[nettime-lat] Participatory budgeting... an alternative to wickedneoliberalism

["h.d.mabuse" <mabuse {AT} 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<



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