Smart Governance: An Investigation into Participatory Budgeting Models

Abstract

Promoting public participation in urban processes has long been a key issue in discussions about urban governance. However, despite the advantages of more progressive and inclusive city governance, participatory budgeting (PB) often faces challenges to ensure collaboration between different city departments and involved residents. In some cases, residents are unsure about PB models’ transparency, other examples show the way NGOs use the model as a counterforce to central governance and thus local actors lack political and financial support. Moreover, uncertainty and restrictions imposed by the global pandemic in some way also impacted the realization of PB. This research aims to identify stakeholders in the participatory budgeting approach, describing opportunities and challenges of the organizational process and digital technologies as a means of enabling communication and collaboration between actors.