Jaime Vasconez / Miguel Angel Bossano
International Urban Management Centre, CIGU
end of the decade of the eighties, some municipalities in Brazil's cities began pilot processes for citizens could participate directly in making decisions about the fate of some of the resources available in their institutional budgets.
Such processes, among which was marked from the beginning that of Porto Alegre, both by the hierarchy of that city as his radical experienciano were coincidental, but appropriate and well thought out initiatives to strengthen the rebirth of Brazilian democracy, after the difficult years of military dictatorship that South American country to suffer.
In short, these earlier initiatives were replicated in other Brazilian cities and also gradually municipalities have been imitated by other Latin American countries. At the beginning of this century, and some European cities have undertaken similar processes in their own localities. In a study conducted in 2004 and updated in 2005, a leading international specialist on the subject, Yves Cabannes, 2 analyzes twelve developing participatory budgeting processes in Brazilian cities, those who added another twelve cities in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and El Salvador also be significant will include six other processes at work in cities in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Germany. Such decisions
is also no coincidence. Among many other contributions, there is widespread perception that the participatory budget is a useful mechanism for strengthening social ties and to improve local governance by way of strengthening and invigorating democracy is a suitable procedure to deal poverty and social inequality and that, moreover, contributes significantly to promoting transparency in the management and accountability on the management of public resources and is, therefore, a mechanism to improve public sector performance, apart from which happens to be a good antidote against corruption.
is recognized that one of the virtues of participatory budgeting is its flexibility and ability to adapt to the realities of a variety of contexts: It is practiced equally in small rural or large urban centers, in the old, rich and consolidated European cities or in the recent, and extremely poor squatter settlements in the developing world. In fact, This can be attributed largely to the fact that this is not a finished theory or a doctrine under unrelenting standards, but rather a set of processes on a pilot basis, subject to a few common ground rules, which by the way the actors involved are able to change periodically from the lessons that generates and accumulates experience. One factor that virtue, at least in many Latin American countries is that in this region the autonomy of municipalities was soon recognized, from the colonial period itself and has established itself firmly in the institutional structure of the region. Indeed, it is common to Local governments in Latin American countries their ability to legislate, through regulations and local ordinances, the operation of the management of their jurisdictions, but usually also have to undergo the procedures and mechanisms for monitoring and exercising control over government bodies. According Cabannes (op.cit. 2005), the functioning of participatory budgeting in Brazilian cities is usually based on a simple rule, which issues and periodically adjust the municipality itself, apparently without requiring additional brackets have character legal or normative.
situation is different, as indicated Cabannes, in the English-American cities that have adopted participatory budgeting. In them, it seems inevitable to issue an order - together with the operating regulations for its implementation, which should be discussed and approved by the municipal legislative body to have legal force and effect within the municipality. This requirement is, apparently, essential not only to regulate the operation of the participatory budget process, as in Brazil, but also to confer legal validity.
addition, it also aims to provide future sustainability of the process, since an ordinance has the force of law in the local context and can only be repealed by a decision of the Municipal Legislature itself. Of thereby seeking to avoid a policy shift back foot municipal executive in the exercise of participatory budgeting, as has happened in some Brazilian cities, including, inter alia, of Sao Paulo.
It is true that the possibility of repealing an ordinance of the participatory budget, like any other, it is also possible and may be adopted, but presumably this has not happened so far, except in exceptional cases is the result of how costly it can be in political terms, to adopt a resolution to abolish the space for citizen participation. Possibly therefore, much more often adopt strategies that in practice do is to restrict and reduce the significance, magnitude and character of the participatory budget, but without deleting it altogether.
There is no record, at least until the present, that an intervention by a higher court or a government regulatory agency or national hierarchy control, have objected to the exercise of participatory budgeting for violating laws above. On the contrary, there are several cases in which citizen participation is explicitly recognized at the highest level, as in several of the constitutions of Latin American countries including, for example, Ecuador, a country in which the Law Municipal Organic Regime expressly provides that any functions of the State or other authorities outside the municipality, repeal, amend or suspend the execution of the ordinances, regulations, resolutions or decisions of local authorities, thereby confirming the degree of legal autonomy Held local governments.
In that respect, it differs clearly the case in Peru. During the government of President Fujimori, the country adopted a policy deeply centralist, with the pretext of eliminating political opposition, in practice settled municipal autonomy, reducing to a minimum skills, and municipal resources.
reaction, when this government term ended in 2003, the Congress discussed and approved a national law that determines that all provincial, district and city in the country should, on a mandatory basis, to make participatory processes for the approval of their institutional budgets .
In practice, this decision has generated several problems, but at least it's still applied. The experience accumulated in various precursors of PB municipalities in Peru (Villa el Salvador, Ilo, among others), the enthusiastic support of many NGOs, the formation of associative networks to advance the process, which are now grouped in the so-called "Red-Peru" and a notable production of texts conceptual, methodological, dissemination and training materials have allowed the country leads in quantitative terms, the exercise of participatory budgeting, more of processes at work in 1500.
is possible that this exceptional case can be replicated in the future in other countries.
In fact, many of the experiences that currently are in operation both in Latin America and in other regions, have been triggered by experiment, in restricted areas with limited resources, involving only part of the municipal powers, only some of its operating units and only certain urban actors. Subsequently extracted and processed the lessons of these early trials, the processes of scale have changed, and thereafter a gradual way over several years, to cover the entire municipal territory, involving the entire population, impact on the whole - or at least a substantial part "of the budgetary resources available and consider all the skills and institutional responsibilities.
There is sufficient evidence to show that in many experiments, the same kind of logic has been implemented progressive growth from the institutional perspective, administrative, operational and judicial-legal.
Regarding the legal framework - legal, Latin America seems to have come to acquire a current prevalence of the practice of law which considers ideas such as those discussed in this text, ie citizen participation, participatory budgeting, accountability on the management of public resources, etc. in the first instance should be experienced in practice so they can become a thought then concrete and executable, which defines a line north or guidance to be followed. For such thinking is built on a consistent and coherent, that stream should therefore articulate in formulating those been studied from the theoretical point of view the subject to be operated, as well as those who have had the opportunity to develop in practice. A thought formed in this way, incorporating academic rigor and wealth of experience not only benefits from the wide range of specific approaches from multiple disciplines, but endorses all the creativity and innovation skills that are born of practice. Established
thus even the direction of thought, at first instance can be transformed into local policy and gradually turn into a state policy. The availability of an innovative public management and the budget participatory, for example, can be assumed as a substantive contribution to the performance of their duties by the authorities and local legislators when they are sufficiently perceptive and possess the political will to bring the structure of the entity in charge, engage in exercise all instances of the institutional and promoting development in the very heart of the community, to ensure the implementation of this policy.
Policies of this kind, developed in a clear, defined, well supported, structured, innovative thinking, inclusive and comprehensive, which have drawn lessons from experiments in turn give rise to legal standards consistent, enforceable and relevant, as part of the process of change and innovation in culture and promote it, rather than against it. The more inclusive than the process of formulating the legal framework, the closer will be successful and appropriate to meet the expectations and demands of the population.
In short, what this raises is that every statute must be born at the end of an inclusive process of experiments and theoretical thought construction and should be incorporated into the social culture, which contributes to reinforcing. Such guidance is especially necessary when it comes, as in this case, a culture that fosters citizen participation in decision making on the administration of public resources. From this perspective, the statute must become the trigger for the cultural, political and institutional needs the whole society for development and, moreover, also is at its most solid foundation and guarantee of permanence, as it brings what is one of the fundamental principles of legal certainty.
For now, most Latin American civic participation in general is raised in a scattered set of rules, some of which are explicitly enshrined in the very constitution of each country, but that was never submitted to systematic and targeted manner, except in exceptional cases such as the aforementioned Law of Participatory Budgeting of the Republic of Peru.
Indeed, in many Latin American Constitutions in force in establishing the political rights of citizens, among which mention the right to elect and be elected, to submit bills to the national legislative bodies, to be consulted; to monitor acts of the organs of political power to revoke the mandate conferred on elected dignitaries, etc. These provisions constitute the underlying constitutional support mechanisms from the perspective of citizen participation legal.
Also, while the constitutional requirements of the countries of the Region have set the exercise of democracy as the right of citizens to vote and run for or be elected to various dignitaries - in some cases conditional on the possibility of the need to be a member or at least have the sponsorship of a recognized political party-until relatively recently, not clarified or alluded to alternative forms of exercise participation, apart from involving the election of officers.
As for local or sectional, is too recent in its legislation in Latin America to incorporate specific rules to determine ways social control and accountability of these entities and authorities.
Even in cases where there are no explicit legal provisions for the establishment of accountability systems, there are municipalities that have issued orders that contain interesting mechanisms to realize these principles, even though within the conventional legal logic, to issue local ordinances, which are legal instruments of regulatory hierarchy, is required prior existence of a general law, which is based on local regulations.
is obvious that those municipalities that have developed participatory processes that involve citizens in making decisions about the use of public resources, are those which have reached more deeply into the search for appropriate mechanisms for accountability. But others, who are the majority, they simply welcome the fact that the absence of an express legal rule, can not issue orders to enable the application of a process of accountability.
international conventions, such as the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, which are signatory countries of the region, or as the UN Convention itself, provide for the obligation of subscribing States to establish, maintain and strengthen mechanisms to encourage participation civil society and NGOs in efforts to prevent corruption.
This is what has been termed social control, namely the incorporation of civil society - in the opposite direction to the political society - a supervision and control of public management. In the study "Obligations arising from the ratification of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption: An analysis for implementation by the States - Parties" states that to effectively incorporate the public in the fight against corruption requires, inter alia, mechanisms such as:
- Recognition and proper regulation of the right of citizens to access information inherent in state management.
- Establishment of accountability to the public imposed on public officials, especially those elected.
- Law and civic duty to report acts of administrative corruption on the part of every citizen.
- Legal Institutionalization of intermediate bodies, through which channel the democratic participation of citizens in control of administrative corruption.
- sufficient guarantees of freedom of the media to report facts concerning the management and public control, to make viable the exercise of social control.
In the absence of other laws, local legislators may be based on such considerations to issue local regulations that facilitate the institutionalization of citizen participation in local governance, restoring and deepening practices are not alien to the nature of their duties and allow them to maintain a direct and permanent contact with the public.
In this regard, municipalities have the right conditions and usually incorporate into their daily activities, various procedures for hearing the demands of the community to consult and collect their views on issues that are of interest and to incorporate those views in planning and implementing policies, programs, projects and management of own municipality. But they are still relatively few have established procedures for citizen participation beyond the level advisory and exercise for decision making and social control over the management of the municipal budget.
However, another condition that possess favorable local governments is the extent of their capacity for experimentation and innovation practices, which are derived from the changing and dynamic reality that generally exists in local contexts.
a result, these institutions possess a degree of flexibility much broader than that found in other areas of public sector and therefore can test new procedures, change their own structures and make changes in their legal frameworks, with a view to test and verify, in reality concrete forms of exercising that deepen democracy and the radicalization, legitimizing their own performance in the social context.
In this perspective, beyond that national regulations can be scattered and still contain a number of conceptual shortcomings that limit its practical application, local governments and legislators are better positioned to create the conditions and progress on the road develop legal frameworks consistent and uniform, from the legal viewpoint, processes such as participatory budgeting, through which we can build more democratic societies from the political point of view, more equitable and inclusive, from the point of socially.
International Urban Management Centre, CIGU
end of the decade of the eighties, some municipalities in Brazil's cities began pilot processes for citizens could participate directly in making decisions about the fate of some of the resources available in their institutional budgets.
Such processes, among which was marked from the beginning that of Porto Alegre, both by the hierarchy of that city as his radical experienciano were coincidental, but appropriate and well thought out initiatives to strengthen the rebirth of Brazilian democracy, after the difficult years of military dictatorship that South American country to suffer.
In short, these earlier initiatives were replicated in other Brazilian cities and also gradually municipalities have been imitated by other Latin American countries. At the beginning of this century, and some European cities have undertaken similar processes in their own localities. In a study conducted in 2004 and updated in 2005, a leading international specialist on the subject, Yves Cabannes, 2 analyzes twelve developing participatory budgeting processes in Brazilian cities, those who added another twelve cities in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and El Salvador also be significant will include six other processes at work in cities in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Germany. Such decisions
is also no coincidence. Among many other contributions, there is widespread perception that the participatory budget is a useful mechanism for strengthening social ties and to improve local governance by way of strengthening and invigorating democracy is a suitable procedure to deal poverty and social inequality and that, moreover, contributes significantly to promoting transparency in the management and accountability on the management of public resources and is, therefore, a mechanism to improve public sector performance, apart from which happens to be a good antidote against corruption.
is recognized that one of the virtues of participatory budgeting is its flexibility and ability to adapt to the realities of a variety of contexts: It is practiced equally in small rural or large urban centers, in the old, rich and consolidated European cities or in the recent, and extremely poor squatter settlements in the developing world. In fact, This can be attributed largely to the fact that this is not a finished theory or a doctrine under unrelenting standards, but rather a set of processes on a pilot basis, subject to a few common ground rules, which by the way the actors involved are able to change periodically from the lessons that generates and accumulates experience. One factor that virtue, at least in many Latin American countries is that in this region the autonomy of municipalities was soon recognized, from the colonial period itself and has established itself firmly in the institutional structure of the region. Indeed, it is common to Local governments in Latin American countries their ability to legislate, through regulations and local ordinances, the operation of the management of their jurisdictions, but usually also have to undergo the procedures and mechanisms for monitoring and exercising control over government bodies. According Cabannes (op.cit. 2005), the functioning of participatory budgeting in Brazilian cities is usually based on a simple rule, which issues and periodically adjust the municipality itself, apparently without requiring additional brackets have character legal or normative.
situation is different, as indicated Cabannes, in the English-American cities that have adopted participatory budgeting. In them, it seems inevitable to issue an order - together with the operating regulations for its implementation, which should be discussed and approved by the municipal legislative body to have legal force and effect within the municipality. This requirement is, apparently, essential not only to regulate the operation of the participatory budget process, as in Brazil, but also to confer legal validity.
addition, it also aims to provide future sustainability of the process, since an ordinance has the force of law in the local context and can only be repealed by a decision of the Municipal Legislature itself. Of thereby seeking to avoid a policy shift back foot municipal executive in the exercise of participatory budgeting, as has happened in some Brazilian cities, including, inter alia, of Sao Paulo.
It is true that the possibility of repealing an ordinance of the participatory budget, like any other, it is also possible and may be adopted, but presumably this has not happened so far, except in exceptional cases is the result of how costly it can be in political terms, to adopt a resolution to abolish the space for citizen participation. Possibly therefore, much more often adopt strategies that in practice do is to restrict and reduce the significance, magnitude and character of the participatory budget, but without deleting it altogether.
There is no record, at least until the present, that an intervention by a higher court or a government regulatory agency or national hierarchy control, have objected to the exercise of participatory budgeting for violating laws above. On the contrary, there are several cases in which citizen participation is explicitly recognized at the highest level, as in several of the constitutions of Latin American countries including, for example, Ecuador, a country in which the Law Municipal Organic Regime expressly provides that any functions of the State or other authorities outside the municipality, repeal, amend or suspend the execution of the ordinances, regulations, resolutions or decisions of local authorities, thereby confirming the degree of legal autonomy Held local governments.
In that respect, it differs clearly the case in Peru. During the government of President Fujimori, the country adopted a policy deeply centralist, with the pretext of eliminating political opposition, in practice settled municipal autonomy, reducing to a minimum skills, and municipal resources.
reaction, when this government term ended in 2003, the Congress discussed and approved a national law that determines that all provincial, district and city in the country should, on a mandatory basis, to make participatory processes for the approval of their institutional budgets .
In practice, this decision has generated several problems, but at least it's still applied. The experience accumulated in various precursors of PB municipalities in Peru (Villa el Salvador, Ilo, among others), the enthusiastic support of many NGOs, the formation of associative networks to advance the process, which are now grouped in the so-called "Red-Peru" and a notable production of texts conceptual, methodological, dissemination and training materials have allowed the country leads in quantitative terms, the exercise of participatory budgeting, more of processes at work in 1500.
is possible that this exceptional case can be replicated in the future in other countries.
In fact, many of the experiences that currently are in operation both in Latin America and in other regions, have been triggered by experiment, in restricted areas with limited resources, involving only part of the municipal powers, only some of its operating units and only certain urban actors. Subsequently extracted and processed the lessons of these early trials, the processes of scale have changed, and thereafter a gradual way over several years, to cover the entire municipal territory, involving the entire population, impact on the whole - or at least a substantial part "of the budgetary resources available and consider all the skills and institutional responsibilities.
There is sufficient evidence to show that in many experiments, the same kind of logic has been implemented progressive growth from the institutional perspective, administrative, operational and judicial-legal.
Regarding the legal framework - legal, Latin America seems to have come to acquire a current prevalence of the practice of law which considers ideas such as those discussed in this text, ie citizen participation, participatory budgeting, accountability on the management of public resources, etc. in the first instance should be experienced in practice so they can become a thought then concrete and executable, which defines a line north or guidance to be followed. For such thinking is built on a consistent and coherent, that stream should therefore articulate in formulating those been studied from the theoretical point of view the subject to be operated, as well as those who have had the opportunity to develop in practice. A thought formed in this way, incorporating academic rigor and wealth of experience not only benefits from the wide range of specific approaches from multiple disciplines, but endorses all the creativity and innovation skills that are born of practice. Established
thus even the direction of thought, at first instance can be transformed into local policy and gradually turn into a state policy. The availability of an innovative public management and the budget participatory, for example, can be assumed as a substantive contribution to the performance of their duties by the authorities and local legislators when they are sufficiently perceptive and possess the political will to bring the structure of the entity in charge, engage in exercise all instances of the institutional and promoting development in the very heart of the community, to ensure the implementation of this policy.
Policies of this kind, developed in a clear, defined, well supported, structured, innovative thinking, inclusive and comprehensive, which have drawn lessons from experiments in turn give rise to legal standards consistent, enforceable and relevant, as part of the process of change and innovation in culture and promote it, rather than against it. The more inclusive than the process of formulating the legal framework, the closer will be successful and appropriate to meet the expectations and demands of the population.
In short, what this raises is that every statute must be born at the end of an inclusive process of experiments and theoretical thought construction and should be incorporated into the social culture, which contributes to reinforcing. Such guidance is especially necessary when it comes, as in this case, a culture that fosters citizen participation in decision making on the administration of public resources. From this perspective, the statute must become the trigger for the cultural, political and institutional needs the whole society for development and, moreover, also is at its most solid foundation and guarantee of permanence, as it brings what is one of the fundamental principles of legal certainty.
For now, most Latin American civic participation in general is raised in a scattered set of rules, some of which are explicitly enshrined in the very constitution of each country, but that was never submitted to systematic and targeted manner, except in exceptional cases such as the aforementioned Law of Participatory Budgeting of the Republic of Peru.
Indeed, in many Latin American Constitutions in force in establishing the political rights of citizens, among which mention the right to elect and be elected, to submit bills to the national legislative bodies, to be consulted; to monitor acts of the organs of political power to revoke the mandate conferred on elected dignitaries, etc. These provisions constitute the underlying constitutional support mechanisms from the perspective of citizen participation legal.
Also, while the constitutional requirements of the countries of the Region have set the exercise of democracy as the right of citizens to vote and run for or be elected to various dignitaries - in some cases conditional on the possibility of the need to be a member or at least have the sponsorship of a recognized political party-until relatively recently, not clarified or alluded to alternative forms of exercise participation, apart from involving the election of officers.
As for local or sectional, is too recent in its legislation in Latin America to incorporate specific rules to determine ways social control and accountability of these entities and authorities.
Even in cases where there are no explicit legal provisions for the establishment of accountability systems, there are municipalities that have issued orders that contain interesting mechanisms to realize these principles, even though within the conventional legal logic, to issue local ordinances, which are legal instruments of regulatory hierarchy, is required prior existence of a general law, which is based on local regulations.
is obvious that those municipalities that have developed participatory processes that involve citizens in making decisions about the use of public resources, are those which have reached more deeply into the search for appropriate mechanisms for accountability. But others, who are the majority, they simply welcome the fact that the absence of an express legal rule, can not issue orders to enable the application of a process of accountability.
international conventions, such as the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, which are signatory countries of the region, or as the UN Convention itself, provide for the obligation of subscribing States to establish, maintain and strengthen mechanisms to encourage participation civil society and NGOs in efforts to prevent corruption.
This is what has been termed social control, namely the incorporation of civil society - in the opposite direction to the political society - a supervision and control of public management. In the study "Obligations arising from the ratification of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption: An analysis for implementation by the States - Parties" states that to effectively incorporate the public in the fight against corruption requires, inter alia, mechanisms such as:
- Recognition and proper regulation of the right of citizens to access information inherent in state management.
- Establishment of accountability to the public imposed on public officials, especially those elected.
- Law and civic duty to report acts of administrative corruption on the part of every citizen.
- Legal Institutionalization of intermediate bodies, through which channel the democratic participation of citizens in control of administrative corruption.
- sufficient guarantees of freedom of the media to report facts concerning the management and public control, to make viable the exercise of social control.
In the absence of other laws, local legislators may be based on such considerations to issue local regulations that facilitate the institutionalization of citizen participation in local governance, restoring and deepening practices are not alien to the nature of their duties and allow them to maintain a direct and permanent contact with the public.
In this regard, municipalities have the right conditions and usually incorporate into their daily activities, various procedures for hearing the demands of the community to consult and collect their views on issues that are of interest and to incorporate those views in planning and implementing policies, programs, projects and management of own municipality. But they are still relatively few have established procedures for citizen participation beyond the level advisory and exercise for decision making and social control over the management of the municipal budget.
However, another condition that possess favorable local governments is the extent of their capacity for experimentation and innovation practices, which are derived from the changing and dynamic reality that generally exists in local contexts.
a result, these institutions possess a degree of flexibility much broader than that found in other areas of public sector and therefore can test new procedures, change their own structures and make changes in their legal frameworks, with a view to test and verify, in reality concrete forms of exercising that deepen democracy and the radicalization, legitimizing their own performance in the social context.
In this perspective, beyond that national regulations can be scattered and still contain a number of conceptual shortcomings that limit its practical application, local governments and legislators are better positioned to create the conditions and progress on the road develop legal frameworks consistent and uniform, from the legal viewpoint, processes such as participatory budgeting, through which we can build more democratic societies from the political point of view, more equitable and inclusive, from the point of socially.
