Participatory Budgeting in Brazil: Contestation, Cooperation, and Accountability – By Brian Wampler

Abstract

Given the ongoing processes of global integration, questions about policy diffusion have attracted much scholarly attention. Various studies stress the influence of international financial institutions (IFIs), global norms, or foreign models in domestic policymaking. Kurt Weyland's book brings a largely new perspective to this discussion, drawing on insights from psychology to stress the importance of cognitive factors as causal mechanisms in diffusion of policy innovations. Through a deeply researched study of pension and health care reforms in five Latin American states during the 1990s, Weyland shows that cognitive limitations, especially "bounded rationality," heavily influenced the ways in which policymakers chose, evaluated, and implemented social reforms. Weyland makes a strong case for the role of cognitive heuristics in explaining policy diffusion and draws important methodological conclusions about the limitations of rational choice approaches and the advantages of process tracing for studies of policymaking.Weyland's book, which is based on extensive field work and interviews with policymakers and detailed process tracing for Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Peru, stresses three central cognitive processes. First is availability, the proximity of vivid reform models; second is representation, a tendency to overinterpret initial positive results of reform; third is anchoring, a propensity to import a foreign model wholesale, without adapting it to local conditions. According to Weyland's argument, Latin American pension reformers, overwhelmed by information and facing cognitive limitations, focused only on the nearby, bold, and coherent Chilean pension privatization model to solve the problems of their overburdened pension systems, ignoring potentially better European reform models. They viewed the apparent early success of Chilean privatization uncritically and overexpectantly, and adopted it wholesale to produce a "wave of reform" in the region, before becoming disillusioned by more and better information. In health care there was no consensus reform model, rather diffusion of principles of efficiency and equity enhancement, which produced more disparate and piecemeal reforms. Here cognitive heuristics also mattered, with policymakers focusing selective attention on reform models that were readily available to them, their

Participatory Budgeting and Community Development: A Global Perspective

“…PB programs have the potential to educate citizen-participants through the dissemination of budget and policy data (Lerner, 2014;Pinnington et al, 2009;Wampler, 2007).…”

“…PB also theoretically engages participants in deliberative "schools of democracy" within and beyond PB (Baiocchi, 2005;Baiocchi et al, 2011), following exposure to PB processes (Avritzer, 2002;Hagelskamp et al, 2016;Touchton & Wampler, 2014;Wampler, 2007;Wampler & Avritzer, 2004). Finally, PB potentially empowers participants to demand access to basic constitutionally guaranteed rights (Avritzer, 2002;Baiocchi, 2005;Baiocchi et al, 2011;Cabannes, 2019;Lüchmann, 2008;Nylen, 2003;Pinnington et al, 2009;Romão, 2011;Wampler, 2007). PB processes can then benefit a broad set of community members when programs reach their potential in terms of social inclusion in deliberation and decision-making on public spending.…”

“…PB can also promote changes in accountability by altering state-society relationships (Baiocchi et al, 2011;Shah, 2007;Wampler, 2007). By this, we mean that PB can change how citizens engage public officials as well as how public officials engage citizens.…”

Digitalization of Initiative Budgeting: Module of the Educational Program of the State and Municipal Administration

“…Friedman (2016), (3,11,15,17,22,24), until now it is still impossible to talk about the complete study of certain issues of the organization of proactive budgeting as a management technology. In addition, the development of the practice of digitalization of public finances and proactive budgeting in the Russian Federation has its own characteristics, which require special study.…”

From Empowerment to Community Power in Participatory Budgeting

“…Many consider the empowerment of marginal actors as a fundamental goal of PB projects as well as a necessary condition through which to deliver relevant, appropriate, and sustainable decisions regarding community development (Ryan, 2021). Research focused on the attitudes of citizens who participate in PB provided evidence that participants feel empowered, support democracy, view the government as more effective, and better understand budget and government processes (Baiocchi, 2005;Wampler, 2007;Wampler et al, 2018;Wampler & Avritzer, 2004). However, some argue that actual citizen control of budget decisions requires deepening engagement with inequality and exclusion and direct confrontation with current power asymmetries (Arnstein, 1969;Ott & Kiteme, 2016;Pereira, et al, 2015;Turnhout et al, 2020).…”