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This article uses participatory budgeting as an entry point to explore the relationship between race, citizenship, and participatory democracy. Drawing on theories of racial neoliberalism, I arguet...

Only a few years ago, participatory budgeting (PB) in the US was in its infancy, a tiny experiment in democracy. After a five-year growth spurt, PB has entered its awkward adolescence, full of bold achievements, flashes of potential, and some stumbles. PBNYC’s innovation has raised new questions for participatory democracy, as the contributors to this special issue highlight. In this article, I lift up the key impacts and challenges that they discuss, and their practical implications. I argue that for PBNYC and other PB processes to grow up, city leaders need to invest in equity, expand project eligibility and funding, and scale PB up to the city level.

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a welcome experiment in participatory democracy in New York City (NYC), one that could produce greater civic engagement of traditionally marginalized groups and more equitable resource distribution. By engaging immigrants, PB aims to affirm and elevate their voices, help develop their civic capacities, and promote their political participation and community empowerment. During the past four years, participation by immigrants (foreign-born residents) in New York City’s PB process (PBNYC) has steadily increased, growing from nineteen to twenty-eight percent of all PB voters. Yet, immigrant participation lags compared to their numbers, with great variation among PB districts. Using a mixed methods approach that incorporates surveys of and interviews with immigrant community members, staff at immigrant serving community-based organizations, and City Council staff, this article aims to parse out the logistical and affective barriers to participation immigrants face in PB...

What is the relationship between participatory and radical democracy and why are they relevant? This paper answers these questions by bringing into conversation the participatory theory of Pateman and the radical theories of Ranciere and Wolin to see what they can learn from each other. I argue that participatory democracy demonstrates the value of attending to questions of institutional transformation, due to the ability of greater participation to both empower citizens and legitimize democratic authority structures. Radical democracy, on the other hand, calls attention to the ways in which the conditions of democratic possibility have changed in the past half century, thus making the dream of institutionalizing a participatory democracy much more difficult to realize. In doing so, I demonstrate that participatory and radical theories of democracy have much to offer to one another and to broader ongoing debates within democratic theory.

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we of...

Mozambique and Nicaragua have each experienced a transition from a Marxist–Leninist, revolutionary state to a liberal–democratic–capitalist, multi-party state in the 1990s. However, in Mozambique, the historic party of the revolution, FRELIMO, remains the party in power, whil in Nicaragua the Sandinistas have been the opposition party since 1990. What impact have these transitions had on democracy, civil society, and the nature of women's organizing in the post-revolutionary period in each country? This article offers a critical examination of the notions of “democratization” and “civil society” by assessing the gains and losses that each country has experienced in terms of political, economic, and participatory democracy in the post-revolutionary period. Then, using the example of contemporary women's movements and current constructions of “feminism” emerging in each country, this article attempts to show the potential of autonomous women's organizing in civil society today.