Participatory budgeting in Brazil : contestation, cooperation, and accountability / Brian Wampler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wampler, Brian.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Municipal budgets--Brazil.

Municipal budgets.

Municipal government--Brazil.

Municipal government.

Brazil.

Political participation--Brazil.

Political participation.

Democracy--Brazil.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

xvi, 312 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2007]

Summary:

As Brazil and other countries in Latin America turned away from their authoritarian past and began the transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, interest in developing new institutions to bring the benefits of democracy to the citizens in the lower socioeconomic strata intensified, and a number of experiments were undertaken. Perhaps the one receiving the most attention has been Participatory Budgeting (PB), first launched in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1989 by a coalition of civil society activists and Workers Party officials. PB quickly spread to more than 250 other municipalities in the country, and it has since been adopted in more than twenty countries worldwide. Most of the scholarly literature has focused on the successful case of Porto Alegre and has neglected to analyze how it fared elsewhere. In this first rigorous comparative study of the phenomenon, Brian Wampler draws evidence from eight municipalities in Brazil.

Contents:

Extending citizenship and accountability through participatory budgeting

Participatory budgeting: rules of the game

Authority, negotiation, and solidarity: PB delegates' attitudes and behaviors

Porto Alegre and Ipatinga: the successful delegation of authority and the use of contentious politics (among friends)

Blumenau and Rio Claro: weak mayoral support and the absence of contentious politics

São Paulo and Santo André: co-optation, limited delegation, and signaling

Belo Horizonte and Recife: contentious politics and mayoral shifts

Deepening democracy through the expansion of citizenship rights and accountability.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [293]-307) and index.

ISBN:

9780271032528

0271032529

OCLC:

123029525