Reinventing Democracy in Latin America - Review Essay
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Review Essay
Reinventing Democracy in Latin America
Archon Fung
Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil. By Leonardo Avritzer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2009. 224p. $49.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.
Bootstrapping Democracy: Transforming Local Governance and Civil Society in Brazil. By Gianpaolo Baiocchi,
Patrick Heller, and Marcelo K. Silva. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. 224p. $65.00 cloth, $21.95 paper.
Participatory Innovation and Representative Democracy in Latin America. Edited by Andrew Selee and Enrique
Peruzzotti. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. 184p. $49.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.
Participatory Budgeting in Brazil: Contestation, Cooperation, and Accountability. By Brian Wampler. University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. 328p. $56.95 cloth, $28.00 paper.
Introduction of participatory democratic governance that confer con-
From time to time, a region of the world captures the trol over municipal investments, urban planning, health
attention of social scientists because people there achieve care, community development, and other areas of local
some important human value to an extent greater than public life.
the rest of us have managed to do. In the 1970s, the These four books complement each other to create a
Scandinavian and Northern European social democracies mosaic of the variation, potential, and limits of the partici- 䡬
earned the world’s envy for their remarkable accomplish- patory initiatives that have taken root in Brazil and else-
ments in equality, solidarity, and welfare. Accordingly, many where in Latin America over the past two decades.Therefore,
social scientists sought to understand the political and these volumes should interest not just—or even especially—
economic keys to their success.1 In the 1980s and 1990s, Latin Americanists but also scholars concerned with the
another tantalizing puzzle presented itself. How did the prospects for deepening democracy anywhere. Given the
East Asian “tigers” of the Pacific Rim—especially South challenges that face the political practices of the older North
Korea and Japan, but also Taiwan and Singapore—escape Atlantic representative democracies, understanding demo-
the double oppressions of poverty and predatory dictator- cratic innovations from Brazil and other developing coun-
ship that condemned billions in other low- and middle- tries is especially urgent.The legitimation crisis of American
income countries? The answers lay in rich accounts of the democracy, for instance, is quantified by public opinion polls
developmental state, industrial relations, and political econ- revealing that very large majorities feel that the nation “is
omy more broadly.2 run by a few big interests looking out for themselves,” rather
In a similar vein, the four books discussed here suggest than “for the benefit of all.” 3 Following the deficit debacle
that many of us may soon turn our eyes to Latin America, of summer 2011, 82% of survey respondents disapproved
and to Brazil in particular, to understand their accomplish- of the way that Congress was managing the public’s bud-
ments in democratic governance. If these books are right, get.4 The substantive and procedural defects of modern rep-
Brazil is an epicenter of democratic revitalization and insti- resentative government are not new to democratic theorists.
tutional invention. In cities across Brazil, millions of citi- Contemporary American democracy falls far short of the
zens are participating in a wide range of novel institutions standards of a deliberative democracy.5 Nor, it seems, is it
particularly aggregative.6
Some of the most interesting work in democratic theory
develops alternatives to address such deficits of representa-
Archon Fung is the Ford Foundation Professor of Democ- tive democracy.7 Just last year, Perspectives on Politics fea-
racy and Citizenship at Harvard University (archon_fung@ tured a symposium on the work of Pierre Rosanvallon, who
harvard.edu). He thanks Joshua Cohen, Jane Mansbridge, suggests that a range of nonelectoral mechanisms can deepen
Quinton Mayne, Hollie Russon-Gilman, Dennis Thomp- the quality of democracy.8 Rosanvallon looks to increased
son, and of course Jeffrey Isaac for valuable comments on a transparency to allow citizens to monitor officials, popular
prior version of this essay. mobilization to resist laws and politics, and juridical arenas
doi:10.1017/S1537592711003744 December 2011 | Vol. 9/No. 4 857
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Review Essay | Reinventing Democracy in Latin America
in order to render judgments that can tame governmental of public goods and services, at which they can know their
action.9 As important and promising as these nonelectoral political officials and one another, and at which much of
components of democratic governance are, Philippe Schmit- the business of politics and government is cognizable. In
ter correctly identifies informality as seriously limiting the principle, then, the size of the city at least makes possible
normative appeal of Rosanvallon’s account. The “counter- a kind of citizen participation that is impossible at the
power” that Rosanvallon describes emerges “erratically and larger scale of the nation-state.
indirectly” in mostly noninstitutionalized forms.This infor- The democratic possibilities indicated by Dahl are largely
mality undermines equality, a principal democratic value, absent from modern cities, however.14 Appropriate scale is
because counter-power is accessible to those who possess one necessary condition of participatory democracy, but it
the resources and wherewithal to mobilize. Informality fur- is far from sufficient. If we concede that urban democracy is
ther undermines reliability because “its efficacy depends possible—a concession that many resist—it likely requires
upon a complex and unpredictable set of linkages.” 10 Against supportive constitutional, structural, political, social, and
this criticism, Brazilian innovations that fuse participatory technological conditions.15 Recent developments in Brazil
and representative democracy merit special attention pre- seem to have established particularly favorable conditions
cisely because they deploy institutionalized mechanisms to for the emergence of participatory democracy.
address deficits of equality, accountability, and legitimacy. More than in most other countries in the world, Brazil-
Although the political developments described in the fol- ian cities are important legal, political, fiscal, and adminis-
lowing sections all come from Latin America, I discuss them trative entities. Gianpaolo Baiocchi and his colleagues argue
through the lens of a generalist and as a democratic theo- that strong processes of political and governmental decen-
rist. Setting these studies against the rich debates about Latin tralization have been at work in Brazil since the 1970s.16
American democratization far exceeds my expertise. That The 1988 Constitution was a milestone in this decentral-
said, these developments may come as a surprise to those ization. Cities now stand in equal political status to states
who have followed with even fleeting attention the pessi- and possess the power to make their own constitutions. Fis-
mistic scholarship on Latin America. Perhaps because they cally, cities have received substantial systematic transfers from
have focused on developments at the national level, much national coffers, as well as powers to raise certain taxes. Brian
of this literature seeks to explain how and why politics in Wampler notes that municipalities control between 15%
䡬 Latin America is democratically defective. It is a literature and 20% of all government spending in Brazil.17 Munici-
that is famously replete with adjectives that lower our expec- pal governments are in turn responsible for providing many
tations for Latin American strains of democracy: 11 critical public services, such as health care, primary educa-
“delegated democracy,” 12 “authoritarian democracy,” tion, and transportation.18 In a striking contrast to the
“military-dominated democracy,” and many others. I will constitutional provisions of the senior North Atlantic democ-
not comment further upon the sharp difference between racies, the 1988 Brazilian constitution calls for municipal
the perspective of those senior Latin American scholars and popular participation in areas such as health provision and
that of the upstart younger cohort reviewed here except to planning.19
say that perhaps the times, they are a changin’. Whereas most comparative political studies focus upon
whole nations, understanding urban developments such as
these calls for subnational comparisons. One contribution
Robert Dahl Was Right of these books is to advance this budding approach to com-
In an article that fell out of fashion long ago among schol- parative politics by demonstrating its power.20 The three
ars of American politics, Robert Dahl argued that the books that focus upon Brazil all construct careful sub-
Greeks had the right scale for democracy. If a central fea- national comparisons across cities. These subnational com-
ture of democracy is that citizens are engaged in address- parisons allow the investigators to tease out differences in
ing common problems by fashioning their own laws and the institutional designs within a family of participatory gov-
policies, the scale of a democracy cannot be so large that ernance innovations, to trace the differential consequences
the voice of any individual citizen is minute, the seat of of reform for politics and for civil society, and to identify
power too removed, or public decisions irrelevant to his or the causes and conditions for successful participatory gov-
her concerns. On the other hand, if the scale of govern- ernance. Those who seek to understand urban governance
ment is too small, it will lack the authority to address more broadly will benefit from the within-country urban
important problems. From these contending logics of scale, natural experiments that these books utilize.
Dahl concludes, “As the optimum unit for democracy in
the 21st Century, the city has a greater claim, I think,
than any other alternative.” 13 A Big Bang: Participatory Budgeting
It is at the level of the medium-size city—not the metrop- in Porto Alegre
olis or metropolitan area and certainly not the gargantuan Although the 1988 Brazilian Constitution mandated
nation-state—that citizens acutely feel the presence or lack substantial local participation, robust institutions and
858 Perspectives on Politics
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practices of participatory governance did not come ulti- tos, William Nylen, Rebecca Abers, and others, quite a bit
mately from national mandates, but rather from the inge- is known about Porto Alegre, the patient zero of participa-
nuity and self-interest of leftist political entrepreneurs. tory budgeting.25 We know, for example, that only a few
Their breakthrough occurred in Porto Alegre, the capital thousand people participated in the process in its first year,
city of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Out of but that an average of 35,000 participated annually between
both intrinsic ideological commitment and a desire to 2000 and 2003.26 Breaking with the ubiquitous pattern that
solidify the support of organizations in civil society, which the well-off more frequently participate in politics, the
sought greater influence over local policy, the leftist Partido profile of PB participants closely resembles that of the city’s
dos Trabalhadores (PT) developed participatory budget- general population.27 Regarding outcomes, participatory
ing (PB) as an institutional and policy measure. The PT budgeting in Porto Alegre seems to have increased the
narrowly won Porto Alegre’s mayoral elections in 1988 proportion of public investments allocated to poor areas,
and subsequently implemented PB.21 improved the quality of public works,28 and decreased the
PB is a practice that engages ordinary citizens in the allo- frequency of clientelistic exchanges between citizens and pol-
cation of municipal investments.22 As it was first imple- iticians.29 Furthermore, participatory budgeting has been
mented in Porto Alegre, PB occurs in several distinct stages a political success. Running in part as the party that invented
that are spread over an annual cycle. The city is divided into PB, the PT held Porto Alegre’s mayoralty continuously from
regions, and each region into neighborhoods. In a first 1986 until 2005.30
round of neighborhood meetings, which usually runs from This first generation of scholarship has also converged
March to June, participants discuss their priorities, past upon certain conditions as important for the success of
projects, and possible public works that might be funded. participatory budgeting. Baiocchi, Patrick Heller, and Mar-
They elect representatives who argue for their priorities at celo Silva write that “[t]he literature has come to a near-
higher-level regional meetings. At a second round of neigh- consensus that the right combination of a capacitated civil
borhood and regional meetings, running between July and society and a committed executive branch is the most
November, participants debate the merits of various pro- auspicious context to institute Participatory Budgeting.” 31
posals, vote on the public works to be implemented, con- Successful participatory budgeting requires a special kind
stitute monitoring committees, and elect delegates to a of commitment from both politicians and civil society
citywide Municipal Budget Council. That council oversees organizations (CSOs). Politicians must champion a pro- 䡬
the implementation of PB and approves the final budget, gram in which they cede control over significant budget
which is then submitted to the City Council. allocations to a process of participatory decision making.
It would be wrong to describe participatory budgeting Civil society organizations must seize that decision-
as a pure process of direct democracy. PB combines both making process as a political opportunity to advance their
participatory and representative elements: Citizens who own priorities for development and public services. Those
participate in neighborhood forums also elect representa- organizations operate with a dual consciousness in which
tives to argue for their priorities in regional and citywide they collaborate with politicians in making participatory
forums. However, it would also be a mistake to think of budgeting at the same time that they employ contentious
participatory budgeting as a representative process in the and adversarial strategies to discipline politicians who betray
way that, say, electing a mayor or city councillor is repre- their commitments to PB.32
sentative. Participants in the neighborhood forums of par- These inspirational, practical, and political benefits of
ticipatory budgeting do not just vote on who should PB were not lost on politicians in other Brazilian cities.
represent their interests, but they also discuss, argue, and Although its form and substance varies widely, PB has
vote on their own specific projects and priorities. spread rapidly to more than 200 cities across the country
Brazilian cities divide their budgets between mainte- (see Table 1). In the early years, almost all of these pro-
nance (keeping streets, sewage, and water systems in order) grams were sponsored by the left party that invented it in
and investments. Investments are divided, in turn, between Porto Alegre, the PT. Although the PT still sponsors the
personnel and infrastructure. In cities with participatory majority of PB programs, other parties have sponsored
budgeting, some portion of the infrastructure investment between 35% and 40% of participatory budgeting efforts.
budget is allocated to PB. In Porto Alegre, that portion is Beyond the academic domains of comparative politics
quite high. Between 1996 and 2003, almost US $400 and Latin American studies, the significance of the Porto
million was allocated to various projects in Porto Alegre Alegre participatory budgeting experience for the theory
through participatory budgeting.23 As a proportion of Porto of participatory democracy cannot be overstated. In the
Alegre’s total city budget in any given year, between 4% contemporary era, participatory democracy has been a
and 21% is decided through the process of participatory theory looking for a practice and an institutional form.
budgeting.24 Contemporary participatory democracy has been a bit like
Thanks to a first generation of scholarship from Gian- the quark: a theory without much empirical confirma-
paolo Baiocchi, Leonardo Avritzer, Boaventura de Souza San- tion. Although the quark particle was proposed to exist by
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Review Essay | Reinventing Democracy in Latin America
budgeting. In all but one of their pairs, social and
Table 1 political outcomes in cities that adopted participa-
Total number of participatory budgeting tory budgeting were clearly superior to those in
programs in Brazil matched cities.
Mayoral Period Total PB Cases % PT • Avritzer explores the performance of different partici-
1989–92 13 92 patory governance schemes in four cities. He consid-
1993–96 53 62 ers not just participatory budgeting but also health
1997–2000 120 43 councils and requirements for ratifying urban devel-
2000–4 190 59 opment plans. His study thus includes both socio-
2005–8 201 65 political conditions and institutional designs for
Source: Wampler and Avritzer 2005 and 2008. participation. He concludes that PB is not for every-
one. In particular, popular participation in cities that
lack robust civil society organizations or politicians
committed to a participatory project may be better
theoretical physicists in 1964, empirical evidence for the served by governance designs that are less civically
first quark was not found until 1968, and the sixth (and demanding than PB.39
final) flavor of quark was not empirically observed until • The edited collection from Selee and Peruzzotti looks
1995.33 outside Brazil to other Latin American countries
The literature is replete with isolated examples of par- to explore how well participatory institutions
ticipatory governance—in US cities during the war on travel. Although participatory governance schemes
poverty,34 worker managed enterprises and coopera- in Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile have not
tives,35 New England town meetings,36 public agencies,37 produced the dramatic gains of Porto Alegre, some
and citizen assemblies.38 For the most part, however, these have nevertheless reduced clientelistic relationships,
efforts have been small in scale, involving dozens or hun- expanded political inclusion, and fostered public
dreds rather than tens or hundreds of thousands. Many of deliberation.
them also seem idiosyncratic—limited to a place or region The first three books provide a formidable array of urban
䡬 and therefore seemingly dependent for their very exis- cases—22 studies in all—scattered across Brazil (see Fig-
tence upon quite specific sociopolitical conditions—and ure 1). Considered together, these case studies reveal the
therefore easily dismissed as anomalous outliers. Partici- consequences of varied urban participatory institutions
patory budgeting is perhaps the most widespread and across a very wide range of spatial, social, and political
authoritative institutionalization of participatory demo- circumstances.
cratic ideas anywhere in the world.
Four Logics of Inquiry for Four Political Will
Questions In Brazilian cities, participatory budgeting is always an
executive initiative. Its adoption and implementation
The four books by Wampler; Avritzer; Baiocchi, Heller,
depends upon the level of a mayor’s commitment and the
and Silva; and Andrew Selee and Enrique Peruzzotti build
extent to which political and economic constraints enable
upon this first generation of participatory budgeting schol-
him or her to make good on that commitment. But why
arship by asking new questions that require new
would any mayor commit to delegating the authority to
approaches. Whereas the initial research employed single-
allocate large sums from city coffers to a directly demo-
case studies to examine the mechanisms of PB in a par-
cratic process in the first place? We ordinarily think of
ticular place, these four volumes all use comparative case
municipal executives as jealous guardians of their own
studies of participatory governance. As if by design, each
prerogatives and resources. The commitment of successful
volume’s central questions and answers complement those
politicians to participatory democracy is, for now, one
of the others:
way in which Brazil is exceptional.
• Wampler examines eight cities to understand the per- Part of the answer lies in the political project and ide-
formance of participatory budgeting under different ology of the PT. In an excellent chapter on changes in
social and political conditions. He concludes that the Brazil’s political society since the dictatorship, Avritzer
success of participatory budgeting depends upon con- explains how the PT originated as a mass party opposed
tentious civil society organizations and the incentives to both left- and right-wing dirigiste projects that, if real-
for politicians to delegate authority to them. ized, would have subordinated society to the needs of a
• Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva construct five matched developmental state. Opposed to this state-heavy vision,
pairs of cities to understand whether similar cities are the PT was a vehicle for groups in civil society—in par-
better or worse-off for having adopted participatory ticular labor and Catholic social movements—to make
860 Perspectives on Politics
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Figure 1
Locations of 22 case studies in three books: Wampler, Participatory Budgeting in Brazil;
Avritzer, Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil; and Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva,
Bootstrapping Democracy.
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claims against the state. From the 1980s, Avritzer writes, their success. Porto Alegre and Ipatinga have the most
the PT was marked by two complementary commit- successful participatory budgeting programs, Belo Hori-
ments: “the critique of clientelism and the adoption of zonte and Recife after that, Sao Paulo and Santo Andre
participatory democracy.” 40 somewhat less successful, and Blumenau and Rio Claro
Yet Robert Michels famously showed long ago, a com- unsuccessful altogether.
mitment to participatory democracy is very different from How do we know whether PB succeeded? Wampler
realizing participation in practice.41 Ideological commit- draws upon both quantitative survey evidence and his own
ment may be necessary, but it is far from sufficient. While observational case studies. Distinctively, he assesses the
it is easy to believe that participatory reform is unlikely success of PB by asking informed observers. In 2003, he
without deep, even intrinsic, commitment from political worked with the Instituto Ethos de Pesquisa to survey 695
agents, that commitment is easily curbed or reversed by PB delegates from his eight cities (randomly selected from
political competition, performance imperatives, and struc- 8,000 possible participants) about their experiences and
tural constraints. views of PB.
Wampler untangles the political and social factors that Recall that PB delegates are citizens elected in neigh-
explain the connection between executive commitment borhood meetings to represent their communities in suc-
and the success of participatory budgeting. His book’s chap- cessive stages of the PB process. Compared to the general
ters are organized into groups of cities and according to population, these civic activists are much more involved
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Review Essay | Reinventing Democracy in Latin America
in participatory budgeting and much more knowledge- cies, rather than through PB’s intended deliberative and
able about it. Unsurprisingly, survey respondents are civic participatory processes.46 In Ipatinga (one of the two stron-
activists; 85% report being active in a civil society organi- gest PB cities), by contrast, the city government created
zation, compared to figures ranging between 5% and 20% an online Web-based system for citizens to enter their PB
for the general population. More surprising, however, is priorities and installed access points in clinics, schools,
that delegates come from Brazil’s lower classes: 65% live and shopping malls. The mayor of Ipatinga also allocated
in households earning less than US $400 per month and substantial funding to the PB and implemented most of
51% did not complete high school. Wampler concludes the projects that the PB produced.47
that “when authority is transferred to the PB, it is trans- Wampler agrees with the first generation of PB schol-
ferred to lower-class individuals, who have long been mar- arship that executive commitment explains the success of
ginalized in policymaking venues.” 42 PB. But what explains why some mayors are more com-
Wampler’s comparative analysis relies most heavily upon mitted than others? There are two considerations at work.
a battery of questions that asks delegates whether they First is party affiliation and ideology. By the 1990s, par-
exercise authority in the PB process. PB initiatives are ticipatory budgeting had become the PT “way of govern-
more successful when more delegates respond that they ing” in cities, and many PT mayors had committed to
have the authority to “make PB rules,” “define PB prior- implement some form of PB. Through a kind of institu-
ities,” “define projects,” “add resources,” “stop govern- tional isomorphism, PT mayors spread participatory bud-
ment projects,” and “monitor government projects.” In geting throughout Brazilian cities. Second, and critically,
order to assess the extent to which PB has displaced clien- this isomorphism was only partial. The reality of PB and
telism with a more democratic and deliberative politics, extent of mayoral commitment has been highly varied.
the survey also asks delegates about the extent to which Wampler explains this variation by focusing upon mayors’
they use PB to secure their desired policy outcomes com- political calculus.
pared to more traditional approaches, such as individual Mayors commit their resources and political capital to
connections and political pressure. participatory budgeting when doing so strengthens their
Wampler reckons the success of PB primarily according political support against potential challengers. Mayors who
to the extent to which resources are allocated and projects depend for their political survival upon organizations and
䡬 implemented through that institution. Other measures constituents who want participatory budgeting—as the
are possible—such as the extent to which PB is a more mayors in Porto Alegre, Ipatinga, and to an extent Belo Hor-
legitimate institution compared to the prior representative izonte and Recife did—build a robust PB. Where the com-
electoral arrangements, as well as the success of PB in deliv- ponents of a mayor’s political base are not interested in
ering improvements in planning, social services, public participatory governance, mayors allocate fewer resources
goods, or economic development. Even with PB empow- and authority to participatory budgeting. Tepidness comes
erment as the main measure of success, delegates may, on in many flavors. In Blumenau, for example, rival civil soci-
the whole, be more favorably disposed to PB because they ety organizations have captured the PB process, and so
are, by definition, highly invested in the process. Wampler extending it would strengthen political opponents.48 In other
does not address whether his survey creates an unjustifiably cities, mayors are elected because they favor more tradi-
positive assessment of PB. The survey does, however, reveal tional reform strategies that do not rely upon popular
very significant differences among the cities that he exam- participation.49
ined. In Ipatinga, for example, 75% of delegates surveyed Wampler focuses upon the strength, autonomy, and
responded that they had the “authority to define PB prior- participatory orientation of civil society organizations as
ities” and 70% thought that they possessed the “authority a second principal factor that explains the success of PB.
to monitor government projects.” 43 In Rio Claro, the cor- Civil society organizations make participatory budgeting
responding responses are 10% for defining PB priorities and work in at least two ways. First, leaders of these organi-
43% for monitoring government projects.44 zations participate in PB and mobilize others to partici-
Wampler’s direct observations and interviews help him pate. Strong CSOs increase the quantity of participation
to identify the political and institutional practices that in PB, heighten the level of discourse and contention
explain these sharp differences in perceptions of empow- around projects and priorities, and check the implemen-
erment and authority among PB delegates in different tation of projects by city government. Second, strong
cities. The mayor of Blumenau (one of the two weakest and independent CSOs can press mayors and other pol-
PB cities), for example, allocated a low percentage of the iticians to adopt forms of PB that are well resourced and
budget to PB and failed to follow through on many of the that confer power onto participants. Wampler rightly
commitments that were made.45 In São Paolo (a weak PB stresses that CSOs must have the independence and where-
city, but not in the weakest category), there was a financial withal to practice contentious politics and to mobilize
commitment to PB, but many of the projects seem to opposition to politicians who fail to implement robust
have been determined by the mayor’s office and city agen- forms of participatory budgeting.
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In his examination of the role of civil society in these Because its fieldwork was less ambitious, Bootstrapping
eight cities, Wampler makes a major contribution by illu- Democracy lacks the qualitative richness of Wampler’s Par-
minating the composition of civil society organizations ticipatory Budgeting in Brazil.51 However, it does deploy a
that advance participatory democratic institutions. The novel and elegant comparative strategy to isolate the effects
sheer number or density of civic groups does not by itself of participatory budgeting. The authors construct a natu-
favor the success of participatory budgeting. Instead, CSOs ral experiment in which five cities that adopted participa-
not only must be strong but also political in a certain way. tory budgeting are matched with five that did not. These
CSOs with conventional institutional orientations— 10 cities come from a larger group with similar 1996 elec-
either those that seek to advance their interests through toral outcomes. In five of them, the PT won by a small
top-down state policies 50 or to secure goods through per- margin and PB was adopted as a result. In the other five,
sonal connections—do not advance participatory budget- the PT lost by a small margin and the city did not adopt
ing. Instead, PB requires CSOs that seek participatory PB. Such close electoral outcomes are associated with sim-
public institutions because they believe that mobilized civic ilar levels of left political strength and civil society organi-
action in those institutions will produce the public goods— zation in all 10 cities. In addition, the five pairs (PB vs. no
and the sort of democratic politics—that they desire. PB) were selected so that cities within each pair are located
Beyond this institutional orientation, the success of PB close to each other and are similar in population size.
also requires politically independent CSOs. It is not enough Thus, the authors try to control for economic, political,
for these organizations to favor participatory forms of gov- and social context while varying an institutional “treat-
ernment; CSOs must be autonomous rather than cap- ment”: the introduction of PB.52
tured creatures of a political party—even a party that favors Although many kinds of outcomes are claimed for par-
more participation. ticipatory budgeting, Baiocchi and his colleagues are pri-
One important and difficult question remains. Why do marily interested in this institutional treatment’s effects
some CSOs favor participatory institutions while many on the character of civil society and the resulting relation-
others in Brazil and elsewhere in the world do not? As ships between state and civil society. Theoretically and
Wampler, Avritzer, and others discuss, part of the answer empirically, this book breaks new ground in debates about
lies in the particular antistatist and cooperative history of civil society and democracy. On many accounts of demo-
these organizations and movements. I suspect, however, cratic society, civil society should operate autonomously 䡬
that part of the answer also lies in the peculiar demonstra- and at arm’s length from government lest civic organiza-
tion effect of the cities that pioneered successful instances tions be colonized and co-opted by the state.53 Empiri-
of participatory budgeting. These early cases showed that cally, an enormous amount of attention has been paid to
civil society organizations could secure public goods for the count, or density, of civic organizations as the way to
their socially disadvantaged members and constituents measure the presence of “social capital.” 54
through participatory institutions. Porto Alegre and other Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva specify a more nuanced
early experiences taught CSOs that there is a feasible alter- “dependent variable” that is constructed by specifying the
native to the politics of clientelism and conventional relationship between civil society and the state. Their rela-
advocacy. tional conception of civil society highlights two dimen-
sions. The first dimension concerns “self-organization”:
Democracy and Civic Reconstruction Is civil society autonomous from or dependent upon
Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva flip the direction of the causal the state? Labor unions in the People’s Republic of
arrow linking civil society and participatory budgeting. China, for example, are highly dependent on civil society
Whereas Wampler explains robustness of participatory bud- organizations because their operations, agendas, and very
geting as a function of the character of civil society, Baio- existence are highly regulated by government. The second
cchi and his colleagues examine the consequences of dimension describes how these civil society organiza-
participatory budgeting, with a particular eye to its effects tions generally make demands upon the state. They spec-
on civil society. These authors argue that participatory ify three levels of “demand making.” When civil society
budgeting can strengthen civil society where it is weak. A organizations are “excluded” from the arena of public
high density of contentious civil society organizations ori- contention and claim making, governments do not
ented toward participatory institutions is good for partici- take their priorities into account at all. In “discretionary”
patory budgeting. That high density, however, is not strictly modes of demand making, civil society actors satisfy their
necessary. They contend that, ceteris paribus, a place is demands through the goodwill of brokers and patrons—
better-off with participatory budgeting than without it. as in clientelist arrangements. When civil society demand
As the title of their book indicates, participatory demo- making is “institutionalized,” the procedures of public
cratic institutions can help to develop an important foun- contestation over priorities and resources is “rule-bound,
dation of their own success: citizens who are mobilized regularized, and transparent.” 55 These two dimensions
and organized into civic associations. of self-organization and demand making produce six
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many interests and individuals that had been politically
Table 2 marginal to engage in urban politics. Nevertheless, these
Civil Society State Relations cases are located in the left column of Table 2 because the
Self-Organization PB process and civic participation in it remains driven by
Demand Making Dependent Autonomous
state actors. Even at the end of the study period, these
Institutionalized Affirmative democracy Mobilized democracy
Discretionary Prostrate democracy Bifurcated democracy
cities lack what Wampler calls independent and conten-
Excluded Totalitarianism Authoritarianism tious civic organizations. Although they are better-off with
Source: Reproduced from Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, Bootstrapping PB than without it, the participatory reforms of Camarg-
Democracy, p. 35. ibe and Gravati did not midwife robustly independent
civic organizations.
João Monlevade, a city in Minas Gerais, was the most
successful of the treatment cases. Even before 1997, civil
configurations of governance, the top four of which are society organizations in João Monlevade were very assert-
types of democracy with adjectives, as shown in Table 2. ive and played an important role in aggregating public
In Brazil, the transition from dictatorship marked a demands. The introduction of PB amplified and struc-
transition of governance regime from the authoritarian tured these civil society relationships. In the schema of
type in the lower right to a range of local governance Table 2, João Monlevade began as a case of bifurcated
regimes located in the second row. The authors write that democracy and moved to mobilized democracy. The fourth
in the discretionary row, “the cells labeled prostrate and treatment case was the only ambiguous result of the four
bifurcated describe more or less what is the modal condi- discussed by the authors. Before the introduction of PB in
tion in most of the developing world.” 56 In prostrate 1997, civil society organizations in Mauá were relatively
democracy, civil society organizations are so weak and reli- robust; they organized autonomously and deployed a range
ant on officialdom that they cannot mount independent of strategies that included contention. Mauá adopted a
challenges or make substantial demands at all.57 In a pros- form of PB that was rather consultative. It was well received
trate democracy, civil society organizations secure public because participation rates were high and it formalized the
goods from the state only as favors, by engaging in clien- arena of public demand making. However, the authors
䡬 telistic relationships. This is the most common relation- judged that one overall effect of PB was to demobilize
ship between state and civil society in posttransition Latin civic organizations as they channeled their demands
America. In bifurcated democracy, civil society organiza- through the formal process, while losing the capacity to
tions are sufficiently strong and independent that they can check government through oppositional tactics.61 Thus,
occasionally secure their goods and policies from the state the quality of democratic governance in Mauá improves
by engaging it as clients, or they can choose to remain as a result of PB because the character of demand making
independent and challenge the state. The authors write moves from discretionary to institutionalized, but civil
that this bifurcated condition describes many areas of Bra- society itself, which was previously autonomous, becomes
zil that have traditions of civic organization and popular dependent on the state.
mobilization.58 Bootstrapping Democracy thus argues powerfully, empir-
The authors successfully map their city-level case studies ically, and conceptually for the democratic benefits of par-
onto this elegant relational decomposition of civil society. ticipatory budgeting even (perhaps especially) under civic
Of the eight cases that they analyze, four begin as instances and political circumstances that are less than fully favor-
of prostrate democracy, three as bifurcated democracy, and able. Still, there are several limitations of this book that
one case of mobilized democracy.59 Over the course of their stem from its framing and categories. Perhaps out of the
three-year study, from 1997 to 2000, all of the cases that desire to limit conceptual complexity, the two-dimensional
experienced the “treatment” of participatory budgeting saw characterization of state–civil society relationships leaves
substantial shifts in the character of state–civil society rela- out two critical considerations. First, the most desirable
tions, but such shifts were absent in the “control” cities.60 category of “institutionalized” demand making encom-
Two of the cities where participatory budgeting was passes too many different kinds of pluralism, too many
introduced—Camaragibe and Gravati—shifted upward varieties of polyarchy, in Dahl’s terms.62 The push and
from the prostrate to the affirmative democracy cell. Civic pull of interest groups in Washington, DC, is one form
organizations in both cities were weak compared to, of highly institutionalized demand making that is rule
for example, Porto Alegre’s energetic social movements. bound and highly structured, if not always transparent,
Against this civic history, the introduction of participa- as is European neocorporatism.63 At least in the most suc-
tory budgeting institutions created one of the few spaces cessful forms of participatory budgeting, its novelty and sig-
for citizens and civic organizations to articulate public nificance lie in its distinctive structuring of relationships
priorities and to make claims. Participation in PB, espe- among the state, civil society organizations, and citizens. It
cially in Gravati, was reasonably high, and PB allowed shifts the balance of authority in some venues away from
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professional politicians who inhabit the state apparatus to and priorities that result from PB are determined through
civic organizations and citizens themselves. citizen participation, but in other cities the agenda and
The second, and related, central schema should attend many proposals come from officials. In Participatory Insti-
explicitly to the hierarchical nature of civic organizations: tutions in Democratic Brazil, Avritzer attends not only to
Are they relatively flat and open or is the agenda tightly variations within PB but to other, less studied, forms of
controlled from the top? The structure of civic groups is citizen participation as well. Whereas Wampler and Baio-
in part a function of their relationship to institutionalized cchi, Heller, and Silva examine the consequences of PB
political opportunities, such as the participatory budget. under different conditions, Avritzer’s analysis varies both
By creating incentives for popular mobilization, some vari- background conditions and institutional designs. In his
ants of PB stimulate civic groups to be more inclusive 3 × 4 study, he examines three different participatory
than they would otherwise be. Absent such structural incen- schemes—participatory budgeting, health councils, and
tives, hierarchical and relatively exclusionary civic organi- urban master-plan ratification processes—in four cities:
zations could populate the institutionalized/autonomous Porto Alegre, Belo Horiztonte, São Paolo, and Salvador.
cell of the schema in Table 2 in some city and yet leave Avritzer selects these cities because political and social
much to be desired, democratically speaking. conditions vary greatly in the extent to which they favor
Some critics might argue that Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva, the success of participatory democracy. Of the four, Porto
in their experiment examining the effect of participatory Alegre offers the most favorable conditions for the success
budgeting on different cities, made the case too easy for of participatory institutions because it has dense and inde-
themselves by focusing on civil society. Participatory bud- pendent civic organizations and a left party with partici-
geting is intended in large measure to incorporate civil patory traditions. Belo Horizonte is slightly less favorable
society organizations into politics, and so we might expect because it has strong civic traditions but political parties
its principal effects to register in the character of civil there are somewhat more ambivalent regarding popular
society. Political actors in the “control” cities may well participation. With strong civic organizations only in some
have had other laudable priorities, such as economic devel- sectors of the city, and several PT administrations that
opment, social welfare, or efficient public goods provi- have been quite skeptical of participation, Sāo Paolo ranks
sion. The careful paired-study methodology of Baiocchi third. Salvador ranks last; its civic organizations are weak,
and his colleagues offers a rich opportunity to study the especially in poor sections of the city, and political leaders 䡬
effects of participatory budgeting on these other potential have been hostile to participation.65
outcomes, but Bootstrapping Democracy does not exploit Avritzer’s findings are consistent with Wampler’s study.
that opportunity. These political and civic conditions matter for the success
Despite that criticism, setting out to change civil soci- of participatory budgeting, and they matter in the expected
ety is one thing, and actually changing it quite another. directions. PB was most successful in Porto Alegre and
The main achievement of this book is to demonstrate that Belo Horizonte, less successful in Sāo Paolo, and a failure
the institutionalization of participatory budgeting has sal- in Salvador. Avritzer’s novel finding, however, is that dif-
utary effects on the nexus between state and civil society. ferent participatory designs—he explores health councils
This important advance answers two important ques- and city planning—can flourish even under unfavorable
tions. First, must we treat the character of civil society as conditions because they demand less from political lead-
given, and design democratic institutions according to the ers and civil society organizations.
kind of civil society that history has bequeathed some- The 1988 Brazilian Constitution and subsequent legis-
place? Second, must the relationship between civil society lation created a right to health care, decentralized much of
and the state be loosely coupled to guard against coloni- the provision of that care to cities, and required cities to
zation and co-optation? Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva answer establish health councils to govern many aspects of the
both of these questions negatively and so challenge com- health-care system. Although they vary because each city
mon wisdoms. Political institutions such as participatory implements the requirement in its own way, a city’s health
budgeting can “bootstrap” communities into more robust council is typically composed of sectoral representatives
forms of civil society and create a closely coupled, virtu- from health professionals, government, health-care provid-
ous, democratic cycle between civil society and the state. ers and users of health services. Health councils are often
responsible for setting systemwide priorities and managing
Institutional Tool Kits, Not Blueprints funds. Councils also organize regular public meetings.66
The three books that focus on Brazil all stress that partici- More than 5,000 health councils were formed in the 1990s,
patory institutions are highly variable. Participatory bud- and 98% of Brazilian cities have health councils.67
geting in any particular city assembles pieces from a tool Whereas participatory budgeting is strongly “bottom-
kit of design elements, rather than simply reproducing the up” due to its components of direct citizen participation,
Porto Alegre blueprint.64 Some forms of PB are more con- Avrizter distinguishes the specific character of health coun-
sultative than empowered. In Porto Alegre, the projects cils as “power sharing” because government negotiates (or
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Review Essay | Reinventing Democracy in Latin America
deliberates) about health-care policy and administration Avritzer’s central argument, then, is that designs for
with representatives of providers, professionals, and users participation should be tailored to fit particular circum-
in an ongoing way.68 Health councils are designed to medi- stances. Rather than attempting to implement a single
ate interests through sectoral or interest representation. blueprint, such as the Porto Alegre version of PB, policy-
They are consistent with proposals from Paul Hirst and makers and advocates should build schemes of participa-
Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers for associative democracy: tion that will flourish under particular political and social
political arrangements in which associations participate in constraints. In places like Porto Alegre and Belo Hori-
the formation and implementation of policy in ways that zonte, where many civic society organizations and domi-
enhance political equality, social justice, and effective gov- nant political actors favor public participation, all three
ernance.69 Because associative, power-sharing designs do kinds of participatory designs—bottom-up, power shar-
not require civic organizations or city government to mobi- ing, and ratification—work well. Moderately favorable con-
lize citizens to participate directly, they are less taxing upon ditions, such as those found in São Paolo where civic
social and political capital than is participatory budgeting. organizations are not as strong and political actors more
In Avritzer’s assessment, the health council systems worked ambivalent about participation, can support successful
best in Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte, the cities with power-sharing designs (such as health councils) but not
the most favorable conditions for participatory gover- the more demanding bottom-up schemes. Finally, where
nance. From a democratic vantage, he regards São Paolo’s civic organizations are weak and political actors hostile,
health councils as somewhat less successful because deci- such as Salvador, only the minimal scheme of ratification
sion making there was less deliberative and more conten- is appropriate.
tious. Still, the health councils in São Paolo succeeded in Participatory Institutions in Democratic Brazil is an impor-
providing a high level of service and increasing access to tant contribution to the debate about participatory democ-
health care in poor areas.70 The Salvador health council racy generally, and to participation in Brazil specifically.
failed because political forces hostile to participation rel- From the perspective of a participatory democrat, few com-
egated it to an advisory status and limited participation munities are as fortunate as Porto Alegre. Avritzer directs
among civil society groups.71 our attention to institutional designs for participation that
In a third scheme of participation, Brazilian cities are may well turn out to be of greater relevance because they
䡬 required to produce master plans for urban development, are more broadly applicable. He illuminates how partici-
and requirements for ratification include public consulta- patory democracy can work for the rest of us.
tion. As with the health councils, each city elaborates its Avritzer’s argument, however, is incomplete when jux-
own consultation process. It is important to note that taposed against the method and findings of Baiocchi,
courts can nullify a city’s plans if they find that the approval Heller, and Silva. What if Avrizter had examined the appro-
process fails to meet legal requirements for public consul- priate counterfactuals? What would have happened in cit-
tation. Avrizer calls this third scheme a kind of “ratifica- ies like Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, São Paolo, and
tion” process. The role of the public is to approve of policies Salvador that did not adopt these participatory schemes?
developed by government, rather than to participate in Avritzer (and Wampler) show us that any participatory
the formulation of policies.72 design fares better when circumstances are more favor-
Unlike in bottom-up or power-sharing designs, public able. This stands to reason. But are places that lack those
actors need not mobilize nor develop policies; they only favorable conditions better-off, and how much better-off,
vet and signal their approval. Civil society organizations, for having one participatory design, for instance power-
moreover, need not mobilize popular support to defend sharing health councils, rather than for having a more
this right to participate. Because cities are required by law demanding design like participatory budgeting? Avritzer
to administer a proper ratification process, courts can inter- suggests that those places should limit their ambitions,
vene to vindicate residents whose participation rights are democratically speaking, to schemes that demand less from
violated. Avritzer therefore argues that ratification designs politicians and civic organizations. The Salvadors of the
enable a modicum of public influence even under politi- world should aim for ratification designs, rather than
cal and social circumstances that are inhospitable to par- bottom-up schemes like participatory budgeting. Baioc-
ticipatory governance. His case studies bear this out. In chi, Heller, and Silva might well argue that even Salvador
Salvador, the master plan was developed largely to suit would be better-off with participatory budgeting because
real estate interests and without significant input from that design will help to create more favorable civic circum-
civil society groups or review by public audiences gener- stances in the future.
ally. At the behest of excluded civic organizations, the As much as these three books tell us about participatory
Brazilian courts invalidated Salvador’s master plan in 2003 democracy in Brazil, settling this dispute requires, as they
because it failed to meet public participation require- say, further study. In particular, it would require a design
ments. The subsequent planning process provided greater that combines Avritzer’s cross-sectional comparison of dif-
opportunities for public engagement.73 ferent participatory designs with an approach, such as the
866 Perspectives on Politics
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natural experiment if Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva that regards that they could better control.75 A lack of political com-
each design as a treatment paired with a control commu- mitment plagues the most successful participatory
nity in which there is no effort to institute participatory projects in other Latin American countries as well. Selee
governance. describes promising participatory experiences in the cit-
ies of Tijuana and Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl that did seem
Brazilian Exceptionalism or a Model to intensify popular participation and reduce clientelism.
for the Rest of Us? Even in these positive cases, however, participatory prac-
For those of us who neither live in Brazil nor focus our tices are fragile and progress fitful because “the same par-
scholarly attention on it, the tantalizing question is whether ties that had implemented these innovative experiences
the forms of participation that have flourished there in of citizen participation then tried to undercut them.” 76
recent decades can move to other societies. Or does some- Similarly, Anny Rivera-Ottenberger finds very promising
thing so special about Brazil make its practices of partici- participatory governance initiatives in Chile.77 Even in
patory democracy interesting but unavailable to us? The those cases, however, the political commitment to partici-
collection edited by Selee and Peruzzotti begins to answer pation seems to depend upon political leaders who are
this question. Participatory Innovation and Representative exceptionally, perhaps idiosyncratically, committed to pop-
Democracy in Latin America is composed of essays that ular participation.
examine the politics and practices of participatory gover- Beyond political commitment, scholars of participa-
nance in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, as well as tion in Brazil agree that its most robust instances of par-
in Brazil. ticipatory reform depend on the existence of civil society
The authors of these essays do not identify any schemes organizations that are not only strong and encompassing
of participatory democracy that are as sustained or ambi- but also committed to participatory governance itself as a
tious as participation in places like Porto Alegre or Belo method of making public decisions and allocating public
Horizonte. Rather than identifying fundamentally differ- goods. Many of the essays in Participatory Innovation and
ent dynamics outside of Brazil, these authors’ findings Representative Democracy in Latin America attend to the
about the determinants of successful participatory gover- character of civil society—the tally of civic organizations,
nance echo the comparative studies of Wampler, Avritzer, the sizes of their memberships, and their areas of concern.
and Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva. Regarding geographic scale, What is distinctive about some Brazilian civic organiza- 䡬
for example, most of the participatory innovations in other tions, however, is that they demand not just policies that
Latin American countries seem to have emerged in cities benefit their members and constituents but also processes
as they have in Brazil. of participatory governance, as opposed to just momen-
Furthermore, successful participatory governance requires tarily advantageous political relationships, as the terrain of
the support of political leaders. That support, furthermore, allocative decision making. Civil society that is not just
is as much a product of political self-interest as ideology or robust and contentious but also participatory democratic
party program. For example, Aníbal Ibarra, the chief of gov- in its orientation seems to be a missing ingredient in these
ernment of Buenos Aires, implemented a program of par- other Latin American cases. Indeed, Roberto Laserna’s essay
ticipatory budgeting in 2002.74 Though initially limited to on Bolivia describes many civic organizations that were
only 16 neighborhoods, almost 5,000 residents partici- ideologically opposed to what might otherwise have been
pated. They identified some 338 projects of which, accord- a favorable legal and administrative environment for par-
ing to city records, 80% were implemented. Over the next ticipatory governance.78
two years, participatory budgeting came to encompass all
neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. Fourteen thousand resi- Many years ago, I recall recoiling upon encountering Rich-
dents participated in PB in 2004, and 60% of the priorities ard Rorty’s essay, “Unger, Castoriadis, and the Romance
they identified were implemented. After just three years, of a National Future.” 79 In that piece, the great American
however, the program receded in scale and significance as social philosopher was trying to make sense of the demo-
political leaders favored other initiatives. cratic and egalitarian audaciousness of Brazilian intellec-
Peruzzotti explains why participatory budgeting in Bue- tual Roberto Unger. Rorty suggested that American and
nos Aires was so ephemeral. Ibarra endorsed PB after a European scholars and political reformers alike were stuck
period of widespread popular protest and civic action in tragic, backward-looking cycles of debate and political
against failing economic and social policies and the lack reform, while Unger, unencumbered by our particular polit-
of political accountability. In this instance, PB was an ical pretensions, charged forward.
elite strategy to win the allegiance of city residents and Rorty suggested that we in the First World cannot “boot-
co-opt civic organizations. After the initial pressure from strap” ourselves out of our democratic malaise as the Bra-
popular protest faded, absent civic pressure to maintain zilians described by Baiocchi, Heller, and Silva did. What
participatory institutions, politicians fell back on more we need to shake us out of these democratic doldrums,
conventional methods of incorporation and allocation he wrote, were bold ideas and political experiments from
December 2011 | Vol. 9/No. 4 867
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