Deliberative participatory budgeting: A case study of Zeguo Town in China
| Author | Baogang He |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1853 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Deliberative participatory budgeting: A case study of Zeguo
Town in China
Baogang He
1,2
1
Deakin University, Australia
2
Honorable Professor at Institute for China
Rural Studies, Central China Normal University
Correspondence
Baogang He, Deakin University, Australia.
Email: baogang.he@deakin.edu.au
Funding information
Australian Research Council, Grant/Award
Numbers: DP0666271 and DP0986641
Summary
The search for a better practice instrument of civic engagement has led to participatory
budgeting and deliberative polling in recent years. Participatory budgeting stresses
empowerment and citizens' struggle against the establishment and unequal social
structures, whereas deliberative polling works within the system and focuses on
improving democratic decision‐making processes by applying credible social science
methods. Often, these two processes are presented as being in conflict with each other,
which is to the detriment of the search for best practice indeliberative governance. This
paper develops a theoretical analysis of deliberative participatory budgeting which is
distinguished from unrepresentative and non‐deliberative but self‐selected participa-
tory budgeting; that is, it considers how the quality of participatory budgeting can be
improved through deliberative polling. This theoretical analysis is backed by an empir-
ical study of deliberative participatory budgeting in ZeguoTownship, Zhejiang Province,
China. It explores whether, how, and under what conditions it is possible to combine
deliberative polling and participatory budgeting. It details four experiments and
assesses the successes, failures, limitations, and problems of the experiments. The case
of Zeguo offers scholars, activists, and officials lessons about how to pursue best delib-
erative practice in both authoritarian states and democratic societies.
KEYWORDS
China, civic engagement, deliberativeparticipatory budgeting, deliberative polling, participatory
budgeting, political participation
1|INTRODUCTION
The search for a better practice instrument for generating civic engage-
ment has historically been evaluated according to two different lines of
thinking. One, following de Tocqueville (2000), stresses empowerment
and citizens' struggle against unequal social structures, whereas the
other, following Max Weber, works within the system and focuses on
improving official democratic decision‐making processes by applying
proper and credible social science methods. Participatory budgeting
(PB) represents the first approach; deliberative polling (DP), developed
by James Fishkin, represents the second. Often, these two approaches
are presented as mutually exclusive, which is to the detriment of the
search for best practice in deliberative governance.
In real democratic life, the political activism and empowerment of
PB can and should be combined with DP. Indeed, Fishkin (2018)
applies his DP to the fledgling PB processes in China and Mongolia.
In his case study of Mongolia, Fishkin (2018, p. 92) offers DP as a
correction to the self‐selection method of PB and develops a concept
of deliberative PB, that is, “how to combine deliberation with
participation to exert popular control”over the budgeting areas of
policymaking (Fishkin, 2018, p. 91). Nevertheless, a more thorough the-
oretical notion of deliberative PB remains largely underdeveloped.
Moreover, there are empirical questions regarding whether or how DP
is or can be effective in addressing the problems associated with PB
and whether or how the combination of DP with PB can deependemo-
cratic practices. Contrarily, questions remain as to whether or how this
Received: 23 January 2018 Revised: 10 April 2019 Accepted: 17 April 2019
DOI: 10.1002/pad.1853
144 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin Dev. 2019;39:144–153.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad
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