Participative budgeting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Participative budgeting - Essay Example In the case where Costa Rica, Chile and Mauritius were selected to investigate the performance of pro-poor outcomes, evidence showed that the project was indispensable not only to strengthen democracy in the countries but also to ensure that the most pressing needs of the population were reflected in the government spending (Liao and Zhang, 2012). Methods like public meeting, focus groups, simulation, committee and surveys have been used so that the citizens can participate in the budget adoption (Jason et al, 2009). However, public meetings are not very good at giving citizens direct influence but they can be used as forums for preliminary information sharing (OToole and Marshall, 1988). Citizen participation in budgeting, brings out potential goals like informing decision-making, educating participants on the budget, gaining support for budget proposals, influencing decision making and enhancing trust and creating a sense of community. In Brazil, the state and civil society have always been much more intertwined that the liberal conceptualization. Capitalism was implemented in Brazil by the Portuguese patrimonial state with loyal court as the center for the power (Novy and Leubolt, 2005). In Porto Alegre as all over Brazil, neighborhood movements emerged in the 1970s. Residents mainly of irregular, poorer districts rebelled against the government lack of interest in acting for their benefits. Participatory budgeting involves direct and indirect democracy since there is sharing of power with the people and thus it will satisfy the basic needs like in Brazil where improvement in education was seen (Mirko, 2014). Participatory budgeting was an attempt to elaborate an alternative model of governance. The strategy showed legitimacy in strengthening civil society in the local forms of socialism. Social innovation and an open