[Nettime-bold] Participatory budgeting... an alternative to wickedneoliberalism

["h.d.mabuse" <mabuse@cesar.org.br>]

>Cities For People
>
>http://www.redpepper.org.uk/intarch/xcities.html
>
>Daniel Chavez describes how two experiments in participatory democracy have
>transformed the political culture in Brazil and Uruguay
>
>  The participatory politics of the PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers'
>  Party) in Brazil and the FA, Frente Amplio (Broad Front) in Uruguay has
>  transformed the corrupt, wasteful municipal government of South
>  America. These experiments in determining local budgets through
>  extensive citizen involvement and in decentralising the administration of
>  services provide a laboratory from which the left can learn how to
>  govern in a new way.
>
>  Decentralisation and participatory budgeting challenge neoliberalism.
>  They increase the accountability of local government and introduce
>  decision making and negotiation from below in place of the traditional
>  centralised and secretive process. This model seeks to transform
>  powerless urban residents who, after decades of authoritarianism were
>  used only to casting an obligatory vote every five years, into active
>  subjects with growing power over the decisions that affect their daily
>  lives.
>
>  In the cities of Montevideo and Porto Alegre, left parties have
>  reorganised the local state to play a co-ordinating and faciliating role in
>  the process. Such progressive local governments face a double
>  challenge. They must be effective and efficient in providing basic urban
>  services and administering financial resources; they also have the goal
>  of overthrowing repressive decision making systems.
>
>  Participatory budgeting and decentralisation to sub-municipal districts
>  are underway in some 80 cities of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina where
>  progressive parties hold office. Guided by the values of the PT and the
>  FA, they are not mere imitations of what has been done in Montevideo
>  and Porto Alegre but are a response to the political realities of each
>  location.
>
>  Montevideo and Porto Alegre have similar economies and social
>  structures, and both are closer to European cities than those of Latin
>  America. Before the collapse of the Brazilian currency last January, the
>  per capita income in the two cities was above US$6,000. Both cities
>  have high literacy rates.
>
> >unquote<


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold