Participatory Budgeting in the Public Sector: Experiences and Reflections
Tsai-Tsu Su*
Abstract
Participatory budgeting has become a worldwide phenomenon in recent years. It has become prevalent partly because of its ambiguity. Since early 2000s, the basically leftist character of participatory budgeting has been gradually fading. Instead, participatory budgeting has become one of the best practices of good governance and is regarded as part of open government efforts. This accelerated the diffusion and influence of participatory budgeting in different regions of the world. The central government and local governments in Taiwan also initiated participatory budgeting in 2015.
This paper introduces the primary models for implementing participatory budgeting in Taiwan, namely, the city or county councilor’s discretionary fund model, the contracting out model, and the administrative agency model. It also describes the initial performance of participatory budgeting in Taiwan. To understand the impact of power conflicts and entangling interest involved in the implementation of participatory budgeting, this paper then, based on Taiwan’s experiences, reflects on the following questions. Firstly, what is the role of political entrepreneurs in the participatory budgeting process? Secondly, is it necessary to exclude the established political power from the new political space created by participatory budgeting if one wishes to expand the inclusiveness and deepen civic participation? Lastly, has the Taiwanese bureaucratic system equipped itself with enough capacity to cope with the new challenges that are brought by participatory budgeting?
Keywords: participatory budgeting, councilor’s discretionary fund, political entrepreneur
* Professor, Graduate Institute of Public Affairs and Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University, email: tsaitsu@ntu.edu.tw.