期刊名称：International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities
印刷版ISSN：2250-0715
电子版ISSN：2248-9010
出版年度：2011
卷号：2
期号：1
页码：91-102
出版社：International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities
摘要：Citizen participation in Latin America has largely been an exercise in clientelism and corporatism. Recently, more authentic forms of participation have emerged at the local level, often led by opposition parties, as part of a larger democratization agenda. The participatory budget, a pioneering effort to democratize the municipal budget by empowering citizens to make resource allocation decisions, was first attempted in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989. The program afforded unprecedented levels of participation to the socially marginalized and poor, garnering accolades from international organizations. Participatory budgeting was later adopted by the Mexican municipality of Santa Catarina. Unlike its Brazilian counterpart, the administration did not achieve the level and degree of citizen participation nor a significant redistribution of public resources. The author considers three key factors that account for the divergent outcomes: 1) party ideology and governance philosophy, 2) design and implementation of the program and 3) degree of financial decentralization from central government.
