Bootstrapping democracy : transforming local governance and civil society in Brazil / Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Patrick Heller, and Marcelo K. Silva.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, 1971-

Heller, Patrick, author.

Silva, Marcelo Kunrath, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Municipal government--Brazil--Citizen participation.

Municipal government.

Municipal budgets--Brazil--Citizen participation.

Municipal budgets.

Political participation--Brazil.

Political participation.

Civil society.

Brazil.

Democracy--Brazil.

Democracy.

Civil society--Brazil.

Physical Description:

xvi, 204 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, [2011]

Summary:

Investigating local experiences with Brazil's participatory budgeting initiative, the authors (professors of sociology at Brown U., US, and the Federal U. of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) decided that their most striking finding was the ways in which local actors and state actors proved extremely adept at adapting the national "blueprint" diffused by the Brazilian state to local realities. Analyzing these processes of participatory budgeting, they came to see them as "bootstrapping democracy," by which they intend to signify that they are, at one and the same time, an instrumental response to the challenge of coordinating the functions of local government with the inputs of local civil society and an ethico-political project of empowering citizens. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

Introduction : evaluating participatory democracy

Society and the local state : toward a relational framework

The emergence of local democracy in Brazil

Assessing the impact of participatory budgeting

Representation by design

Making space for civil society

Conclusion : bootstrapping participatory democracy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804760553

0804760551

9780804760560

080476056X

OCLC:

692288632