Modification through participation? Participatory budgeting practice in Barcelona
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24965/gapp.v0i5.448Keywords:
Citizen participation, participatory budgeting, local public policies, political transformationAbstract
What can we expect from citizen participation processes in local policymaking? Is it reasonable to expect significant political transformations? In this article, we identify the conditions that theoretically determine the transformation capacity of citizen participation. Such theoretical discussion gives place to a framework for the assessment of participative practices, which we use to analyse 11 cases of participatory budgeting in the province of Barcelona. The analysis puts in evidence the limits of this kind of participative practices, which are linked to three main factors: their peripheral institutional position; the scarce decision margin that is given to the citizens; and the lack of social mobilization. However, the cases analysed reach a good performance in two important aspects: the impact of citizens’ proposals on public decision-taking and the transformation of the attitudes of local authorities, the public employees and the citizens themselves towards public participation. The assessment framework proposed helps us to identify critical aspects for the improvement and the strengthening of the transformation capacity of participative processes.
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