Networks of Institutional Participation and Local Democratic Governance. The Case of Participatory Budgeting in Chile
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Date
2010
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CLAD-LATINOAMERICANO ADMINISTRACION DESARROLLO
Abstract
The text describes and analyzes the institutional context, the emergency, development and methodology of two cases of Participatory Budgeting (PB) developed in Chile in recent years, highlighting their potentialities and critical points as experiments of democratization of public policy management in local level, and of strengthening citizenship's capacities of incidence and control about the public decisions.
The article concludes that the design of such PB, although methodologically participatory, are not strategically decisive for local democratic governance, given (i) the lack of autonomy of the social counterparts on the priorities of the authorities and bureaucracies involved in the policy network; and as a result of (ii) the lack of autonomy of the sub-national agencies to redirect the central's social policies, and then, to process the demands of the local social agenda, under consensual criteria of solidarity and social equity.
The article concludes that the design of such PB, although methodologically participatory, are not strategically decisive for local democratic governance, given (i) the lack of autonomy of the social counterparts on the priorities of the authorities and bureaucracies involved in the policy network; and as a result of (ii) the lack of autonomy of the sub-national agencies to redirect the central's social policies, and then, to process the demands of the local social agenda, under consensual criteria of solidarity and social equity.
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Keywords
Governance, Democracy, Budget, Citizen Participation, Network, Local Administration, Case Analysis, Chile