Barreiras do orçamento participativo: uma perspectiva dos municípios paranaenses e portugueses

Abstract

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is one of the most important innovations in governance and participatory democracy worldwide. The cities of Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Palmela, Lisbon, New York or Paris are just a few examples of cities that use PB and foster citizen participation in the discussion and decision-making on public investments. It is currently estimated that there are between 11,690 and 11,825 PB experiences in 71 countries. Brazil was a pioneer in the elaboration of the mechanism, and Portugal is currently the country with the highest implementation rates in the world. However, several authors indicate the occurrence of barriers in PB processes, such as asymmetric relations between local government and citizens, limited financial resources to invest in proposals, lack of transparency, citizens’ lack of time, and the fact that approved projects are not implemented. In addition to the exemplified barriers, the pandemic of COVID-19 caused new barriers or worsened the pre-crisis barriers. In this sense, the pandemic has changed the daily lives of populations around the world, impacted household economies, imposed on governments the need to manage declining revenues, changed behavioral patterns and processes. The objective of this research is to identify the perception about the barriers affecting the PB process from the perspective of Local Public Administration. The research explores the barriers of access (external reasons), use (personal opinion), and the barriers COVID-19 imposes to the PB. The research applied an online questionnaire using a Likert-type scale to assess the perception of Paraná and Portuguese municipalities about the barriers of PB. Through a quantitative approach, data were presented and analyzed using descriptive statistics, parametric and nonparametric tests. The research identified that there are no marked differences between barriers of access and barriers of usage in Paraná. In Portugal, there is statistical significance for differences between the two groups of barriers, with a greater perception of the occurrence of use barriers. The research collaborators responsible for carrying out the PB in both Paraná and Portuguese municipalities indicated that the crisis caused by the pandemic of COVID-19 had a negative impact on the realization of the processes. There is a sign that the pandemic imposed a change in the PB processes, and the possible restrictive consequences of the crisis on the implementation of the mechanism in the future are apparently not totally clear, according to the municipalities analyzed in both countries. The work seeks to contribute to the improvement of understanding of the obstacles of participatory budgeting, both for academics and for participants in the process.