Participatory budgeting and its features: from Porto Alegre to modern Europe

The article deals with the features of participative budgeting as a relatively new experiment in the sphere of participative democracy. It's pointed out that this democratic form was initiated in 1989 in а Brazilian city Porto Alegre and then it was spread not only over Latin America but also over other continents. Special attention is paid to the countries of Europe where participative budgeting was implemented most actively. Positive features of participative budgeting as well as its possible disadvantages are analyzed.The author argues that participative budgeting being one of the forms of participative democracy remains at the same time closely tied to the institutions of representative democracy. The initiator of its implementation remains most often municipal executive power as a whole or its individual representatives and first of all heads of local administration.

Directives for public entities’ popular financial reporting

This study analyzes different types of Popular Financial Reports (PFR) identifying the main characteristics responsible for achieving effective transparency and improving participative democracy. A model is suggested gathering core information and formatting techniques from national and international governmental experience on publishing reports designed to be intelligible to citizens. The crosschecking of criteria fixed by seven international awards/certificates provides the directives sustaining the proposed model, which also considered the four initiatives adopted in Brazil. When applying the results obtained to the PFR elaboration experiences developed in Brazil, it was found that there is already an evolution when adopting a more attractive look and a wider dissemination, however, the Brazilian reports are still long compared to international ones, and, the content and technical language of official reports still prevail, which makes it difficult for Brazilian citizens who do not have financial or accounting training.

From smart to rebel city? Worlding, provincialising and the Barcelona Model

This article examines the evolution of the ‘Barcelona Model’ of urban transformation through the lenses of worlding and provincialising urbanism. We trace this evolution from an especially dogmatic worlding vision of the smart city, under a centre-right city council, to its radical repurposing under the auspices of a municipal government led, after May 2015, by the citizens’ platform Barcelona en Comú. We pay particular attention to the new council’s objectives to harness digital platform technologies to enhance participative democracy, and its agenda to secure technological sovereignty and digital rights for its citizens. While stressing the progressive intent of these aims, we also acknowledge the challenge of going beyond the repurposing of smart technologies so as to engender new and radical forms of subjectivity among citizens themselves; a necessary basis for any urban revolution.

From Democratic (Citizenship) Education to Participative Democracy? Youth’s Difficult Way to Active Citizenship

W artykule podejmujemy próbę włączenia się do dyskusji na temat aktywności politycznej i społecznej młodzieży we współczesnych poliarchiach. Wychodząc z założenia, że warunkiem aktywnego spełniania funkcji obywatelskich są umiejętności poznawcze i zdolności komunikowania się, które jednostka doskonali w procesie kształcenia się i poprzez uczestniczenie w zjawiskach społecznych staramy się znaleźć odpowiedź na następujące pytania: w jaki sposób postrzegane jest uczestnictwo w dzisiejszych poliarchiach? jakie mogą być determinanty angażowania się politycznego i społecznego młodzieży? Dlaczego europejskie organizacje międzynarodowe – Rada Europy i Unia Europejska – podejmują działania z zakresu aktywizowania młodzieży europejskiej? W pierwszej części artykułu uwagę koncentrujemy na uczestnictwie demokratycznym i staramy się poznać jego rolę w wybranych modelach demokracji. Następnie analizujemy wybrane aspekty absencji wyborczej młodzieży. Przywołujemy przykłady aktywności Rady Europy i Unii Europejskiej w zakresie aktywizowania demokratycznego (obywatelskiego) młodzieży wraz ze wskazaniem przyczyn tej aktywności. W końcu wskazujemy na związek pomiędzy uczestnictwem politycznym i społecznym młodzieży a kondycją współczesnych poliarchii europejskich.

A critical reappraisal of resident participation in China and France: ‘authoritarian deliberation’ goes global?

This paper, the first step of a project aiming at analysing the establishment of practices of resident participation and consultation in urban renewal in China, proposes a reflection upon these practices through a comparison with similar experiences in France. Identifying some convergences between the practices adopted in the two countries, the paper proposes to reflect upon such puzzling outcomes, provocatively questioning the classic distinction between authoritarian and democratic regimes. It suggests that our analyses and interpretations shall get rid of classical binary categorisations between regime types to embrace a comparative analysis of the policies and practices introduced in various local contexts, and reflect upon their underlying logics. In so doing, the paper engages with He and Warren's concept of ‘authoritarian deliberation’ as well as with the critiques expressed by a number of French scholars on concepts such as ‘participative democracy’ and ‘good governance’. Such a focus on the underlying logics rather than on regime types will show that the concept of ‘authoritarian deliberation’ does not only apply to authoritarian contexts. Rather, it represents a fruitful starting point to analyse and reflect upon instances of participation and deliberation in both democratic and authoritarian countries.

Challenging the Divide: Socio-economic Rights as Human Rights

This chapter critically examines the ways in which civil and political rights have been distinguished from socio-economic rights, including differing ideologies, subject matter; obligations, resource implications, and justiciability. Instead of such bright-line distinctions, it suggests that all rights should be seen as giving rise to a cluster of duties: to respect, protect, and fulfil. The duty to fulfil is most challenging, especially when framed as a duty of progressive realization subject to maximum available resources. Section II assesses these concepts, particularly the attempt to establish a minimum core. It concludes that a thoroughgoing acceptance of socio-economic rights requires more than the label of ‘human right’. It also entails a re-characterization of human rights values, emphasizing inter-connectedness, mutual dependence, and a substantive conception of equality. Freedom and dignity need to be refashioned to ensure that individuals have genuine choices from a range of valuable options, within a framework of participative democracy.