On December 14, People Powered will release an extensive review of national laws governing the use of participatory budgeting (PB). The report explores 11 country case studies to explain the conditions that led to adoption, their differing types, and what--if anything--we know about their impact. To whet your appetite with a bit of the “back story” behind the report, Pam Bailey, the People Powered communications director, interviewed the report’s two primary authors, Stephanie McNulty and Won No--both members of the Global PB Research Board.

What inspired the analysis that led to this report?

Won No: It came out of the discussion during the first meeting of the Global PB Research Board in Mexico City in 2019. We came together for a two-day workshop to decide what we wanted to achieve together, and we had the opportunity to propose projects we’d like to work on.

Stephanie McNulty: We started generating ideas, and there was a lot of interest in assessing the extent to which national laws were being used to mandate or incentivize PB, and what impact those laws were having.

Won and I had done the most research on PB at the national level, each of us in different countries, so we volunteered to take the lead. For me, my focus has been on Peru, which was the first to adopt a national law governing PB.

Won: I’m from South Korea, so I’ve focused my research there. It was sort of inevitable for South Korea to take the national-law approach, because this country codifies everything. Even at the local level, implementation of virtually every activity is governed by some kind of ordinance or decree.

As you led this very extensive analysis, what was the biggest “aha” learning for each of you?

Stephanie: I had a bunch of “ahas,” partly because we've been saying we wanted to do this research for a really long time, but we hadn't gotten around to it. One of mine was that about half of the PB programs around the world today are in countries with national laws. I hadn’t realized just how many national PB laws there are when we started this research. I also didn’t realize how many different kinds of national PB laws have developed. In addition, while I knew there isn’t very much impact data out there, this research brought home to me that we don't really know what's working and what's not.

Won: I agree. Before launching this project, I knew national laws had been adopted in a few other countries, like Peru and the Dominican Republic, but not to what extent. Plus, I only knew in depth about South Korea’s approach, via a national finance law. I hadn’t thought there could be so many different, creative ways to make it happen, like via the national planning process.

Stephanie: I spoke to people in Colombia, Scotland, Kenya...It just really brought to life the different experiences and ways that PB is institutionalized.

What do you think should be the biggest takeaways for readers? How do you hope or think this report will be practically used?

Won: It'd be great if they use this report to identify a context similar to the situation in their own countries, so they can consider whether this type of law would fit and be effective. It would also be good if they read this report and realize that some aspects of such a law would need to be different for their context. (Laughs) Really, one of the conclusions from this report is, “it depends!” I would really like to recommend that readers think about what their country already has, what challenges they face, which of the case studies we offer are similar, and even what they can learn from the differences.

Stephanie: This report makes clear that there are many ways to [institutionalize PB]; there's no one best or worst way. To me, what seems to be most important is having a really clear understanding of why this is a direction that a country wants and then setting up a process to achieve those goals. So, for example, if your primary objective is to ensure more transparent local spending, then just having a law isn't as important as the process it creates.

Stephanie, you’re one of the authors of “Participatory Budgeting in Global Perspective,” and one of your conclusions in that book is that there is a tension between institutionalizing government support for PB, which is why many national laws are passed, and the lack of local buy-in that often results from imposing it from “on high.” How do you balance these two imperatives?

Stephanie: Most of this report on national PB laws was written after publication of the book, which questioned the effectiveness of national laws. This latest analysis offers more nuance to that discussion. One of the new conclusions is that incentivizing PB via national law is probably more productive than mandating that every local government do it. The report offers lots of examples of incentives, with some working better than others in different places.

The other important consideration is to build in flexibility and give local leaders enough autonomy to create a process that makes sense in their city or area. The more restrictive and rigid the law, the less likely it is to be maximally useful or successful.

Won: It's a dilemma. Because if local leaders are not in favor of increasing citizen participation, then giving them autonomy could have a very negative influence as long as they are in their jobs. For example, when Seoul got a new mayor this year, he announced he would cut a big chunk of the budget allocated to participatory budgeting and focus more on infrastructure projects. That isn’t really fostering citizen participation or participatory governance. Of course, the status of the national law itself also can change when a new president comes in. It's challenging. It seems like the key is still politicians' willingness.

To what extent do you think public support for PB is important, vs. the whims of politicians? In other words, if PB becomes entrenched within public opinion, does that offer a level of protection?

Won: To expect that to happen, participatory budgeting would have to be really absorbed into community life. For example, even though participatory budgeting has been implemented for more than 15 years in South Korea, awareness is usually still pretty low, with only a small portion of citizens participating in the process. It takes a long time to make it something habitual and expected in their life.

That reinforces another conclusion from Stephanie’s book, that it's equally important to build the strength of CSOs that will push for the institutionalization and spread of PB, so it will engage a larger number of people. What else is imperative?

Stephanie: We really do need to do more research on how well these laws are working and what kind of outcomes they're generating. It's good that we documented the extent to which these laws exist, how they evolved and that there's a lot of variation. But to really make a difference in the lives of citizens and in local spending, it would be best if we knew how well PB is working in the different countries. There's so much more we need to know.

Do any of these laws mandate that impact be evaluated on an ongoing basis?

Stephanie: The Brazilian government doesn’t have a law, but it was really interested in evaluation, so it was built into the PB process. But most places do not evaluate at all.

Won: That’s not just because of the cost. It’s also because teasing out whether participatory budgeting is having any impact is really challenging.

Stephanie: I think it's cost and capacity. In New York City, they have a research corps that has created indicators and gathered data. And they did that from the very beginning. That’s partly because there's so many universities and people who have the capacity. In contrast, in Peru, there just isn't capacity and, right now at least, not even the interest.

Won: It would be difficult to mandate evaluation, but it would perhaps be possible to at least mandate monitoring the process, to record if it is indeed implemented and what happens afterward. That would be super helpful.

Stephanie: Actually, it’s not just money and capacity. It’s also access to the information. I have joined with another Global PB Research Board member, Jared Abbott, to look at impact in Peru. They had collected data on every single PB process over the last 10 years, but it had not been available to researchers. Now, thanks to improved access to information and data transparency, it is. So, Jared developed a way to download all the data, which took a ton of time. And we've been able to look at outcomes.

Should international donors, then, focus more on funding and technical assistance for evaluation?

Stephanie: That’s a question for every international program, unfortunately. How do you allocate limited funds? But yes, what we've been saying on the Global PB Research Board is that we really need large-scale impact evaluations, and that means funding for it.

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Q&A on National PB Laws: New Report Documents What Works, What Doesn’t and What We Don’t Know

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