Re-engaging Citizens in Europe and North America

Abstract

The spread of PB in the North Atlantic region (Europe, the United States, and Canada) is taking place as citizen apathy, declining trust, social exclusion, and growing inequalities spread in these wealthier democracies. By 2016, major cities such as New York City, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Toronto, and Seville adopted some form of PB. The national governments in Poland and Portugal now mandate some form of PB. The authors see significant institutional innovation in these PB processes as PB’s original rules have been reimagined to address different types of problems. New York City and Chicago initiated their PB programs at sub-municipal levels. Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona had adapted their PB programs to strongly emphasize online participation. At the broadest level, PB in Europe and North America is more heavily geared toward civic education and community empowerment than toward the redistribution of spending priorities. In some place PB remains a democratic institution that retains some of the radical features of the first wave but it is also a policymaking tool in other places, designed to generate government efficiencies. Most importantly, most programs retain the radical idea that a wide variety of citizens, especially those from politically weaker and more marginalized groups, should be directly involved in decision-making.