Reflections on Participatory Budgeting in New York City

ABSTRACTIn the past two decades, participatory budgeting has arisen throughout the world, most recently taking root in municipalities across the United States. This innovation in democratic governance has garnered considerable public support as it has the potential to reinvigorate civic participation, modernize local government administration, and foster social equity in the provision of public goods and services. In this essay, I posit that the success of participatory budgeting in the United States will depend heavily on the ability of public officials and administrators to tailor the implementation of this process to the contextual realities facing American cities, particularly with regards to patterns of public participation. Only by being cognizant of such patterns and adapting programs to these realities can public officials and administrators ensure that participatory budgeting accomplishes its original laudable goals, especially with regards to the advancement of social equity.Key Words: public participation, deliberative democracy, civic engagement, collaborative governance, social equity, innovationIntroductionIn the past two decades, participatory budgeting, a tool aimed at facilitating public participation and deliberation in the budgetary process, has arisen, taking root in the governments of various nations and most recently across cities in the United States. This innovation in democratic governance has garnered considerable public support where it has been implemented, as it has the potential to deliver many benefits to local governments. For instance, participatory budgeting has the potential to reinvigorate civic participation, modernize local government administration, and foster social equity in the provision of public goods and services (Shah, 2007; Wampler and Hartz-karp, 2012; Wampler, 2012). Indeed, participatory budgeting has the potential to address and alleviate some of the more pressing problems in democracy facing local governments today.Nevertheless, this road to progress in democratic governance needs to be taken carefully. Both theoretical and empirical research support the utilization of participatory budgeting, showing that the process can indeed act as a governance tool that delivers on the aforementioned promises with regards to governance improvements. But research findings also suggest that the ability to actualize these promises when utilizing this process in the United States will depend on the administrative ability to tailor the implementation of participatory budgeting to the contextual realities facing the localities where the process is implemented. Recognizing theses contexts and adapting participatory budgeting programs and their related support services to these contexts is critical, lest this new participatory governance approach end in working against the actualization of the original and laudable goals of participatory budgeting as set forth in its original implementation in Porto Alegre, Brazil.Experiencing Participatory BudgetingAs a resident of Brooklyn, NY, I have been able to observe the development of participatory budgeting from both a theoretical and practical perspective. My firsthand experience with participatory budgeting began in the summer of 2012, the second year when this process was implemented in selected neighborhoods across New York City. As an academic, I have written about and studied public participation in government; therefore, my interest was already piqued with regards to the subject matter when I learned about the start of a pilot project in participatory budgeting in New York City. Participatory budgeting was introduced in New York City in 2011, when the Participatory Budgeting Project, a nonprofit group devoted to expanding the use of this participatory governance approach, worked with New York City Council members to initiate a pilot project in four city council districts. While participatory budgeting was not available in the council district where I resided in 2011, by 2012, I had moved into Park Slope, Brooklyn, one of the council districts where participatory budgeting had been initiated in 2011 and was being reintroduced in 2012. …

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