Can participatory budgeting help make public services really work for the public? Incorporating a range of experiments in ten different countries, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of participatory budgeting in Europe and the effect it has had on democracy, the modernization of local government, social justice, gender mainstreaming and sustainable development. By focussing on the first decade of European participatory budgeting and analysing the results and the challenges affecting the agenda today it provides a critical appraisal of the participatory model. Detailed comparisons of European cases expose similarities and differences between political cultures and offer a strong empirical basis to discuss the theories of deliberative and participatory democracy and reveal contradictory tendencies between political systems, public administrations and democratic practices.

As our experience regarding the practice of deliberation grows, the position from which we evaluate it, and the criteria of this evaluation, change. This book presents a synthesis of recent research that has brought detailed and robust results. Its first section concerns contemporary challenges and new approaches to the public sphere. The second focuses on the Deliberative Poll as a specific deliberative technique and compares findings emanating from this practice in various political and cultural contexts. The third section addresses the challenge of determining what constitutes deliberative quality. Finally, the last section discusses democratic deliberation and deliberative democracy as they relate to the complex challenges of contemporary politics.

Citizen participation is a central component of democratic governance. As participatory schemes have grown in number and gained in social legitimacy over recent years, the research community has analyzed the virtues of participatory policies from several points of view, but usually giving focus to the most successful and well-known grass-roots cases. This book examines a wider range of participatory interventions that have been created or legitimized by central governments, providing original exploration of institutional democratic participatory mechanisms. Looking at a huge variety of subnational examples across Italy, Spain and France, the book interrogates the rich findings of a substantial research project. The authors use quantitative and qualitative methods to compare why these cases of participatory mechanisms have emerged, how they function, and what cultural impact they ve achieved. This allows highly original insights into why participatory mechanisms work in some places, but not others, and the sorts of choices that organizers of participatory processes have to consider when creating such policies."

Citizen participation is a central component of democratic governance. As participatory schemes have grown in number and gained in social legitimacy over recent years, the research community has analyzed the virtues of participatory policies from several points of view, but usually giving focus to the most successful and well-known grass-roots cases. This book examines a wider range of participatory interventions that have been created or legitimized by central governments, providing original exploration of institutional democratic participatory mechanisms. Looking at a huge variety of subnational examples across Italy, Spain and France, the book interrogates the rich findings of a substantial research project. The authors use quantitative and qualitative methods to compare why these cases of participatory mechanisms have emerged, how they function, and what cultural impact they ve achieved. This allows highly original insights into why participatory mechanisms work in some places, but not others, and the sorts of choices that organizers of participatory processes have to consider when creating such policies."

Can participatory budgeting help make public services really work for the public? Incorporating a range of experiments in ten different countries, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of participatory budgeting in Europe and the effect it has had on democracy, the modernization of local government, social justice, gender mainstreaming and sustainable development. By focussing on the first decade of European participatory budgeting and analysing the results and the challenges affecting the agenda today it provides a critical appraisal of the participatory model. Detailed comparisons of European cases expose similarities and differences between political cultures and offer a strong empirical basis to discuss the theories of deliberative and participatory democracy and reveal contradictory tendencies between political systems, public administrations and democratic practices.

Electoral democracies are struggling. Sintomer, in this instructive book, argues for democratic innovations. One such innovation is using random selection to create citizen bodies with advisory or decisional political power. 'Sortition' has a long political history. Coupled with elections, it has represented an important yet often neglected dimension of Republican and democratic government, and has been reintroduced in the Global North, China and Mexico. The Government of Chance explores why sortation is returning, how it is coupled with deliberation, and why randomly selected 'minipublics' and citizens' assemblies are flourishing. Relying on a growing international and interdisciplinary literature, Sintomer provides the first systematic and theoretical reconstruction of the government of chance from Athens to the present. At what conditions can it be rational? What lessons can be drawn from history? The Government of Chance therefore clarifies the democratic imaginaries at stake: deliberative, antipolitical, and radical, making a plaidoyer for the latter.

Das Losverfahren blickt zuruck auf eine lange politische Geschichte. Es lenkt den Blick auf eine oft vergessene politischen Dimension: Die Herschaft durch das Volk. Yes Sintomer zeigt mit dem vorliegenden Buch, dass ein neues politisches Terrain sichtbar wird - eine Form partizipativer Demokratie, in der die Burger entscheidenden Einfluss auf die politischen Prozesse der Entscheidungsfindung nehmen konnen.

Dieses Buch ist das Ergebnis eines Forschungsprojektes am Berliner Centre Marc Bloch und der Humboldt-Universitat, das von der Hans-Bockler-Stiftung unter dem folgenden Titel finanziert wurde: Der Burgerhaushalt im euro- ischen Vergleich - Perspektiven und Chancen des kooperativen Staates auf kommunaler Ebene. Leiter der Forschung war Yves Sintomer; als wissenscha- liche Mitarbeiter waren Carsten Herzberg und Anja Rocke tatig. Die administ- tive Leitung hatten Hans-Peter-Muller von der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin inne sowie bei der Hans-Bockler-Stiftung Volker Grunewald und Karsten Schneider. Folgende Personen waren Mitglied der internationalen Projektgr- pe: Belgien: Ludivine Damay und Christine Schaut (Zentrum fur Soziologie der Universitat Saint-Louis, Brussel); Spanien: Ernesto Ganuza Fernandez (Instituto de Estudios Sociales de Andalucia, Cordoba); Frankreich: Marion Ben-Hammo und Sandrine Geffroy (Universitat Paris 8), Julien Talpin (Universitat Paris 8); Grossbritannien: Jeremy Hall (PB Unit); Italien: Giovanni Allegretti als Koor- nator des italienischen Teams (Centro dos Estudos Sociais, Universitat Coi- ra), Pier Paolo Fanesi (Universitat Macerata), Lucilla Pezzetta (Universitat La Sapienza, Rom), Michelangelo Secchi (Staatliche Universitat Mailand), Antonio Putini (Universitat der Region Calabria), Paolo Filippi (Universitat Venedig); Niederlande: Hugo Swinnen (Verwey-Jonker Institut, Utrecht); Polen: El bieta Plaszczyk (School of Public Administration, Lodz), Dorota Dakowska (Univ- sitat Strassburg); Portugal: Luis Guerreiro (Stadtverwaltung Palmela), Giovanni Allegretti und Nelson Dias (Universitat Algarve). Ein Band mit Fallstudien und statistischen Vergleichsdaten wurde bereits im November 2005 veroffentlicht (www. buergerhaushalt-europa. de). Leser, die uber einzelne Beispiele mehr wissen wollen, konnen darin weitere Informat- nen finden."

What relevance can a middle-sized Brazilian city possibly have for the rest of the world? This book provides the answer. We live in an age where there is more and more disillusion with periodically trooping to the polls, voting with the party herd, and supporting politicians who, once in office, act contrary to the promises they made on the hustings. The practice of representative democracy, in short, does not command much confidence. In the US, elections are dominated by big money. In developing countries, structural adjustment and neoliberal economics compel governments to ignore the demands of ordinary people for services like health and education. This is where the participative budgetmaking experiment in Porto Alegre comes in. Over the past decade, this city has institutionalized the direct involvement, locality by locality, of ordinary citizens in deciding spending priorities. This book gives a down to earth description of how this democratic innovation works in practice. It explores the difficult questions. Can inhabitants taking part in public management really strengthen its efficiency? Is genuine participation possible without small groups monopolizing power? Can local organizations avoid becoming bureaucratized and cut off from their roots? Can neighbourhood mobilization go beyond parochialism and act in the general interest? The authors also raise the bigger question about what are the lessons to be learned from Porto Alegre for a renewal of democratic institutions elsewhere in the world. This is why this illuminating and independent-minded investigation will of use to scholars, politicians and those campaigning for a deepening of democratic institutions worldwide.