four outcomes that have been produced by these eight Brazilianparticipatory budgeting programs. The two main components of the argument, the use ofcontentious politics by civil society organizations and mayoral support for delegation, formthe basis for the comparison. The level of mayoral support for the delegation of authority

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IIIeh LowInstitutionalized

ParticipaloryDemocracy

POrtoAlegreN/A

Ipatinga

Informal and Contested Co-optedParticipatory Democracy Participatory Democracy

Recife Santo AndreBelo Horizonte SAoPaulo

E1I/QScu/otedParticipatory Democracy

N/ABlumenauRio Claro

MayoralSupport forDelegationOf AuthorityTo Citizens

and the presence/absence of contentious politics are measured in several ways. First,from a survey (n=695) of participatory budgeting delegates in these eight municipalities,the averaged results of six questions that tapped into citizens' attitudes on their ability toexercise authority within participatory budgeting are presented.36Second, the percentage ofnew capital spending that the government allows the delegates to negotiate between 200 1and 2003 helps demonstrate the extent to which government officials are willing to handone type of authority (budgetary authority) to citizens. There are yearly fluctuations, so athree-year average best captures the degree to which the governments delegate authority.Finally, more than one hundred interviews and participant observation over an eight yearperiod (1996-2004) establish the basis for assessing mayoral support and the presence ofcontentious politics. A focus on one of the two municipalities from each box will providesufficient detail to illustrate the contours of the argument 37

Institutionalized Partieipatory Demoeraey The box in the top left includes the mostsuccessful cases, Porto Alegre and Ipatinga. Institutionalized participatory democracyrefers to a decision-making process in which citizens have the authority to make specificbinding decisions regarding how the government will act.38Citizens carefully study the

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rules, which can only be modified by a citizens' oversight committee, in order to pursuetheir interests and contribute to the broader debates of the community. The governmentoversees or manages the participatory institution and follows the rules, both in spirit andin practice. Citizens are able to use contentious politics outside of participatory budgeting,as a means to pressure legislators and media representatives, and they directly contestgovernment officials inside of participatory budgeting as a pressure tactic.

Porto Alegre is widely considered to be the most successful case of participatorybudgeting and has been widely studied.39In Porto Alegre the Workers' Party (PT) won the1988mayoral election with just 35 percent of the vote. The new government worked closelywith an umbrella civil society organization and its own party activists to develop the basicset of rules associated with participatory budgeting; the rules allowed civil society activistsand party loyalists to practice democracy.4OPorto Alegre grew from a small number ofparticipants, just 976 in 1990, to an average of35,000 a year between 2001 and 2004.41ThePT government invested heavily in mobilizing individuals to participate.42Participatorybudgeting became a crucial base of support to the PT as the party's candidates won mayoralelections in 1992,1996,2000, and the state's governor's office in 1998.

PT officials (such as Mayors Olivio Dutra and Tarso Genro) entered politics throughtheir opposition to the military authoritarian regime. They sought to overbaul state-societyrelations, create a new path towards socialism, and empower citizens and were well versedin the use of contentious politics.43Participatory budgeting helped the local PT to branditself as democratic and participatory. Importantly, this leadership had strong ties to theparticipatory public civil society organizations and the right to have rights movement thatdeveloped in Porto Alegre during the 1980s. Throughout the 199080participants engagedin contentious politics against opposition legislators and media outlets at key events suchas the World Social Forum. Formal meetings also have basic aspects of contentious politicsas citizens regularly criticized the government for incompetence or indifference. Thegovernment did not dampen the debate but allowed for the development of free flowingdeliberative and accountability sessions.

In Porto Alegre delegates decided 100 percent of new capital investment spendingbetween 1991 and 2004. The government successfully implemented a broad number ofprojects selected through participatory budgeting, valued at over US$400 million between1996 and 2003, which contributed to a positive assessment of participatory budgeting byparticipants.44Seventy-two percent of the SUlVeyrespondents said that they were "always"or "almost always" able to exercise authority. The majority of the survey respondents havelow incomes; thus, authority is being transferred to representatives of Brazil's historicallyexcluded and marginalized lower classes.

The high levels of mayoral support has helped to institutionalize participatorydemocracy in Porto Alegre and Ipatinga, while the active use of contentious politics bycitizens allows them to avoid cooptation. Collective decision making between 1989 and2004 was transformed as low income citizens made the majority of allocation decisionsregarding the distribution of scarce resources. These two participatory budgeting programshave been successful because government officials and citizens pursue their interests

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within the new institution. Government officials do not bypass the roles, and citizenswere rewarded for their efforts to work within the new roles. This process represents asignificant change in local politics in Brazil, where officeholders often manipulate theroles. Citizens use contentious politics inside and outside of participatory budgeting topressure government officials to adhere to the basic roles of the game.

Emasculated Participatory Democracy The bottom-right box, emasculated participatorydemocracy, includes the least successful cases, Blumenau and Rio Claro. Neither mayoraladministration was deeply invested in this new participatory decision-making format,and citizens have been unable to use contentious politics to press their claims, whichundermined the programs. If there is no pressure emanating from civil society, then thereis no need to expand the level of authority delegated to citizens.

In Blumenau the PT government was first elected in 1996 during a local economicdownturn. a corruption scandal among Blumenau's leading politicians, and a politicalsplit between the municipality's two principal parties. The PT government had nomandate to embark on serious reform, and the leadership was not driven by a political orideological commitment to reshape local decision-making processes dramatically. The PTgovernment initiated participatory budgeting in 1997 at the behest of two internal factions,a political group affiliated with the local university and politically progressive civil societyorganizations that had ties to similar organizations in municipalities that already hadcomparable participatory programs.45Participatory budgeting was implemented to satisfythese groups and to allow them to practice the participatory democracy that the PT hadpreached for so long.

Blumenau's participatory budgeting enjoyed high participation rates, with nearly 10percent of the city's adult population involved in meetings These rates might have giventhe mayor a political opportunity to reward citizen participation. However, oppositionpoliticians (most notably, the PFL, a conservative, neohberaI party) captured control ofnearly half of the regional distriets.~ Thus, it was not in the mayor's interest to delegatedecision-making authority to a participatory institution that was partially captured bypolitical opponents, when the mayor's own political base of support was not heavilyinvested in practicing democracy. As a result, the mayor allowed citizens to negotiate just15 percent of new capital spending, which is just over 1 percent of the total municipalbudget, indicating that the mayor was not interested in taking the political risk necessaryto create a vibrant participatory program!' In Blumenau 38,percent of the respondents saidthat they were "always" or "almost always" able to exercise authority, the second-lowestresponse rate among the eight municipalities studied. Only in Rio Claro were delegatesmore pessimistic about the authority they purportedly exercised (20 percent said that theywere "always" or ""almostalways" able to exercise authority).

Of course, citizens in Blumenau could have led protests against the government topressure it to focus more energy, time, and resources on participatory budgeting. Blumenauhas a very dense civil society, with high levels of participation in its participatory budgetingprogram, but political accommodation is the preferred method of reaching political

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decisions." There is no tradition of contentious politics within civil society organizations.The 1980s and 19908were not a time of renewal in Blumenau's civil society. Furthermore,civil society organizations receive a series of benefits from the government outside ofparticipatory budgeting, so they are unwilling to confront the government directly over theprogram's failings.49 Blumenau's participatory budgeting tailed because the governmentlacked any substantial interest in promoting it as a new institutional decision-makingvenue and citizens had little interest in pressuring the government to make it the center ofa new governing process.

"'No contestation, no delegation" is a key lesson to be drawn from the experiencesof Rio Claro and Blumenau. Without contestation, it is impossible to use this form ofparticipatory democracy as a means to deepen democracy because citizens have fewother ways to hold government leaders accountable for their actions. The low levels ofmayoral support for the delegation of authority neutered the participatory programs inRio Claro and Blumenau, emasculating participatory democracy. Citizens were unableto use contentious politics to pressure the government to dedicate more time, energy, andresources to participatory budgeting. The overall impact of participatory budgeting oncivt1 society organizations was largely negative because the most active leaders investeda considerable amount of time and energy in these processes only to have governmentbrosh aside their efforts. In this case, emasculated participatory programs undermined thecredibility oflocal civil society activists who bad mobilized their followers to participate ina state-sanctioned policymaking process in which they were supposed to make meaningfuldecisions. The local state formally expanded collective decision making to allow interestedcitizens to exercise new political rights, but the program did not allow citizens to exercisenew rights.

Coopted Participatory Democracy The middle right box, coopted participatorydemocracy, has two cases, Sio Paulo and Santo Andre, where PT governments discoumgedthe use of contentious politics and instead emphasized unity between civil societyorganizations and party officials. These participatory budgeting programs were not usedas instruments to transform traditional policymaking processes. Rather, they were usedto legitimize the governments' policies, allow their most active followers to engage inminimal levels of decision making, and show potential voters that the governments weredemocratic and participatory.

When Mayor Marta Suplicy (PT) took office in January 2001, the political grouparound her had very weak links to participatory forms of decision making. Mayor Suplicysought to recast the PT's brand in SIo Paulo by showing that the PT could develop complex,major projects that could alleviate poverty while also attending to the basic needs of thecity's large middle class. It was crocial for the PT to rebrand itself because the party wasin an intense political struggle to help elect the PT's presidential candidate in 2002 (PTcandidate Lula won) and win the 2004 reelection campaign of Mayor Marta Suplicy (shelost). With regard to participatory budgeting, a small, left-wing faction within the PT usedits limited political space within the government to ensure that Suplicy would implement

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it. Sio Paulo's participatory budgeting allowed a minority faction of the PT to try to reachout to Sio Paulo's organized civil society.

Suplicy's weak support for participatory budgeting is demonstrated by the fact thatcitizens were able to negotiate 15-30 percent of new capital spending between 2001-2004.50 Although this figure appears to be fairly robust, upwards of 70 percent of thisfunding was based OD projects initiated by the upper echelons of the government.SI Quitesimply, participatory budgeting became an instrument to legitimize the policy initiativesof the government rather than to allow citizens to deliberate over the crafting of publicpolicies. Authority was only partially extended to citizens because the mayor was unwillingto risk her political future on the delegation of authority to citizens. As might be expected,just under half of the respondents (49 percent) say that they are able, "always" or "almostalways," to exercise authority.

Sio Paulo has a long history of union and social movement organizing, which couldhave allowed participants to use contentious politics to demand the creation of a robustprogram.S2Instead of contentious politics, Sio Paulo's government was able to cooptcitizens. The government discouraged contentious politics because they were working toestablish the necessary political momentum to elect Lula and reelect Suplicy. The tellingarguments of a government official and an elected delegate illustrate this point. In a meetingon October 10, 2003, the participatory budgeting administrator, Felix Sanchez, grewincreasingly upset as elected delegates leveled a series of complaints based on the mayor's'weak support of participatory budgeting. Sanchez slwply rebuked delegates' criticisms,yelling at the delegates, "no party has ever done more for Sio Paulo than the PT." Sanchezberated the delegates who "dared" to criticize the hard work of the PT government. It wasa stunning outbmst that indicated that contentious politics would not be tolerated.

In addition, civil society activists did not want to embarrass the PT because therewere larger political issues at stake, namely, the 2002 and 2004 elections, which cameup repeatedly during focus groups and informal conversations. Many delegates believedthat they should not take actions that might be detrimental to Mayor Suplicy. As onedelegate stated: "Look, we think that participatory budgeting is the best thing that hashappened to us. We can participate. We are learning how to do this. But, we must reelectMarta [Mayor Suplicy]. There are many other programs that we would lose if she loses.'~3Participants ceded one of their few extra-institutional sources of influence to help the PTin the electoral arenas, which indicates that both government officials and civil societyleaders were calculating that it was not in their interests to.expand the authority exercisedby citizens within participatory budgeting.

The PT governments in Sio Paulo and Santo Andre managed participatory budgetingprograms that became vehicles for PT party officials to work with the most active civilsociety participants to build the PT and to improve its electoral results. Civil society leaderswere discouraged from entering into direct conflict with the government, and governmentofficials were quick to remind the participants how much the government had done forthem. Wmning elections, rather than participatory decision making, was the central issueof both governments' agendas.

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Brian Wampler

The process of cooptation has obvious negative influences on efforts to deepenthe quality of democracy. The most active citizens were drawn out of their communityorganizations and into political institutions that became instruments for local governmentsto pursue their electoral interests, creating a leadership and representative vacuum atneighborhood and community levels. The interests of civil society organizations andcitizens became secondary to the electoral interests of the incumbent parties. This electoralpriority has a contradictory effect on the deepening of democracy. Citizens and civilsociety organizations are able to express their voice in a state-sanctioned public institution,which is a noteworthy advance, but participants' demands were ultimately secondaryto the government's electoral interests. There is an increased risk that the most activemembers of civil society will become disenchanted with institutionalized participatorypolicymaking processes because electoral politics trumped citizens' and civil societyorganizations' demands.

Informal and Contested Partidpatory Democracy The middle-left box, informaland contested participatory democracy, includes two municipalities, Recife and BeloHorizonte, which are noteworthy for wide fluctuations in the level of mayoral supportfor participatory budgeting. Recife and Belo Horizonte's programs are best characterizedas informal and contested processes because there is a high degree of informality in howthese governments administer participatory budgeting and respond to pressures emanatingfrom civil society. Citizens are able to pressure the government outside of the formalconfines of participatory budgeting, making effective use of public demonstrations to drawthe government's attention to problems in these programs.

In Recife mayoral support has been as low as in Blumenau and as high as in PortoAlegre. Recife's participatory budgeting was initiated in 1994 by Jarbas Vasconcelos(pMDB, a centrist, catch-all party), a charismatic mayor linked to Recife's participatorypublic civil society organizations.54 The program was then overseen by a mayor (1997-2000) from the conservative PFL, who formally maintained it due to an electoral alliancewith Vasconcelos but gutted the program. In 2001 a PT mayor assumed office and dedicatedmore resources, time, and energy to the program. As the result of having three mayors fromthree different parties administer participatory budgeting, there were wide fluctuations inhow it has been managed.

Mayor Vasconcelos dedicated just 10 percent of new capital investment spendingto participatory budgeting, which was roughly I percent of the total municipal budget,although he did manage to implement 86 percent of the proj~." Between 1997 and2000 delegates were able to negotiate 10 percent of new capital spending, but fewprojects were actually implemented by the disinterested PFL mayor. In 2001 the new PTmayor increased the amount of resources that could be negotiated to nearly 100 percentof new capital spending but also created a new set of rules that made it confusing forparticipants to understand clearly which projects would be implemented. Just under halfof the respondents (46 percent) say that they are "always" or "almost always" able toexercise authority. The fluctuations in resources available for citizen to negotiate over

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led to considerable institutional instability because it was not clear, from year to year, toparticipants and government officials alike, if the participatory process would be valuedby the mayoral administration.

Vasconcelos initially used participatory budgeting as a means to reward an activebase of civil society leaders by creating a mle system in which haIf of the delegateswere appointed by civil society organizations and the other half were directly elected byparticipants. This strategy rewarded party loyalists and civil society activists rather thanserved as potential recruitment site for new followers. When PT Mayor Joio Paulo Limatook office in 2001, he helped to restructure the mles to create new ties to civil societyleaders and to reach out to poorly organized communities. Jo40 Costa, participatorybudgeting's chief administrator, argued that the majority of elected delegates were alliedwith Jarbas Vasconcelos when the PT took over in 2001. Costa stated: "When we wereelected, we wanted to break the associative tradition that induced civil society leaders tobe the political operatives of Jarbas [Vasconcelos].''56The newly elected PT governmentincreased the number of delegates to 6,000 from 550 in order to create new bases ofsupport, which gave the PT government direct contact with citizens but made it difficult tocreate clear negotiation and decision-making processes.

In Recife contentious politics has been an actively used political resource since atleast the 1940s. The 1980s were a time of political renewal in Recife as civil societyorganizations developed new forms of contentious politics. Government officials mustaddress contentious forms of politics because there was a real' risk that civil societyorganizations would withdraw their support for the party-in-government In the contextof participatory budgeting, the use of extra-institutional protests pressured governmentsto privilege the projects of the most active civil society organizations to ensure that thereis not widespread dissatisfaction among the most active and organized members of civilsociety. Yet the use of contentious politics has a potentially negative effect. When wellorganized and politically astute civil society organizations engage in contentious politics,governments circumvent participatory budgeting mles to respond to these demands, whichhelps specific groups but undermines efforts to institutionalize implementation processes.

Recife and Belo Horizonte's participatory budgeting programs are best conceptualizedas informal governmental decision-making processes, through which government officials,citizens, and civil society organizations pursue their interests. When the roles were notworking, the governments changed them. When project implementation was slow, thegovernments took advantage of uncertainty in the process to reward groups that they werealigned with or groups that could potentially embarrass them. The best organized civilsociety organizations were able and willing to use contentious politics to take advantageof the informality of the process to secure the implementation of projects selectedthrough participatory budgeting. Thus, groups that followed the mles of the game wereless likely to secure the implementation of projects. Participatory budgeting, in turn, hasnot dramatically transformed state-society relationships but has provided new venues forgovernment officials and citizens to negotiate over the distribution of scarce resources.

Fluctuations in mayoral support for the delegation of authority differentiate Recife and

Brian Wampler

Belo Horizonte from the other six cases. Participants had to engage actively in contentiouspolitics to persuade the governments to fulfill their commitments. This engagement createsa central paradox for these two experiences. Contentious politics by a small number oforganizations encouraged the government to respond to their demands, thereby reinforcinginformality into the decision-making process. In Recife and Belo Horizonte the mles arefollowed at the first stage--policy selection-but are not necessary for the second stage ofpolicy implementation. The effect on the deepening of democracy is therefore paradoxicalas citizens are rewarded for engaging in a mle-based decision-making body and for movingoutside of these mles to secure resources.

The theoretical framework developed here advances an understanding of the politicalimpacts that the burgeoning numbers of participatory experiences have on efforts toempower citizens, clean up government, and promote social justice, which are part ofefforts to deepen the quality of democracy in both new and old democracies. 57Participatorybudgeting programs are living examples of strong democracy, suggesting that there is greatpotential for these programs to foster the active participation of citizens in state-sanctioneddeliberative and policymaking processes. It is important to reiterate that these forms ofstrong democracy are embedded in political processes and state institutions shaped byrepresentative democracy. It is vital that scholan, policymakers, and activists be attuned tothe multifaceted· interests of governments, civil society organizations, and citizens withinparticipatory processes.

If and when governments are unwilling to delegate real authority to citizens,participatory programs are more likely to be formal shells with little policy or democraticcontent. Through participatory budgeting, participants have the opportunity to makedecisions in state-sanctioned venues, which can theoretically raise the profile and prestigeof government officials and civil society leaders in local communities. But when localgovernments are unable to deliver on their promises to implement the selected public works,civil society activists are likely to be discredited within their local communities becausethey mobilized their followers to participate in a decision-making venue that ultimatelyproduced few tangible benefits. This situation produces cynicism and disillusionmentamong civil society's most active participants, which can have negative effects as theseactivists may choose to exit formal institutionalized processes. The local state inducescivil society activists to participate in a state-sanctioned venue based on the promise ofsharing authority, but governments' unwillingness to transfer meaningful authority tocitizens undermines efforts to expand collective decision making and deepen the qualityof democracy.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that, even when participatory budgeting programsproduce weak outcomes, the introduction of new deliberative processes may leave residualeffects (such as public learning, or helping individuals to conceptualize themselves as

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rights-bearing citizens) that may be employed by activists in other political arenas as wellas during future political struggles.58 It is unclear if gaining access to deliberative processes(voice) is a sufficient reason to continue to promote the adoption of participatory programsin developing world countries; further research is necessary to gauge the impact that failedprograms have on citizens, civil society OIganizations,and democratic processes.

If and when governments are willing to delegate authority, whereby participantsengage in binding decision-making processes, basic state-society relationships are beingtransformed, thereby allowing for new types of power to be exercised. Governmentofficials are more willing to delegate authority when their party loyalists demand topractice democracy, as a strategy to reach out to interested constituents, when they seekto brand their local party as democratic and participatory, and when they have deep linksto participatory public civil society organizations. The deepening of democracy throughparticipatory democratic institutions is most likely to occur when government officials'and civil society organizations' have complementary interests that favor the extension ofnew political and social rights for low income citizens. This finding should cause one toquestion claims that the deepening of democracy can be enhanced when participatoryprojects are implemented in a top-down fashion by governments or principally driven bythe energy of civil society activists.

The ability ofparticipants to avoid cooptation is based on their capacity and willingnessto use contentious politics inside and outside of participatory budgeting. Participants mustnot present themselves meekly or as clients of the state, but as citizens.S9 Acting as rights-bearing members of the polity strengthens participatory programs because participantscarve out their own political spaces within the institution rather than have the governmentdictate outcomes. Citizens must have, at a minimum, the threat of public demonstrationsagainst the government or, in a more active fashion, the willingness to take to the streetsto denounce government actions. Governments are more willing to delegate authority andhonor their commitments when they face a potentially embarrassing political situation,such as public demonstrations prior to elections. The direct incorporation of citizens intoparticipatory venues as a means to allow citizens to exercise political rights to win socialrights is most appropriate when there are preexisting conditions in civil society that allowcitizens to act as rights-bearing members of their community or to use contentious politicsto pressure government officials

Of course, participatory budgeting programs can and do act as incubators of rights,but when public learning about rights and governance-related issues is the primarygoal, participatory democracy should not be expected to flourish in the short term. Thedeepening of democracy is more likely to occur when participants can already utilize abroad range of practices. If participants are unable to engage simultaneously in cooperationand contentious politics, it becomes far less likely that the quality of democracy will bedeepened. Therefore, when participatory processes are implemented in places wherefew individuals conceptualize themselves as citizens or when there is a limited historyof contentious behaviors by civil society activists, it niight be better to evaluate theparticipatory programs' impact over the course of decades rather than during a four or78

eight year period. For government officials perpetually engaged in electoral campaigns,and for funding agencies with their own set of metrics to evaluate program impacts, thisfinding is rather sobering because it suggests that these programs will not, in the shortterm, successfully expand collective decision making and deepen the quality of democracyin places with a narrow range of civil society activity.

In conclusion, understanding the outcomes produced by a burgeoning number ofparticipatory institutions requires analysis of governments' willingness to delegate andcivil society organizations' capacity and willingness to contest publicly the policies andactions of the government officials. By focusing on these two factors, understanding of theimpact that participatory democracy may have in deepening the quality of democracy willbe greatly expanded.

The author thanb Frank Fischer, Benjamin Goldfrank, Patrick Heller, Kenneth Ericbon, and two anonymouareviewers for their thoughtful feedback. I also thank Lisa Bums and Audra Gteen for their excellent work aaresearch aasi8tllJlts.Finally, I thank JOSI!Ram6n Montero and Martha Peach at CEACS and the Juan MatchFoundatiOll in Madrid, Spain, for providing valuable n:&elIl'Chand library support. This article is based 011 worksupported by the NSF (lNT~301849).

1. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Democratizing Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon (London:Verso, 2005); Patrick Heller, "Degrees of Democracy: Some CompBrative Lessons ftom India," World Po/ilia,52 (Fall 2000), 484-519; An:hOllFuns and Erik Olin Wright, Deepening Democracy: I1I8titutiontlJInnovationsin Empowered Partidpatory Governance (London: Verso, 2003).2. Rebecca Abers, Inventing Local Democracy: GrasS100ts Politics in Brazil (Bouldc:r: Westview, 2(00);

Leonardo Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton Univenit)'Prell, 2002); Gianpaolo Baioccbi, Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Pcuticipatory Democracy in PortoAlegre (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005); William R. Nylen, "Testing the Empowerment Thesia:The Participatoly Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil," Comparative Politics, 34 (2002), 127-45;Adelmir Matquetti, "Democracia, Equidade e Effciencia, 0 Caao do OIvamento Participativo em Porto AJeare,"in Leonardo Avritzer and Zander Navam>, cds., A IntJVa¢o Democrdtico no Brasil: 0 ~ ParticipDtivo(Sio Paulo: Cortez Editores, 2003).

3. Baoiccbi; Patrick Heller, "Moving the State: The Politics of Democratic DecentralizatiOll in KaaIa, SouthAfrica, and Porto Alegre," Politics and Society, 29 (W"mter2001), 131--M; Brian Wampler and LeonardoAvritzer, "Participatory Publics: Civil Society and New InstitutiOllS in Democratic Brazil," ComparativePolitics, 36 (2004), 291-312.

4. Abers; Baoicchi; Marquetti; Luciano Fedozzi, Orfamento Pcuticipativo: RejIexIJes Sobre a EiqJeriInciQ dePorto Alegre (porto Alegre: Tomo Editorial, 1998); There is a growing nlUllberof studies dlat include multiplecases. See Nylen, "Testing the Empowerment Thesis"; Wampler and Avritzer; Avritzcr and Navarro; Heller"Moving the State"; Benjamin Go\dfrank, "The Politics of Deepening Loca1 DemocrlIcy: DecentralizatiOD,Party InstitutionalizatiOD,and ParticipatiOD,"Comparative Politics, 39 (January 2007), 147~8.

5. Henry Brady and David Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shlwd Stondardr (New York:Rowman and Littlefield, 2004).

6. Kenneth Roberts, Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peril(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 30.

7. Ibid., p. 4.8. Park: Pennsylvania State Press, 2007). For an in-depth analysis of the survey reaults, see alao Brian Wampler,

"Establishing Pluralism in New Demoaacies: Participatory Democracy in Brazil," StwJja in ComparativeIntel7llltional Development, 41 (W"mter2007), 57-79.

9. Alfred P. Montero, "Devolving Democracy? Political Decentralization and the New Brazilian Federaliam,"

79

in Peter R. Kingstone and Tunolhy J. Power, eds., Democratic Brazil: Acrors. Institutions. and Proce.rses(PittsburKh: University ofPittlburgh Press, 2000).

10. CImdio Gon~ves Couto and Fernando Luiz Abrucio, "Govemando a Cidade? A FDr\l&e a Fraqueza daamara Municipal," Silo Paulo em PersptCliva, 9 (1995), 57-ti5.

11.Abera; Avritza'; Fedozzi.12. Avritzer; Vietor Nunes Leal, Coronelismo. ElIJ«Ida e Yoto: 0 Municipio e 0 Regime Repre.sentativo no

B1"Q8il,3rd eel (510 Paulo: Editora Nova Fronteira, (997).13. Baioccbi; NyIcn '"Iesling the EmpowameIIt Thesis"; Wampler,"Eslab!ishingPluralism in New DemOCl'lCics."14. Beo,jamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (BeIteley: University of

California Press, 1984), p. 262.15. Ibid16. See Abera; FedozzI; WlUI1plerand Avritzer.17. See Abera.18. WillilUllR. Nylen, Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy: Lessonsfrom Brazil (New York:

Palgrave M8cmillian, 20(3).19. WamplerandAvritzer.20. Baiocchi.21. Goldftank.22. Leal.23. Fedozzi; WlUI1pler,Participatory Budgeting /11 Brazil, ch. 2.24. According to Brazilian law, DO ''new capital spending" projects (focus of most participatory budgeting

programs) included in the budget have to be implemented; they lU'Clegally classified as disaetionary funding.Federal law 4.320. April 3, 1964.

25. For a detailed discussion of participatory publics, see Avritzer; Wampler and Avritzer.26. Rcnta Villas Boa and Vera Telles, Potier Loc4I. Participo¢Jo POJRllor;Consl1U¢o da Cidadania (Sio

Paulo: F6rum Naciooal de Pllrtici~ Popular nas ~ Municipais, 1995).27. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tmow, and Charles TIlly, Dynamics of Contentio" (New York: ClUI1bridge

University Press, 2001).28. Evelina Dqnino, "The Cultural Politics of Citizenship, Democracy and the State," in Sonia E. AlvlI'CZ,

Evelina D8gnino, and Arturo Escober, cds., CIIlhni&ofPoliticslPolitics ofClIltllre.s: Ire-visio"i"g LatinAmericanSocial Movements (Boulder: Westview Press, (998).

29. Dagnino.30. Foran iIHIepth analysis ofall five factors in eight participatory budgeting cases, see WlUI1pler,Participatory

Budgeting in Brazil.31. See ibid., ch. 8, for a more complete explanation.32. See ibid., ch. 7, for an analysis ofBelo Horizonte, and ch. 5, for an analysis of Rio Claro.33. Couto and Abrucio; WlIII1Pler,Participatory BruJgeting in Brazil, ch. 2.34. George Tsebelis, "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism,

Multicameralism, and Multiplrtyism," British Journal of Politicol Science, 25 (Fall (995), 289-325; Nylen,Participatory Democracy l'emIS Elitist Democracy.

35. See WlIII1Pler,Participatory BruJgeting in Brazil.36. See WlIII1Pler,"Establishing Pluralism in New DemOCI'ICies," for an analysis of the survey data. The survey

was conducted by the Instituto Ethos between November 2S and December 10, 2003, in eight municipalities.This survey is a representative SlIII1Plerather than a random survey of participatory budgeting delegates. Thedistribution lUI1OD8the different municipalities was Porto Alegre, 60; lpatinga, 60; Belo Horizonte, 60; SantoAndre, 60; Sla Paulo, 300; Recife, 60; Blumeoau, 60; and Rio Claro, 30. In order to generate an appropriatetelephone list of CUJraIt delegates, the author contacted each municipal government to obtain the names andtelephone numbers of individuals who were serving as participatory budgeting delegates in 2003. Individualswere then randomly selected.

37. For a full discusaion of all eight municipalities, see WlUI1pler,Participatory Budgeting in Brazil.38. Roberts.39. Abers; Baoicchi; Fedozzi; Goldftank.40. Abera; Baierle; Fedozzi.41. "N6mero de participantes: Pleoarias regionais do ~to Pllrticipativo" (Municipal Government of

Porto Alegre, 2004). .42. Abera; Baiocchi.

43. Fedozzi; Abel'S.44. See WlUI1pler,Participatory BruJgeting in Brazil, 00. 4.45. EdinaraAndrade, Potier Local. Participa¢o Popular; Descentralizo¢o e Climtelismo: A ExperiInJca do

Oryamento Participativo de Blumenou (Blumenau: Regional University ofBlumeoau, 2(00).46. Interview with Vice Mayor ln8cio da Silva MafIa, January 22, 2004; interview with city COUIK:ilmember

Jean Klunderman. January 12, 2004.47. WlUI1pler,Participatory Budgeting i" Brazil, 00. 5.48. Andrade.49.lbid50. See WlUI1pler,Participatory Budgeti"g in Brazil, ch. 6.S1.lbid.52. M81glIIetE. Keck, The WorUn' Party and Democratizotlmr in Brazil (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1992).53. Interview with PB Delegate Fatima from Capella de Soccoro, Sio Paulo, Bruit, November II, 2003.54. Jose!ArIindo SolU'Cs,Os Desafios de GestikJ Municipal Democrtitico: Recife (Recife: Centro Josu~ de

Castro, (998).55. See WlUI1pler,Participatory BruJgeti"g in Brazil, ch. 7.56. Interview with Jolo Costa, December 9,2003; "Or9amento Pllrticipativo: 3 anos invertendo prioridades, ••

Prefeitura Municipal de Recife, 2003.57. Roberts; Santos; Barber.58. I thank Patrick Heller for making this observation.59. Dagnino; WlUI1p1er,Participatory Budgeting in Brazil, ch. 8.