Gustavo Barbosa on 2 Apr 2001 12:06:27 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Participatory budgeting... an alternative to wicked neoliberalism |
>quote< Cities For People http://www.redpepper.org.uk/intarch/xcities.html Daniel Chavez describes how two experiments in participatory democracy have transformed the political culture in Brazil and Uruguay The participatory politics of the PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party) in Brazil and the FA, Frente Amplio (Broad Front) in Uruguay has transformed the corrupt, wasteful municipal government of South America. These experiments in determining local budgets through extensive citizen involvement and in decentralising the administration of services provide a laboratory from which the left can learn how to govern in a new way. Decentralisation and participatory budgeting challenge neoliberalism. They increase the accountability of local government and introduce decision making and negotiation from below in place of the traditional centralised and secretive process. This model seeks to transform powerless urban residents who, after decades of authoritarianism were used only to casting an obligatory vote every five years, into active subjects with growing power over the decisions that affect their daily lives. In the cities of Montevideo and Porto Alegre, left parties have reorganised the local state to play a co-ordinating and faciliating role in the process. Such progressive local governments face a double challenge. They must be effective and efficient in providing basic urban services and administering financial resources; they also have the goal of overthrowing repressive decision making systems. Participatory budgeting and decentralisation to sub-municipal districts are underway in some 80 cities of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina where progressive parties hold office. Guided by the values of the PT and the FA, they are not mere imitations of what has been done in Montevideo and Porto Alegre but are a response to the political realities of each location. Montevideo and Porto Alegre have similar economies and social structures, and both are closer to European cities than those of Latin America. Before the collapse of the Brazilian currency last January, the per capita income in the two cities was above US$6,000. Both cities have high literacy rates. >unquote< ------------------------------------------------- www.forumsocialmundial.org.br _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold