Michael Touchton

Participatory budgeting (PB) empowers citizens to allocate portions of public budgets in a way that best fits the needs of the people. In turn, proponents expect PB to improve citizens’ lives in important ways, by expanding their participation in politics,…

Since its beginnings in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in the late 1980s, participatory budgeting (PB) has come a long way, both literally and figuratively. Today’s PB looks quite different from the original PB, which was created by a local civil society…

Participatory budgeting’s (PB) roots lie in a radical democratic project led by the leftist Workers’ Party in Porto Alegre, Brazil in the late 1980s. Radical democracy includes incorporating ordinary citizens into government decision-making priorities, an inversion that led governments to…