International Trends in Participatory Budgeting

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. The Diffusion of Participatory Budgeting: An Introduction to this Volume—With an Intermezzo by Tarso Genro, the Mayor of Porto Alegre Between 1992 and 1996

   • Michiel S. de Vries, Juraj Nemec, David Špaček, Tarso Genro

   Pages 1-26

3. Participatory Budgeting in Germany: Increasing Transparency in Times of Fiscal Stress

   • Janina Apostolou, Martina Eckardt

   Pages 27-45

4. Participatory Budgeting in Italy: A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes

   • Francesco Badia

   Pages 47-62

5. Participatory Budgeting in Sweden

   • Iwona Sobis

   Pages 63-87

6. Participatory Budgeting in Belarus

   • Yuri V. Krivorotko, Dmitriy V. Sokol

   Pages 89-111

7. Participatory Budgeting in Croatia: A Mixed Bag of Good, Bad, and Indifferent

   • Jasmina Džinić

   Pages 113-129

8. Project-Oriented Participatory Budgeting in the Czech Republic

   • Lucie Sedmihradská, Soňa Kukučková, Eduard Bakoš

   Pages 131-147

9. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship? Participatory Budgeting in Hungary

   • Péter Klotz

   Pages 149-162

10. Participatory Budgeting in Poland

    • Artur Roland Kozłowski, Arnold Bernaciak

    Pages 163-185

11. Participatory Budgeting in Romania

    • Emil Boc, Dan-Tudor Lazăr

    Pages 187-204

12. Participatory (Initiative) Budgeting in the Russian Federation

    • Mstislav Afanasiev, Nataliya Shash

    Pages 205-228

13. Participatory Budgeting in Serbia

    • Miloš Milosavljević, Željko Spasenić, Slađana Benković

    Pages 229-245

14. Participatory Budgeting in Slovakia: Recent Development, Present State, and Interesting Cases

    • Mária Murray Svidroňová, Daniel Klimovský

    Pages 247-269

15. Participatory Budgeting in Slovenia

    • Maja Klun, Jože Benčina

    Pages 271-285

16. Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies

    • Juraj Nemec, David Špaček, Michiel S. de Vries

    Pages 287-313Open Access

17. Back Matter

    Pages 315-317

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This book analyses the participatory budgeting practice as it has evolved in evaluated countries, focusing on what is substantially at stake concerning the budget and issues involved, the actual participation, the way such processes are organised and administered, and the outcomes of such processes. It concludes that participatory budgeting in selected European countries is far away from the level of ‘best practice’, but that all experiences are not just trivial pursuits. The information collected serves to check, to what extent participatory budgeting as practiced in the countries involved presents a real attempt to change municipal budgets towards addressing the needs of marginalized groups and to improve decision-making based on local democracy and participation, or whether these processes as such are to be judged to be more important than any output and outcomes. The practices can neither be seen as a process of policy diffusion nor as a process of policy mimesis. The terminology of participatory budgeting remains, but the tools to achieve the goals resulted only in marginal changes in the status quo in municipalities in European countries practicing participatory budgeting, instead of resulting in radical changes to increase spending in favor of marginalized groups.



Chapter 15 'Unraveled Practices of Participatory Budgeting in European Democracies' is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

• participatory budgeting
• grassroots democracy
• citizen participation
• policy co-production
• democratic backsliding
• best practice
• comparative policymaking
• Central Europe
• Eastern Europe
• democracy
• Brazilian Workers' Party
• budgeting processes
• participatory local governance
• local budget
• budget innovation
• online participatory budgeting
• local decision-making
• democratic innovation
• initiative budgeting
• international trends

• Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

  Michiel S. De Vries

• Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

  Juraj Nemec, David Špaček

Michiel S. de Vries is Full Professor of Public Administration at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He is past President of IASIA and member of the editorial board of numerous journals on Public Administration. His research has resulted in over 300 scholarly publications and over 20 edited volumes and monographs.

Juraj Nemec is Professor of Public Finance and Public Management at the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He is the Vice-President of the IASIA and the member of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration at United Nations. He has published over 400 books and scientific articles.

David Špaček is Associate Professor at the Department of Public Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He has participated in various national as well as international projects. In his research and lecturing, he concentrated on various aspects of public management and public administration.

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