Participatory Budgeting: how it works in Croatia, Poland and Slovakia

What is it about?

The aim of the article is to provide a comparative analysis of the use and role of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Croatia, Poland and Slovakia and to identify the models of PB used in selected countries. In order to compare the case studies of municipalities in selected countries the qualitative analysis has been used and the classification of PB models applied. Most analysed local units use “Porto Alegre adapted for Europe” model, but “Consultation on public finances”, “Representation of Organized Interest” and “Proximity participation” models are also represented. The main findings are that PB indeed enables better allocation of public sources according to citizen´s needs (various public services were delivered following the trend of social innovation and co-creation) but the problem is with the low amount from public budgets assigned for PB and relatively low interest of citizens to participate in the PB processes. PB might also bring certain risks linked with its implementation, e.g. misuse of the idea for political reasons or additional costs of projects delivered in PB procedure

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Why is it important?

PB might be considered as an innovative tool for managing public services provision (all proposed projects must fulfil criteria of general benefit and topics are from areas of public services) and it follows the trend of public administration reforms and thus can help promoting the concept of good governance in the Eastern Europe countries