Presentation on electronic participatory budgeting at Midwest Decision Sciences Institute 2009 conference, Miami University, Oxford Ohio, April 18, 2009.

1. Supporting Community Deliberation
and Decision-making with Online Tools
Cory Allen Heidelberger
Dakota State University
MWDSI—April 18, 2009

2. Overview
 Motivation and Objectives
 Background on PB
 Gaps in research/practice
 Normative framework
1. participatory budgeting/participation in general
2. use of online decision support tools for PB (ePB)
3. design guidelines for ePB
 Proposed prototype/experiment

3. What got me thinking...
 citizen participation: great goal... or is it?
 learn about complicated budget issues
 attend public fora
 navigate large-group discussions
 thousands of person hours to do what city commission
can do in dozens
 worth the effort?

4. Objectives
 propose justification for participatory budgeting
 political science, public administration
 propose justification for use of computer-assisted
decision support: electronic PB
 information systems, PB practice
 propose practice design guidelines for ePB
 use these guidelines as basis for prototype, local trial

6. Participatory Budgeting (PB):
Design Principles
 citizens and/or delegates discuss and debate public
needs
 formal rules link participatory inputs and budgeting
process
 open public process and broader range of actors
expand monitoring of budget
 neighborhoods receive tangible returns, which
encourages participation
(Baiocchi et al. 2008)

7. Participatory Budgeting: Where?
 Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1989
 spread elsewhere in Brazil early 1990s
 currently hundreds of cities worldwide
 some small cities (15K-20K)
 four Canadian cities
 rare in U.S.
 property tax resists redistribution to low-
income areas?

8. PB Lite: Online Educational Tools
 American Public Media’s “Budget Hero”
 U.S. federal budget
 deficit reduction
 comparison with presidential candidates
 discussion forum on Gather.com
 Copenhagen Consensus Center
 priorities for global problems
(hunger, disease, terrorism, air pollution)
 Both educate; neither official

10. Gap: Normative Framework for
Citizen Participation
 Democracy/participation good... right?
 New Public Administration
 “exclusionary technocracy”
 descriptive theory (Stewart 2007) proposes game
theory/competition approach
 competition model ignores cooperative public admin.
goals
 need guidelines for establishing civic partnership to
check political games

11. Gap: PB Practice in USA
 Birthplace of modern democracy... PB
should be breaking out all over
 No large-scale implementations
 Hard to find examples in small-town
USA

12. Gap: PB-Information Systems
Connection
 PB literature rarely mentions information systems
 websites often appear in PB communities
 no evident systematic use of online tools to support PB
 PB tends to focus on face-to-face interaction
 Note: Computers/Internet not necessary
 Athens! Agora!
 Philadelphia 1776
 Computers/Internet certainly useful!
 online organizing
 DSU

14. Citizen Participation:
Justification in Political Language
 Legitimacy
 all have capacity and right to participate
 Property rights
 “It’s our money!”
 Trust
 working together means less distance, less
alienation

15. Citizen Participation:
Justification in Business Language
 Stakeholder buy-in
 Democracy = project management
 Participants take ownership of budget
 Competition in marketplace of ideas
 More ideas/perspectives to choose from
 Better systems
 Participatory design discovers user needs better
(Mumford, 1983)
 Increased public resources
 PB  more tax revenue, less delinquency (Cabannes, 2004)

16. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Justification
 Participation is expensive – opportunity
cost!
 Three ways to overcome opportunity cost:
1. increase citizens’ wealth (hard)
2. increase citizens’ motivation to
participate (hard)
3. decreasing cost of participation (online
DSS!)

17. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Justification
 Broader representation
 PB focuses on increasing low-income
representation
 ePB lowers opp. cost
 Social auditing
 online records = many eyes
 Transparency
 More citizens see what’s happening and what
happened

18. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Justification
 “Deliberation within” (Goodin, 2003)
 PB usually in public meetings
 ePB allows asynchronous, more thought time
 can check informational and social pressures of group
deliberation (Sunstein, 2005)
 Education
 frequently cited as pre-req and positive outcome of PB
 online information augments public meetings, supports
ongoing learning

19. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Design Principles
 Good gov’t budget Web design
(Tanaka, 2007)
 up-to-date info
 clear graphics
 multiple formats (prose, charts, graphs...)
 relevant links
 easy navigation and search

20. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Design Principles
 Data accessibility
 offer budget data in formats users can easily access and
manipulate
 HTML, Excel – never just PDF
 Good example: Stimulus.Virginia.Gov
 Excel format—download, sort!
 First 48 hours: nearly 1,000 proposals
 Feb. 10 – Mar 6: over 9,000 proposals

21. Electronic Participatory Budgeting:
Design Principles
 Background materials
 complete, balanced, neutral (Lukensmeyer & Brigham,
2005)
 Deliberation space
 online forum or wiki captures citizen discussion
 Social auditing
 integrate site with municipal record-keeping

23. Prototype 1: “More or Less”
 Allows citizens to define “more” and “less”
 percentages
 averages based on historical budget data
 assume inflation
 Asks citizens whether they want to spend “more,” “same,”
or “less” on various budget items
 Displays current spending and savings/expense of user
choices
 Can include links to explanatory materials
 Can include discussion, summary of other citizen inputs

24. Prototype 2: “Chopping Block”
 Assesses citizen priorities
 “Would you consider cuts...?”
 “definitely” – “never”
 pick number of programs to cut, see savings...
 ...or set amount to cut from budget, see programs cut by
chosen priority
 Also aggregate all submitted responses
 Can include links to explanatory materials
 Can include discussion, summary of other citizen
inputs

25. Future design/research work
 Capture suggestions for new programs
 Deploy and test online with real citizens
 Host face-to-face meetings for comparable exercises

26. Research Questions
 Do citizens and public officials find ePB tools useful?
 Do ePB tools draw participants representative of the
population?
 Is there a minimum population for communities that
can derive benefits from ePB?
 Can ePB serve as a decision support tool for elected
officials?

27. Electronic Participatory Budgeting
Questions, Comments,
and Suggestions welcome!

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