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Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a welcome democratic innovation because it promises to empower traditionally marginalized groups and create more equitable public spending. PB delegates public authority to neighborhood residents to propose and decide on projects to fund with tax dollars. Does PB achieve a form of empowered participatory governance? This article examines this question by focusing on the degree to which PB engages marginalized groups in two Bay Area cities, using survey and interview data. We find that marginalized groups do participate, periodically at rates equal to their proportion of the population, and such groups appear to occasionally benefit materially from winning projects, though to a lesser extent. Effective outreach methods that contribute to these outcomes are highlighted. However, overall findings show that white middle-aged, middle-class groups participate most. Moreover, PB funds have been scaled back in both cities, limiting benefits and their potential to achieve PB's equity goals. These results mirror outcomes in other jurisdictions. We conclude, nevertheless, with discussion of how PB's institutional design, which if expanded and deepened, provides concrete pathways to achieve a promising form of empowered participatory governance with redistributive potential at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 arguethat in Chicago (United States), heavy emphasis on the representation of Black and Hispanic residents has been based on simplistic demographic measures of diversity. This focus obfuscates morecomplex racial dynamics that limit involvement for residents whoare racialized and/or undocumented. The use of participatory budgeting as a politicalbranding tool closely ties the reputation of the local elected officialto the success of the process in engaging diverse constituents. This curtails the motivation of elected officials to address theshortcomings of the process openly. Detailed examinationof the racial dynamics of participatory budgeting in Chicagosuggests the need to push beyond representative approaches toracial inclusion to challenge structural inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on the political philosophy of John Dewey as one way to re-think the relationship between deliberative and participatory democracy. Rather than focusing on differences, Dewey's ideal of democracy allows us to bridge these two theories while still being attentive to the tensions between them. In particular, Dewey helps us conceptualize deliberative and participatory practices as distinctive yet complementary phases within a larger circuit of cooperative inquiry. To illustrate the argument, a case study of one democratic experiment that effectively combined different forms of practice is presented. In doing so, it is contended that we might be able to recover and incorporate some of the more radical features of participatory democracy into deliberative practices. Participatory theory's focus on political action and structural inequality, in addition to deliberation, as essential to citizen-centered democratic practice is specifically emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]