Citizen Participation in Budgeting and Beyond

The goal of this book is to bring together insights on theories and specific examples of deliberative practices, with a focus on participatory budgeting. A key inquiry in the realm of public policy is how to navigate the aspirations of democratic societies while effectively balancing centralized and decentralized decision-making processes.

Participatory budgeting represents one variant of deliberation in public life and its effectiveness is heavily reliant on the relationships between involved parties. These interactions are largely influenced by cultural contexts rather than just current practices, which makes them challenging to analyze thoroughly. This is because both conceptualizing the issues and developing appropriate research methods are complex tasks. Yet, these challenges also make this field one of the most promising areas for public policy research. The book aims to offer a partial exploration of these intricate dynamics.

Furthermore, the collection of articles within seeks to demonstrate that governance practices can play a significant role in fostering proactive public engagement in what is often referred to as civil democracy. We believe this study will shed light on these important issues.