International Research Fellowship Program: Participatory Decision-Making Venues: A Comparative Analysis of Brazil's Participatory Budgeting

0301849

Wampler

The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.

This award will support a twelve month research fellowship by Dr. Brian D. Wampler to work with Dr. Pedro R. Jacobi at University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Participatory policy-making institutions have proliferated at Brazil's municipal level of government since its transition to democratic rule in 1985. The best known of these institutions, Participatory Budgeting (PD), allows citizens to deliberate over the distribution of public resources. PB has been implemented in over 100 municipalities, which now allows us to begin to build generalizeable theories about how PB is transforming local politics. The goal of this project is to undertake the first large-scale comprehensive study of Participatory Budgeting based on the application of a survey to government officials and participants in all known cases of PB. The PI will also conduct an in-depth analysis of eight to twelve representative cases to ascertain how civil society activists interact with political reformers in their mutual efforts to promote political change. He will use interviews, budget analysis and participant surveys. This research will contribute to broader theoretical debates in political science.