Administrating Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegrestreet-level Officials and Organisational Preconditions

Abstract

The Workers' Party (PT) developed In Porto Alegre a participatory expenditure scheme which allowed citizens to have a say on public investments at municipal level. It has been hailed as a model for participatory decision-making that increases transparency at the local level. Most scholars so far have looked at this scheme with a society-centred approach focusing on the participatory meetings and the role of civil society. However, little attention has been given to the institutional design, the crucial role of the public administration, and PT politicians who were responsible for the increase in public services and infrastructure. This article has a policy approach and redirects the attention toward officials and politicians who were firmly in control and pulled the strings of the scheme. The article's main contention is that much of the success of the PT administration in Porto Alegre hinged upon dedicated partisan members appointed inside the municipal administration. They were the embodiment of the intermediary participatory budget as such was an important instrument for citizens' inclusion, but lacked the showed a number of structural weaknesses which these militant PT members were able to overcome during many years.