Inventing Local Democracy : : Grassroots Politics in Brazil / / Rebecca Neaera Abers.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Lynne Rienner Press Complete Archive eBook-Package Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Abers, Rebecca Neaera,
• MitwirkendeR: Neaera Abers, Rebecca,
• Place / Publishing House: Boulder : : Lynne Rienner Publishers, , [2022]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (274 p.)

Countless studies of citizen participation in public decisionmaking point out the limitations of direct democracy when it is transported from the realm of political theory into the "real world." In contrast, this book examines a case where an innovative city government gave major decisionmaking power to ordinary citizens on a large scale—and managed to survive and prosper. Since 1989, the government of Porto Alegre, Brazil, led by the Workers' Party, has implemented a participatory budget program that is becoming a model for policymakers worldwide. Each year in this regional capital of 1.3 million people, residents meet in their neighborhoods to determine budget priorities. Tens of thousands attend the annual budget assemblies. Nearly a thousand work as delegates year-round, and a popularly elected council has final say on all city spending. Inventing Local Democracy tells this dramatic story of a group of activists who came to power in a city long dominated by patronage politics and elite rule. At the same time, it is a sociopolitical study of the impact that state-sponsored participatory forums can have on civil society. Examining this dual transformation, Abers provides a groundbreaking contribution to the theory of participatory democracy.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: Participation, Empowerment, and State-Society Relations -- Part 1. Context -- 2. Urban Politics and Neighborhood Organizing in Brazil -- 3. Transforming Local Governance: The PT and the Challenges of Participation -- Part 2. From Ideals to Practice: Building Participatory Policy -- 4. Participation and Governability -- 5. Building Political Support -- Part 3. Integrating the Excluded -- 6. Who Participates? Inequality and the Participatory Budget Process -- 7. Mobilizing Neighborhoods -- Part 4. Emerging Political Capacities -- 8. From Clientelism to Cooperation: Strengthening Civic Organizations -- 9. Building “Enlarged Thinking” -- 10. Resisting Co-optation, Contesting Government Control -- Part 5. Conclusions -- 11. Overcoming the Dilemmas of Participatory Democracy -- Methodological Appendix -- Glossary of Portuguese Words and Phrases -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- References -- Index -- About the Book