Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: While there is an abundance of literature analyzing experiments in participatory democracy, most of them leave outan analysis of a very important actor: political parties. Looking at the participatory budgeting processes in Porto Alegre (Brazil) and Kerala (India) and the parties that initiated them, this study argues that an analysis of political parties is extremely important to understand the exact nature of participatory budgeting. Specifically, I argue that certain aspects of a party’s ‘political culture,’ impact the participatory programs initiated by a party. Different characteristics of the party, including the parties’ internal organization (level of centralization and hierarchy), the level of institutionalization and bureaucratization (detail to operational rules and disciplinary norms, tolerance to differing tendencies), propensities towards a vanguardist vs. organic model of interaction with civil society as well as an adherence (or the lack thereof) to a strict ideology, play an important role in the implementation of these processes. These differences are mirrored not only in how PB was initiated in the first place (party driven vs. community driven) but also in the level of authority relegated, the level of direct democracy, as well as the centrality of the roles of party members and elected officials.