E participatory budgeting in brazil

RAFAEL CARDOSO SAMPAIO

VISITING SCHOLAR UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS (UK)

PHD CANDIDATE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF BAHIA (BR)

E-PBs: examples from Brazil

PB is worldwide

How ICTs can help?

Direct, fast, cheap communication;

Can be anonimous and many-to-many;

Potential universal acces (less restrictions in terms of time and space);

Less filters or control;

Potentially infinite data bank (information);

People can produce their own content.

How can they hinder?

Digital Divide;Excessive commerciatilization;Surveillance;Hate speeches;Overload of information;Overload de informação;Like-minded groups and individuals;There are still visibility centres.Even so, people are not participating more.

It is not about technology

Design matters, technology helps...

But Pb or e-PB is about citizens deciding in a deliberative way how to invest part of the budget with the help/partnership of governmental actors.

There are several channels to allow that: ICT in one way to go.

Or yet: design matters, Technologies matter, but people are the most important part.

Is my participatory budgeting process truly democratic?

Is it inclusive?Is it equalitarian? Does it make the citizens better

informed?Does it make the government more

accountable?Does it empower the citizen?

The real questions should be:

Three values

Information

 Participation

Accountability

Different citizens, different profiles

Two very different profiles

ACTUALIZING CITIZEN (AC) DUTIFUL CITIZEN (DC)

Diminished sense of government obligation – higher sense of individual purpose

Obligation to participate in government centered activities

Voting is less meaningful than other, more personally defined acts such as consumerism, community volunteering, or transnational activism

Voting is the core democratic act

Mistrust of media and politicians is reinforced by negative mass media environment

Becomes informed about issues and government by following mass media

Favor loose networks of community action – often established or sustained through friendships and peer relations and thin social ties maintained by interactive information technologies

Joins civil society organizations or expresses interests through parties that typically employ one-way conventional communication to mobilize supporters

E-citizens profiles

Information

Information

How to organize/display the information?

Are there searching engines for finding information?

How much information?

But the true question is: Information for whom?

Belo Horizonte`s solution

Make it simple

Porto Alegre`s solution

Give them whatever (or how much) they wish for.

Information by:

- Year;- Governmental institution;- Region- Theme/issue- Etc.

Mix them

Different levels of information for different profiles;

Basic and enough information for not so interested citizens;

Technical and complex information for hyper engaged citizens.

Dangers:

Too few information = misinformed and disengaged citizen;

Overload of information = people don`t know how much they should read or look for.

Citizens can`t find the information they need.

Let them know!

Web 2.0 provides the chances of information to knock citizens` doors:

RSS;E-mail alerts (interests, issues);Newsletter;SMS (Belo Horizonte and Ipatinga);Social Network Sites.

Let them share!

Allow them to join!

Participation

How/When do citizens participate?

Engagement/Mobilization x Participation

Agenda-setting  Deliberation e-voting

Engagement/Mobilization

Traditional ways (face-to-face; advertisement; media coverage).

Online ways:Experts (Communication) in charge of SNS

profiles;Let real people to join the process.

Give them real incentives to do it.

Josefina Vazquez online Campaign

Governor Asks

How can we improve our services?-Submission of proposals

The authors of the 50 most voted suggestions have had the chance of meeting the governor and discussing the proposals.

Make the website interesting.

Agenda-Setting

Ipatinga2001: grow of 44,6% of proposals (from 723 works,

17% through website).2002: grow of 166% (from 1927 proposals, 70% were

made online);2003: grow of 125% (from 4,300 proposals, 96%

online).

Porto Alegre2001: online proposals: 600 em 2002:193 2003: 100.

Agenda-Setting

Sometimes people wish to decide the subject of the participatory venue;

Setting the agenda may be even more important than final decision.

Few examples if any in Brazil.

Governor Answers

What do you want do know about?

Deliberation

Discussion whatever wherever whenever you want;

- synchronous (e.g. by voice) or asynchronous;

Online Forums, chats or online synchronous tools (e.g. skype, MSN, Gtalk), comments tools, social networking sites;

Potentially not a limit to number of people involved.

Deliberation

2006: 900 messages; 2008: 850; 2011: 1200

Collaboration

Geo-localization of works or demands

Citizens can help in different ways.

Risks

Flaming wars;

Like-minded people;

Excluding the poorest;

Redundancy.

People don’t care.

Digital Inclusion

Belo Horizonte: 173 official voting places.

Recife: 17 electronic ballots

E-voting

Zone of convenience;Creating mechanisms that make sense for

youth (they research online, look for news; buy goods, talk to friends, but can’t participate online?);

Involving new people who would not participate in face to face PB;

- We may not need only the dutiful citizen;

E-Voting

Belo Horizonte (population 2,500 million)2006: 36 pre-selected works, 9 approved2008: 5 pre-selected works, 1 approved2011: 36 pre-selected works, 9 approved

Version 2006 offline 2006 online 2008 offline 2008 online Participants 33.643 172.938 44.000 124.320

Budget (US$ million) 44,4 11,1 44,4 22,2

BH`s Telephone voting

MEDIA VOTES TOTAL

Internet 112.837 90,76%

Telephone 11.483 9,24%

Total 124.320 100%

Work Internet Telephone Total Av. José Cândido Silveira / Av. Andradas 10.442 1.298 11.740

Av. Pedro I com Av. Portugal 17.383 1.999 19.382

Av. Tereza Cristina com Anel Rodoviário 9.570 954 10.524

Portal Sul / Belvedere 33.008 927 33.935

Praça São Vicente com Anel Rodoviário 42.434 6.305 48.739

Total: 124.320

Recife`s case

Recife: 2,2 million people

SMS

La Plata – Argentina

Design matters: Governor Asks

Tag cloud leads to disparities Pairwise (120,000 votes to elect 50

proposals)RS population: 8 million

Risks

Light voters;- No interaction;

- No deliberation;

- Citizens don’t know/care about other regions; - Possibility of conflicts (region x region)

Accountability;

Visibility;

Range;

Easier to access and find information;

Civil society and citizens can use to monitor the government and demand more transparency;

Offers the opportunity of citizens to sign up to be observers.

Accountability

Transparency - Belo Horizonte vote by vote case

Monitoring

Watch PoA.

Development bussola

I like, I (take) care

PB networked (PB everywhere)

Some expectations

Increased efficiency / better allocation of resources

Increased tax revenue / reduction of tax

delinquency

Increased trust and improved implementation processes

Higher levels of government legitimacy and civil trust

In the end

Were citizens well-informed about the process?

Were more people involved?

Did the PB empower the citizens?

Could they follow up the process?

Did you have a democratic process?

So you designed the perfect e-Pb…

It may have problems though…

2006 2008 2011

PB 33643 44000 25488 NaN

e-PB 172938 124320 25378 NaN

10,000

50,000

90,000

130,000

170,000

Belo Horizonte`s PBs

Part

icip

an

ts

What has happened to Belo Horizonte?

Legal issues (public complaint: some people couldn`t vote)

Telephone voting was not allowed anymore;

Security levels were increased:a) 2 IDs to vote;b) Was necessary to have an email address;

The 2008 work was not delivered

Not municipality`s fault. Work was integrated to a greater project of federal government.

Most of population have not heard of this.

Second place work was realized by private initiative (counterpart).

Design does matter, but it is not everything.

References

Cases: http://www2.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/op/default.php http://opdigital.pbh.gov.br/ http://opdigital2011.pbh.gov.br/ http://gabinetedigital.rs.gov.br http://www2.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/op/default.php http://www.portoalegre.cc http://obras.curitiba.pr.gov.br/ http://www.presupuestoparticipativo.laplata.gov.ar/

Articles: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mjs3/governor-genro-tops-president-obama-citizen-feedb

ack-governer-asks-vs-open-questions/ http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/node/5998 http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/site/downloads/277_265_Case_Study_La_Plata.pdf http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/site/downloads/1324_303_Case_Study_Recife.pdf http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/site/downloads/241_304_Case_Study_Belo_Horizonte.p

df

http://democracyspot.net/ http://tiny.cc/pbmapping

Thank you.

@cardososampaio

cardososampaio@gmail.com