Politics of Participatory Budgeting Adoption: A Comparative Study of Popular Control in Solo and Porto Alegre = 참여예산입양의 정치: Solo와 Porto Alegre의 대중적 통제에 관한 비교연구

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Participatory budgeting has been imitated by more than 2,000 cities throughout the world since its initial success in Porto Alegre. However, most of the imitators, including Solo in Indonesia, has failed to replicate the impact that the original initiator has – especially in the aspect of popular control. The initiator has been lauded because it gives citizens greater decision-making power, while the imitator limits citizens roles in the process of the same program. This study aims to investigate the factors causing a different degree of popular control in the program of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and Solo. Following a neo-institutional framework, the thesis finds two explanations. First, decentralization that swept Brazil since 1988 has given Porto Alegre the financial freedom to fund the experimentation of participatory budgeting. Meanwhile, the same decentralization in Indonesia has made Solo financially dependent on central government’s transfer and the consequence is that the city does not have the necessary budget to fund the project. Second, Porto Alegre has a strong civil society, thanks to its long history of industrialization, to support the program and avoid elite capture. On the other hand, civil society in Solo is weak and dominated by elite-based organizations that were established during the country's authoritarian era. These findings challenge the notion of participatory budgeting’s replicability that has long been championed by the World Bank. It is also a warning for policy makers who attempt to replicate successful program by simply copy-pasting it into different context.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Participatory budgeting has been imitated by more than 2,000 cities throughout the world since its initial success in Porto Alegre. However, most of the imitators, including Solo in Indonesia, has failed to replicate the impact that the original initiator has – especially in the aspect of popular control. The initiator has been lauded because it gives citizens greater decision-making power, while the imitator limits citizens roles in the process of the same program. This study aims to investigate the factors causing a different degree of popular control in the program of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre and Solo. Following a neo-institutional framework, the thesis finds two explanations. First, decentralization that swept Brazil since 1988 has given Porto Alegre the financial freedom to fund the experimentation of participatory budgeting. Meanwhile, the same decentralization in Indonesia has made Solo financially dependent on central government’s transfer and the consequence is that the city does not have the necessary budget to fund the project. Second, Porto Alegre has a strong civil society, thanks to its long history of industrialization, to support the program and avoid elite capture. On the other hand, civil society in Solo is weak and dominated by elite-based organizations that were established during the country's authoritarian era. These findings challenge the notion of participatory budgeting’s replicability that has long been championed by the World Bank. It is also a warning for policy makers who attempt to replicate successful program by simply copy-pasting it into different context.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• CHAPTER I 1
• INTRODUCTION 1
• A. A Purpose of the Study 1
• B. A Scope of the Study and the Method 3
• CHAPTER II 5
• LITERATURE REVIEW AND INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH 5
• A. The Failure of Participatory Budgeting’s Institutional Mimicry 5
• 1) Popular Control and Participatory Budgeting 10
• 2) Argument for Neo-Institutionalism 12
• B. The Neo-Institutional Approach and its Limitation 12
• CHAPTER III 17
• ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING IN SOLO AND PORTO ALEGRE 17
• A. Participatory Budgeting in Solo 20
• 1) Solo’s Participatory Budgeting Mechanism 20
• 2) Solo: Spatial Context 27
• 3) Historical Development of Participatory Budgeting in Solo 33
• 4) Contextual Analysis of Participatory Budgeting in Solo 36
• a) Domination of civil organizations in Solo’s participatory budgeting 36
• b) Floating mass policy and its impact on Indonesian civic associations 38
• c) Indonesian civic organizations in the post-New Order era 40
• d) Civil organizations in Solo’s participatory budgeting: two cases 42
• e) The (dis)continuation of centralization: ceremonial practices of fiscal decentralization in the post-New Order 46
• B. Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre 49
• 1) Participatory Budgeting Mechanism in Porto Alegre 49
• 2) Porto Alegre: Spatial Context 53
• 3) Historical Development of Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre 54
• 4) Contextual Analysis of Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre 56
• a) Political context 56
• b) Financial context 57
• C. Comparison of Two Programs 58
• CHAPTER IV 61
• CONCLUSION 61
• REFERENCES 64