This is a summary article of the SJPS thematic issue on participatory budgeting in the Central and Eastern European region. Its authors provide an overview of the diffusion of participatory ...budgeting, and they classify relevant countries in terms of the pace of this diffusion into four different groups: frontrunners, early majority, later majority, and lagging adopters. In addition, they uncover various diffusion mechanisms that have been used. Since the research articles included in this thematic issue unpack various factors that influence the diffusion of the innovative practice of participatory budgeting in the specific settings of Central and Eastern Europe, the main goal of this article is to sum up their crucial findings and formulate several conclusions, including a few avenues for further research. A clear majority of countries in the region have already collected a relevant amount of experience with the adoption and further use of participatory budgeting. An analysis of the individual experiences reveals that the position and characteristics of mayors, organizational resources, and available capacities, as well as the quality of public trust, are likely to be important factors that determine the adoption and use of participatory budgeting in the region.
Participatory budget is an innovative tool for public policymaking, which is characterized by the particpation of residents of territorial administrative units. In the paper, authors focus on the ...evaluation of the participatory budget within the Visegrad Group, which is linked by specific ties due to the special development of this geopolitical area after the political and social changes in the late 1980s. Identifying the specifics of participatory budgeting in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia is set as the main goal of the article, specifically evaluating the pilot project model, analysing the legislative framework, which regulates participatory budgeting, and extending this tool at the local level in terms of current statistics. As for the pilot projects, the authors identified differences in the following indicators: initiator of its implementation; participation of citizens and their position and powers in project design; participation in the decision-making on projects in terms of voting; whether a direct physical vote or online form was used. In addition, the authors evaluate the legal framework of the selected states in terms of presence of the primary or secondary regulation. Finally, the quantitative development of participatory budgets is monitored, while the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also reflected in the paper. Based on the data from other states of the Visegrad Group, in the final chapter the authors present optimization proposals, which they consider applicable in Slovakia. The authors identified at least three possible ways of amending the current Slovak legislation in order to improve the implementation of the participatory budget. The paper specifies the shortcomings in the form of low citizen participation in the drafting phase and in the voting process. The paper also identifies the same bottom-up implementation process in all V4 member countries. Poland is the only V4 country that has enshrined primary legislation on participatory budgets in its legal system.
Participatory budgeting (PB) is often discussed as a tool to support active participation of citizens in the decision-making in the matters of the distribution of public resources. However, little ...was said about the possibility that the choice of a voting method used in the voting phase of the PB process could affect the participation in PB. In the Czech Republic, the Democracy 2.1 (D21) voting method is often used in municipalities implementing PB and additionally, it is promoted as a method to encourage more people to vote. This article aims to determine Czech municipalities with the D21 method and its modification, and to evaluate the impact of choosing these voting methods on participation rate in PB. The study suggests that the choice of a voting method is relevant for citizens´ engagement in voting. Based on the empirical findings, the D21 method and its modification are associated with a higher voter turnout in PB than another voting method. Further, the results underline the influence of external organizations offering online platforms for voting.
Recent developments in local public finance management in Slovenia indicate the local governments’ growing interest in introducing participatory budgeting as a decision-making tool, wherein part of ...local resources are used with citizen participation. Usually, the literature on participation budgeting analyses its effects, but our main research objective was to analyze the possible determinants influencing its implementation. The influence of political factors, sociodemographic factors, economic factors, and the capability of municipalities are examined here using binary logistic regression to predict a dichotomous dependent variable from a set of predictor variables. In binary logistic regression, predictable variables are the probability of one category being chosen. In this case, the authors calculated the probability that a municipality, described by selected prediction variables, would implement a participatory budget. The results of the analysis suggest six indicators that impact the probability of participatory budgeting adoption, proving the influence of four determinants on the decision to adopt such a measure.
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