Title : Unintentional Democratisation? The Argentinazo and the Politics of Participatory Budgeting in Buenos Aires, 2001-2004
Working Paper No : 61 (series 1)
Author(s) : Dennis Rodgers
Date : April 2005
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Abstract:
This paper presents an account of
the emergence of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, based on information collected during six months of
field research carried out in April-September 2003. The aim is
to trace the conditions and context within which this was
established. This is of particular interest in view of the fact
that PB in Buenos Aires was implemented in the midst of the
recent crisis known as the Argentinazo, which arguably
constituted an unlikely moment for its realisation. The paper
begins with some theoretical considerations concerning the
nature of empowered deliberative democracy in general,
highlighting the emerging consensus about the necessary presence
of strong programmatic political parties in order for such
initiatives to be effectively implemented, which points to the
importance of local political dynamics. Background to the crisis
in Argentina is then provided, in order to situate the context
within which PB was instituted and show how the conditions
theoretically needed for its emergence were effectively absent.
This is followed with a detailed account of the politics
surrounding PB in Buenos Aires, delineating the contours of its
‘political field’, and showing how and why different actors
within this field interacted with each other in relation to the
implementation and administration of PB during 2002-2004.
The main line of the paper's argument is that the Government of
Buenos Aires implemented PB as an improvised ‘top-down’ response
to the crisis of the Argentinazo, and that the different
parties involved had distinct, and often contradictory, reasons
for promoting or accepting the process, both initially and as it
unfolded, that did not necessarily coincide with the PB
process’s stated aims of extending citizen participation in
local governance. At the same time, the resulting constellation
of competing interests that came together did so at a particular
moment in time and in a unique context precipitated by the
Argentinazo that temporarily held them in check vis-à-vis
each other, and unintentionally created a space within which a
remarkably effective PB process was able to develop during
2002-2003. In many ways, the very context of crisis that led to
the establishment of PB in the first place was therefore key to
its successful implementation, to the extent that it could be
argued that “in the crisis lay the solution”, to what seemed
rather unpromising circumstances for PB to be established.
Subsequent shifts in the balance of political power have led to
the probably terminal decline of PB in Buenos Aires, however,
although certain factors eventually allow a faint glimmer of
hope for the future. The Buenos Aires case is important in that
it points to a different possible scenario for the successful
emergence and implementation of PB, while simultaneously
reaffirming some of the central insights of studies of other PB
processes and their sustainability.