Money Talks: How Participatory Budgeting Can Transform Politics



By Josh Lerner Originally published by the Movement Vision Lab. Grassroots
Economic Organizing January 28, 2008 http://www.geo.coop/node/318



Money may be killing democracy, but it can also bring it back to life - if
we learn new ways to manage it. Progressives often complain that the
influence of big money has corrupted politics, leaving us with elite
politicians that don't represent most Americans. Once in power, these
politicians decide how to spend our taxpayer money, often in unwanted ways.
Community groups are forced to fight for budgetary scraps, be they for
social services, housing, schools, health facilities, or other services or
infrastructure. This is an exhausting and often demoralizing struggle. It
encourages competition rather than collaboration, and reliance on
politicians rather than democratic community control. For most people, this
struggle is not very appealing, so they choose not to participate.



It doesn't have to be this way. Low-income residents and activists in
hundreds of cities around the world have designed a different way of
managing public money: participatory budgeting. This is a process in which
people who are impacted by a budget directly and democratically decide how
it is spent. The most famous example is the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre,
where residents decide on municipal spending in an annual cycle of
assemblies and meetings. Since Porto Alegre pioneered participatory
budgeting in 1989, however, it has spread throughout the world. Most of
these experiences share a common process: diagnosis, discussion,
decision-making, implementation, and monitoring. First, at neighborhood
assemblies, residents identify local priority needs, generate ideas to
respond to these needs, and elect delegates to represent each community.
These delegates then discuss the local priorities and develop concrete
projects that address them, together with experts. Next, residents

vote for which of these projects to fund. Finally, the government implements
the chosen projects, and residents monitor this implementation. For example,
if neighborhood residents identify access to medical care as a priority,
their delegates might develop a proposal for a new community health clinic.
If the residents approve the proposal, the city funds it. The next year, a
new health clinic is built.



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