<nettime> Fw: Participatory budgeting... an alternative to the wicked neoliberalism

["Gustavo Barbosa" <gustavo.listas@iname.com>]

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.

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