Sustainability as a Measure of Success: Externally Promoted Participatory Budgeting in El Salvador 10 Years Later
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Author | Gary Bland |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1788 |
| Published date | 01 May 2017 |
SUSTAINABILITY AS A MEASURE OF SUCCESS: EXTERNALLY
PROMOTED PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING IN EL SALVADOR 10 YEARS
LATER
GARY BLAND*
RTI International, USA
SUMMARY
This article examines the sustainability of externally promoted participatory budgeting (PB) over more than a decade and, given
the results, considers the implications for participatory practice in international development. In 2009, I investigated the
continued utilization of PB as introduced through a US-financed local government development project in post-war
El Salvador. I examined all 28 project municipalities 5 years after the project ended and found limited but important PB
sustainability. In 2015, I replicated the study, using the same parameters in the same 28 municipalities, more than 10 years after
completion of the project. This article presents the findings of the latter study and compares them with 2009 results. PB
continues to be utilized in more than half of the 28 municipalities examined—a striking example of long-term sustainability
—although there is also little continuity of use among individual municipal governments. I conclude that PB is becoming
institutionalized, in part because of the initial project. This case of sustainability and institutionalization of PB may allow us
to be more optimistic about the potential effects of participation in international development. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley
& Sons, Ltd.
key words—participatory budgeting; local governance; Latin America; social accountability; sustainability; El Salvador;
democracy
INTRODUCTION
Participatory budgeting (PB), which generally refers to an inclusive, deliberative process of incorporating citizen
priorities into local government decision making on public investment, has become many things to many people.
Having expanded well beyond its origins in Porto Alegre, Brazil, more than a quarter of a century ago, PB can been
found in use throughout the developing world and in multiple industrialized nations. Community-based
organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), multilateral development institutions, bilateral agencies,
and all levels of government have been engaged in promoting, supporting, or implementing PB. Indeed, the World
Bank is now considered by some to be PB’s“most important and influential exponent”—a point that proves to be
of relevance to the case of El Salvador, as will be seen (Goldfrank, 2012, 1). There is no single PB model. Although
Porte Alegre PB was the original paradigm, country after country has adopted PB to suit its own motivations,
political and socioeconomic settings, and reform objectives. The PB experience has in fact been categorized into
six ideal-type conceptual models of participation, ranging from participatory democracy that brings citizens
directly into representative government to a neo-corporatist approach that links government to organized groups
(Sintomer et al., 2012). PB might entail bottom-up community development or a top-down process concerned
primarily with good government and legitimacy. The Salvadoran model is best described as a blend of participatory
democracy and more formal, top-down deliberation.
Despite the differences, it is important to review the set of characteristics that minimally define PB. PB is, above
all, a process of public deliberation and negotiation among government and participants (i.e., citizens) over
*Correspondence to: Gary Bland, RTI International, USA. E-mail: gbland@rti.org
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 37, 110–121 (2017)
Published online 9 March 2017 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1788
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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