CIDADE – Urban Studies and Advisory Center has followed the varied spheres of Participatory Budgeting since its emergence. In this period, the relationships established with communities and municipal government representatives allowed for the accumulation of vast knowledge.

Among the innumerous works produced by the organization, the followings received special acknowledgment: the assembling of the “Participatory Budgeting Cycle”; the journal “De Olho no Orçamento” (Watching the Budget); the booklets “Desdobrando o Orçamento” (Unfolding the Budget) and “O Ciclo do OP”(The PB’s Cycle); the Report of CIDADE; researches on PB participants’ profile; training activities; weekly follow-up of the PB Council’s meetings, assemblies, and delegates’ forums; and the publishing of everything that happens with Porto Alegre’s PB on our website.

The Participatory Budgeting – implemented in Porto Alegre in 1989 – has been one the main democratization instruments of municipal administration. It functions with the direct participation of the population in the decision of priorities for public investments.

The process brought a new practice to the public management practice, breaking with the tradition of determining the city’s budget inside cabinets.

This experience allowed the construction of concepts and principles that serve as reference to similar experiments across the world, always taking into account local specificities.

We define PB as – a kind of “social contract” that operates as rights’ monitor and tool in the construction of a democratic public culture, in which standards of equality and justice inform the utilization of municipal resources.

The example of Porto Alegre shows a concrete possibility of building an active and qualified citizenship in public resources management, able to formulate propositions for the city. However, even though the PB has moved forward in the democratic perspective, through priorities that seek to overcome social exclusion, the process isn’t free of contradictions and the risk of becoming a manipulating tool. The consolidation of a participative culture effectively republican and democratic - as we can imagine, in a society with a strong tradition of authoritarianism and patronage - suffers constant threats of retrocession. Especially when the participatory process is made into a source of real power, as it has been Porto Alegre. Since it is mainly a co-management process, the PB demands the permanent democratization effort of both government and citizenship.

Citizens’ direct participation in the enlisting of their needs and prioritizing of public expenditure triggers a change in social and political relations; thus, making possible the rescue of popular sovereignty as basis for the government.

The Participatory Budgeting can become an important mechanism in society’s struggle against corruption and patronage. However, clear public procedures ought to be built within the structure to regulate the demand process. Otherwise, new forms of corruption may emerge, e.g. the cooptation of community leadership with offers of public employment or subcontracting for public services, and make the process merely a new form of domination. Popular autonomy is a necessary condition for co-management processes to work well.