Some toughts on the values of participatory budgetings and how TIC can foster these values. There are some examples of e-participatory budgetings in Brazil.

1. E-PBs: examples from Brazil
RAFAEL CARDOSO SAMPAIO
VISITING SCHOLAR UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS (UK)
PHD CANDIDATE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF BAHIA
(BR)

2. PB is worldwide

3. How ICTs can help?
 Direct, fast, cheap communication;
 Can be anonimous and many-to-many;
 Potential universal acces (less restrictions in terms of
time and space);
 Less filters or control;
 Potentially infinite data bank (information);
 People can produce their own content.

4. How can they hinder?
 Digital Divide;
 Excessive commerciatilization;
 Surveillance;
 Hate speeches;
 Overload of information;
 Overload de informação;
 Like-minded groups and individuals;
 There are still visibility centres.
 Even so, people are not participating more.

5. It is not about technology
 Design matters, technology helps...
 But Pb or e-PB is about citizens deciding in a
deliberative way how to invest part of the budget
with the help/partnership of governmental actors.
 There are several channels to allow that: ICT in one
way to go.
 Or yet: design matters, Technologies matter, but
people are the most important part.

6. The real questions should be:
 Is my participatory budgeting process truly
democratic?
 Is it inclusive?
 Is it equalitarian?
 Does it make the citizens better informed?
 Does it make the government more
accountable?
 Does it empower the citizen?

7. Three values
 Information
 Participation
 Accountability

8. Different citizens, different profiles

9. Two very different profiles
ACTUALIZING CITIZEN (AC) DUTIFUL CITIZEN (DC)
Diminished sense of government Obligation to participate in government
obligation – higher sense of individual centered activities
purpose
Voting is less meaningful than other, Voting is the core democratic act
more personally defined acts such as
consumerism, community volunteering,
or transnational activism
Mistrust of media and politicians is Becomes informed about issues and
reinforced by negative mass media government by following mass media
environment
Favor loose networks of community Joins civil society organizations or
action – often established or sustained expresses interests through parties that
through friendships and peer relations typically employ one-way conventional
and thin social ties maintained by communication to mobilize supporters
interactive information technologies

10. E-citizens profiles

11. Information

12. Information
 How to organize/display the information?
 Are there searching engines for finding information?
 How much information?
But the true question is: Information for whom?

13. Belo Horizonte`s solution
 Make it simple

16. Porto Alegre`s solution
 Give them whatever (or how much) they wish for.
Information by:
- Year;
- Governmental institution;
- Region
- Theme/issue
- Etc.

18. Mix them
 Different levels of information for different profiles;
 Basic and enough information for not so interested
citizens;
 Technical and complex information for hyper
engaged citizens.

19. Dangers:
 Too few information = misinformed and disengaged
citizen;
 Overload of information = people
don`t know how much they should
read or look for.
 Citizens can`t find the
information they need.

20. Let them know!
 Web 2.0 provides the chances of information to
knock citizens` doors:
 RSS;
 E-mail alerts (interests, issues);
 Newsletter;
 SMS (Belo Horizonte and Ipatinga);
 Social Network Sites.

21. Let them share!

22. Allow them to join!

24. Participation
 How/When do citizens participate?
 Engagement/Mobilization x Participation
 Agenda-setting
 Deliberation
 e-voting

25. Engagement/Mobilization
 Traditional ways (face-to-face; advertisement; media
coverage).
 Online ways:
 Experts (Communication) in charge of SNS profiles;
 Let real people to join the process.
 Give them real incentives to do it.

27. Governor Asks
 How can we improve our
services?
-Submission of proposals
 The authors of the 50 most
voted suggestions have had
the chance of meeting the
governor and discussing
the proposals.

28. Make the website interesting.

29. Agenda-Setting
 Ipatinga
 2001: grow of 44,6% of proposals (from 723 works, 17%
through website).
 2002: grow of 166% (from 1927 proposals, 70% were
made online);
 2003: grow of 125% (from 4,300 proposals, 96% online).
 Porto Alegre
 2001: online proposals: 600 em
 2002:193
 2003: 100.

30. Agenda-Setting
 Sometimes people wish to decide the subject of the
participatory venue;
 Setting the agenda may be even more important than
final decision.
 Few examples if any in Brazil.

31. Governor Answers
 What do you want do know about?

32. Deliberation
 Discussion whatever wherever whenever you want;
- synchronous (e.g. by voice) or asynchronous;
 Online Forums, chats or online synchronous tools
(e.g. skype, MSN, Gtalk), comments tools, social
networking sites;
 Potentially not a limit to number of people involved.

33. Deliberation
2006: 900 messages; 2008: 850; 2011: 1200

34. Collaboration

35. Geo-localization of works or demands

36. Citizens can help in different ways.

37. Risks
 Flaming wars;
 Like-minded people;
 Excluding the poorest;
 Redundancy.
 People don’t care.

38. Digital Inclusion
Belo Horizonte: 173
official voting
places.
Recife: 17 electronic
ballots

39. E-voting
 Zone of convenience;
 Creating mechanisms that make sense for youth
(they research online, look for news; buy goods, talk
to friends, but can’t participate online?);
 Involving new people who would not participate in
face to face PB;
- We may not need only the dutiful citizen;

40. E-Voting
 Belo Horizonte (population 2,500 million)
 2006: 36 pre-selected works, 9 approved
 2008: 5 pre-selected works, 1 approved
 2011: 36 pre-selected works, 9 approved
Version 2006 offline 2006 online 2008 offline 2008 online
Participants 33.643 172.938 44.000 124.320
Budget (US$ million) 44,4 11,1 44,4 22,2

41. BH`s Telephone voting
MEDIA VOTES TOTAL
Internet 112.837 90,76%
Telephone 11.483 9,24%
Total 124.320 100%
Work Internet Telephone Total
Av. José Cândido Silveira / Av. Andradas 10.442 1.298 11.740
Av. Pedro I com Av. Portugal 17.383 1.999 19.382
Av. Tereza Cristina com Anel Rodoviário 9.570 954 10.524
Portal Sul / Belvedere 33.008 927 33.935
Praça São Vicente com Anel Rodoviário 42.434 6.305 48.739
Total: 124.320

42. Recife`s case
Recife: 2,2 million people

44. SMS
 La Plata – Argentina

45. Design matters: Governor Asks
 Tag cloud leads to disparities
 Pairwise (120,000 votes to elect 50 proposals)
 RS population: 8 million

46. Risks
 Light voters;
- No interaction;
- No deliberation;
- Citizens don’t know/care about other regions;
- Possibility of conflicts (region x region)

47. Accountability;
 Visibility;
 Range;
 Easier to access and find information;
 Civil society and citizens can use to monitor the
government and demand more transparency;
 Offers the opportunity of citizens to sign up to be
observers.

48. Accountability
 Transparency - Belo Horizonte vote by vote case

49. Monitoring

51. Watch PoA.

52. Development bussola

53. I like, I (take) care

54. PB networked (PB everywhere)

55. Some expectations
 Increased efficiency / better allocation of resources
 Increased tax revenue / reduction of tax delinquency
 Increased trust and improved implementation
processes
 Higher levels of government legitimacy and civil
trust

56. In the end
 Were citizens well-informed about the process?
 Were more people involved?
 Did the PB empower the citizens?
 Could they follow up the process?
 Did you have a democratic process?

57. So you designed the perfect e-Pb…
 It may have problems though…
Belo Horizonte`s PBs
200,000
180,000
160,000
Participants
140,000
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
2006 2008 2011
PB 33,643 44,000 25,488
e-PB 172,93 124,32 25,378

58. What has happened to Belo Horizonte?
 Legal issues (public complaint: some people
couldn`t vote)
 Telephone voting was not allowed anymore;
 Security levels were increased:
a) 2 IDs to vote;
b) Was necessary to have an email address;

59. The 2008 work was not delivered
 Not municipality`s fault. Work was integrated to a
greater project of federal government.
 Most of population have not heard of this.
 Second place work was realized by private initiative
(counterpart).
 Design does matter, but it is not everything.

60. References
 Cases:
 http://www2.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/op/default.php
 http://opdigital.pbh.gov.br/
 http://opdigital2011.pbh.gov.br/
 http://gabinetedigital.rs.gov.br
 http://www2.portoalegre.rs.gov.br/op/default.php
 http://www.portoalegre.cc
 http://obras.curitiba.pr.gov.br/
 http://www.presupuestoparticipativo.laplata.gov.ar/
 Articles:
 https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mjs3/governor-genro-tops-president-obama-citizen-
feedback-governer-asks-vs-open-questions/
 http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/node/5998
 http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/site/downloads/277_265_Case_Study_La_Plata.pdf
 http://www.vitalizing-democracy.org/site/downloads/1324_303_Case_Study_Recife.pdf
 http://www.vitalizing-
democracy.org/site/downloads/241_304_Case_Study_Belo_Horizonte.pdf
 http://democracyspot.net/
 http://tiny.cc/pbmapping

61. Thank you.
 @cardososampaio
 cardososampaio@gmail.com