Since the early 1990s there has been a growing sense of political discontent in West-European democracies. The symptoms include falling electoral turnouts, declining party membership numbers and increased estrangement between politicians and citizens. Simultaneously, public administrations have been criticized for being too traditional, bureaucratic and paternalistic. The prevalence of a neo-liberal ideology has seen increased emphasis on privatization, deregulation and market forces. In this context, local administration is the arena in which problems and solution come together. Local governments have tried to respond to citizens demands, the pressures of competition and the need to reform by increasing citizen participation in government. Participatory budgets are a particularly interesting example of this trend. Inspired by the experience of the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, the idea of popular participation in running local budgets has spread rapidly across Europe. Whereas at the turn of the century only a few cities had introduced participatory budgets, they have now been introduced in more than 50. Until today has there however neither been a transnational exchange of experiences nor a scientific analysis of the models, which would allow a process of mutual understanding.

In the framework of the research project European Participatory Budgets (short title), more than twenty European Participatory Budgets / participatory experiments with an important financial dimension has been investigated according to the context, the aims, the procedures and results. Furthermore, basic data has been collected in 30 other cities, so that in total more than 10 European countries are investigated in the project. The purpose is to elaborate a systematic analysis, which should permit to propose appropriate methods or to ameliorate existing ones according to the context and the interests of the actors (citizens, mayor, municipal council and administration). In addition, we have analysed the ways in which the participation can contribute to the modernization of administration. Besides the modernization of administration, we have investigated the democratisation process, which concerns the internal structures of administration as well as its relationships with civil society. In this context, the social effects of the Participatory Budgets have been finally scrutinized.

The research project focuses on Germany, France, Spain and Italy. The experiences of the Participatory Budgets are quite advanced in these countries, so that it is possible to base the analysis on already existing devices. As far as the dimension of administrative modernization is concerned, it is however interesting and necessary to include as well examples of Finland, Great Britain ant the Netherlands, countries where the New Public Management plays an important role. In order to get a comprehensive overview of participatory budgets in Europe, experiences from Belgium, Portugal and Poland have also been integrated. Municipalities of different scale and social structure have been selected for the project. Every municipality provides a different model-example of participation and of administrative modernization research. The aim is to describe the procedures, to construct conceptual typologies and to elaborate indicators of comparison for defining Best Practices - examples in the end of the project. The possible transmission of these models is discussed in relation with the political, social and cultural context.

The material has been obtained essentially by qualitative methods: Semi-directive interviews, observation of key-moments of social interactions and analysis of the collected materials will form the core of our methods. Quantitative and statistical indicators have been elaborated when possible.

Yves SINTOMER, Carsten HERZBERG, Anja RÖCKE, "Participatory Budgets in an European Comparative Approach. Volume I, Centre Marc Bloch / Hans-Böckler-Stiftung / Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, 2006, (im Erscheinen)
(erscheint 2. Halbjahr 2006, Editionen in Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Spanisch...)

Yves SINTOMER, Carsten HERZBERG, Anja RÖCKE, Budgets participatifs en Europe. Les affinités électives de la modernisation administrative et de la participation citoyenne, 2006, (à paraître)
La Découverte, Paris

Yves SINTOMER, Carsten HERZBERG, Anja RÖCKE, Participatory Budgets in a European Comparative Approach. Volume II (Documents), Centre Marc Bloch / Hans-Böckler-Stiftung / Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, 2005
Field studies, graphics, tables, quantitative analysis, methodological background