Participatory Democracy Versus Elitist Democracy: Lessons from Brazil

Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy Lessons from Brazil William R. Nylen Participatory Democracy versus ...

Author: William R. Nylen | Lawrence C. Dodd

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Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy Lessons from Brazil

William R. Nylen

Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy

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Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy: Lessons from Brazil By

William R. Nylen

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY VERSUS ELITIST DEMOCRACY

© William R. Nylen, 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–6306–1 hardback Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nylen, William R. Participatory democracy versus elitist democracy: lessons from Brazil/by William R. Nylen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 1–4039–6306–1 (alk. paper) 1. Democracy—Brazil. 2. Political participation—Brazil. 3. Elite (Social sciences)—Brazil. I. Title: Participatory democracy versus elitist democracy. II. Title. JL2481.N94 2003 320.981—dc21

2003048605

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: October, 2003 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

For Nize


Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments Foreword Chapter 1

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Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in the United States

1

Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in Brazil

13

Chapter 3

Participatory Democracy in Theory

27

Chapter 4

Participatory Democracy in Practice—Brazil’s Workers’ Party and the Participatory Budget

35

The Orçamento Participativo in Betim, Minas Gerais

51

Examining the Claims of Proponents of the Participatory Budget

61

Examining the Claims of Critics of the Participatory Budget

91

Chapter 2

Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Conclusion

Administering the Participatory Budget— Ideology and Dedication

131

Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy—Lessons from Brazil

145

Notes

157

Annex 1: Questionnaire for Delegates and Councilors of the Participatory Budget, 1998

209

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Table of Contents

Annex 2: Characteristics of 1998 OP Delegates (Respondents) in Betim and Belo Horizonte

213

Bibliography

217

Index

239

Preface and Acknowledgments

T

his is a book about problems and promises of democracy at the beginning of a new millennium. It started out as a book more specifically about Brazilian democracy, reflecting one North American’s ongoing discovery of, and fascination with, Brazilian politics. During the actual writing of the book, however, in the United States of the late 1990s and early 2000s, I found myself discovering numerous and suggestive parallels between my research in Brazil and my daily attention to politics at home. The book quickly evolved, then, into a more explicitly comparative analysis of what I saw to be the problems of turn-of-the-millennium democracy in both Brazil and the United States. In fact, the more I researched and read about these problems, the more I discovered that they were shared to a greater or lesser degree by a great many other contemporary democracies throughout the world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. From my first visit to Brazil in 1986 and through subsequent visits, I sometimes fancied myself to be in the position of the great French social philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, who in visiting the early nineteenth century United States and in writing his famous Democracy in America, could not help but compare what he saw in North America with what he knew and felt most intensely back home in France. Tocqueville felt that many of the social and political processes he observed in North America—as well as the normative and prescriptive conclusions he drew from those observations— were comparable in important respects with similar processes in France. I have to admit that I first began to think this way while living in Brazil for two years during the Reagan–Bush era of American politics (late 1987 to mid-1989). Brazil’s staggering social and economic inequalities appeared to offer a glimpse into the future of neoconservativism in the United States that began with the Reagan administration in the early 1980s.1 While that argument may have been stretching the rules of comparability a bit thin, my propensity to think comparatively continues to provide me with new questions and insights regarding both countries.2

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One such insight led me on an eight-year (so far) research journey from the megacity of São Paulo to the tiny fishing village of Icapuí and the drought-parched interior town of Quixadá in the Northeastern state of Ceará, then to the industrial towns of João Monlevade, Timoteo, Ipatinga, and Betim, and the capital city of Belo Horizonte in the Centraleastern state of Minas Gerais. In each of these visits, I went in search of information about localized efforts undertaken by Brazil’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores: PT) to democratize the country’s infamously elitist politics by opening up local politics to so-called popular political participation—that is, to individuals and groups historically ignored by or excluded from political decision-making processes. The more I researched and wrote about these cases of “popular democratic governance” (or Participatory Democracy) and the social and political ills they were attempting to address, the more I thought about possible lessons they could offer to North Americans increasingly disillusioned with and alienated from their own political system. Could it be that Brazil—notorious for its social inequality and weak democracy—could offer valuable political lessons to North Americans about how to address our own political problems?3 In attempting to answer that question in this book, I have in mind at least two interested audiences. One is made up of fellow Brazilianists and Latin Americanists and others interested in democratization and political development in Latin America and the so-called Developing World. This first audience is, perhaps, the traditional one for a social science book based on a case study from Latin America. A second audience, however, is made up of those not necessarily or primarily interested in Brazil or Latin America, per se, but interested in experiments in participatory democracy designed to make democratic government, in general, more accessible and more responsive to average citizens. Like Tocqueville, I find myself in both camps. As I delved into the Brazilian cases of popular participation, I became increasingly aware that their implications went beyond even the Brazilian and American cases. Practical experiments in Participatory Democracy kept revealing themselves to me, sometimes in unlikely places: Japan, Jamaica, Canada, Uruguay, Bolivia, and South Africa, to name but a few. I discovered that major development organizations, like the United Nations Development Program, the Interamerican Foundation, and the World Bank, were keenly interested in popular participation and its impact on improving the long-term success and sustainability of their development projects. Similarly, important public policy institutes, like the Unión Iberoamericana de Municipalistas, were closely monitoring and studying participatory mechanisms of public administration for their citizenship-enhancing outcomes. And, of course, I discovered a growing literature on participatory democratic


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theory coming from my academic colleagues primarily in the fields of political science and sociology. I offer this book as a humble contribution to the work of that community of practitioners and researchers; and I offer it as an introduction to that community’s concerns and hopes for fellow North Americans who believe that democracy-in-practice can and must be something more than a virtually exclusive game of moneyed elites and “special interests,” empty media sound bites, and increasingly dissatisfying choreographed campaigns. No man is an island, and I have been assisted in myriad ways by innumerable people in the long process leading up to completion of this book. Inevitably, no short “acknowledgment” can faithfully perform the task of including everyone who has contributed in one way or another. Nonetheless, one must make the worthwhile effort. So, first, I wish to thank all of the many Brazilians whose formal interviews, private conversations, published and unpublished works, and friendships over the years have formed the building blocks for my own thoughts and analyses. I can only hope that my interpretations and presentations live up to the faith you so graciously invested in me. In particular, for their assistance well above and beyond the call of duty, I wish to thank Eriberto Barbosa Gama, Flávia de Paula Duque Brasil, Luiz Henrique de Oliveira Cunha, Osvaldo Fiori, Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, Maria Beatriz Gonçalvez, Jésus Lima, Gilberto Lisboa, Otilie Macedo Pinhero, Geraldo Margela, Elke Reagan de Oliveira, Laercio José Ribeiro, João and Teresa Rodrigues, José and Celi Rodrigues Leão, Eugenio Salvio Lobo, Mônica Maria Castro de Sousa, and Nara Lúcia de Bragança Teixeira. These are the people without whom I could not have carried out my field work in Brazil. I also wish to thank my loving and patient wife, Nize Rita Nylen, and my sons, John João Nylen and Russell Wright Nylen. Not that they were dragged kicking and screaming to Brazil all those summers. But they did have to put up with my rather odd definition of being on vacation: field research two-tothree hundred miles away from the family for weeks at a time, and constant reading and writing . . . always writing. And I want to thank my mother, Vivien Wright Torrey, and my stepfather, Donald Robert Torrey, for their unwavering support over the years. It was 1976 when you brought home that announcement about a summer foreign exchange opportunity in Mexico. Thanks, mom. It’s made all the difference. Finally, thanks to my mentors over the years for kindling the spark: Carla Robbins, Bruce Bagley, Riordan Roett, Henrique Rattner, Doug Chalmers, and Al Stepan. Thanks, as well, to supportive colleagues along the way, including Paul Haber, Anne Hallum, Kathryn Hochstetler, Mimi Keck, Peter Kingstone, Scott Martin, Tony Pereira, Tim Power, John Schorr, and Bill Smith.


Foreword

W

illiam Nylen has written a wonderful little book about the creation of vibrant democratic participation in a society struggling with elitist politics and citizen alienation. No, this book is not about the United States—nor about Britain, France, or Germany—though one might well wish that it were. It is about Brazil, one of those “Third World” nations that we so often dismiss as “developing” democracies, which have yet to enter the family of established democratic systems and thus have much left to learn from America or its European counterparts. In truth, as Nylen makes clear, students and scholars of established politics in the United States and elsewhere have much to learn from Third World nations such as Brazil. In Brazil, political activists struggle with severe problems of poverty and crime far greater than our own, while also confronting the sort of elitist politics and mass disengagement that predominates within contemporary established democracies. If proponents of democracy have reason to despair about the future of democracy in United States and Western Europe, they would seem to have even more reason for concern in Brazil. Yet in the face of such obstacles, activists committed to the long-term empowerment of Brazil’s impoverished mass citizenry have embraced reformist strategies that hold out real hope for the involvement of nonelite citizens in democratic politics. Nylen tells the story of one such reform effort. The reform effort Nylen examines is the implementation of “Participatory Budgets” in the policy decision-making of the towns and cities governed by Brazil’s Workers’ Party. As in other democracies, Brazil has local as well as state and national governments that are elected by voters, with these governments including not only mayors, governors, and presidents but city councils and legislatures. And as in other contemporary democracies, such elections are dominated by money and by highly organized interest groups, so that social and economic elites tend to have considerable influence on politics, thereby generating elitist politics, mass disengagement, and

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Foreword

limited attention to the concerns of the poor. To offset such developments, the Workers’ Party has created participatory budgets as a process to insure that any and all citizens can have leverage on government decision-making. In communities with participatory budgets, the local administration must call neighborhood meetings throughout the city to discuss the next fiscal year’s budget, particularly the spending priorities for public works projects. All citizens can attend these meetings and nominate a list of public works priorities for their neighborhood, as well as for the city. Participants then vote on which projects to give priority and on who among them will serve as delegates to attend the city-wide assembly that will vote on a final list of budget priorities. Those results are then presented to the city council, and the delegates are allowed to discuss and defend the various proposals before the council. The overall process provides a way in which common citizens can influence the budget proposals that city councils debate, instead of leaving such influence to well-heeled citizens or well-organized interests. It can also create considerable pressure on city council members to attend or participate in the local meetings whereby citizens shape the participatory budget and to heed citizens budget requests. Lest the reader forget, Nylen is describing a process of citizen participation in the creation of city budgets in a nation in which common citizens are extremely poor—far more so than average citizens in established “North Atlantic” democracies. While most citizens do not actually attend such meetings, preoccupied as they are by issues of daily survival and subsistence living, thousands of them do, and in the process appear to have some considerable influence on local officials and budget debates. But the important question to Nylen, concerned as he is with the health of modern democracies and the lessons of the Brazilian experience for other nations, is whether the existence of participatory budgets appears to have positive consequences for participatory democracy in Brazil. As a social scientist interested not simply in identifying innovative democratic reforms but assessing their empirical consequence, Nylen seeks to answer this question through systematic empirical research. Nylen’s research strategy is two-fold. First, he engages in in-depth personal interviews with a large number of local officials and citizen activists, seeking to understand from them the nature of their personal experiences with the participatory budgets. These “qualitative” interviews form much of the empirical basis for the book’s core narrative while also providing great insight into the operation of the participatory budget process. His extensive quotes from these interviews bring to life common citizens who may be engaging in political action for the first time, helping us to visualize and

Foreword

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understand them. Moreover, his interviews with Workers’ Party activists make clear that elites in democratic politics are not always just single-minded seekers of reelection, or machine bosses using patronage to consolidate community power; they can be public servants deeply committed to social betterment. Yet, as a balanced and objective analyst, Nylen also gives elected elites and government officials their due, reporting their comments on participatory budgets in an evenhanded manner that serves to document the limits and pitfalls of participatory budgets, as seen from the standpoint of city council members and mainstream officials. In addition, Nylen has surveyed a subset of delegates to the participatory assemblies, and subjects these interviews to systematic quantitative analysis in order to determine whether the participatory budget reforms are aiding mass participatory engagement. Are the existence of participatory budgets actually empowering common citizens, broadening the range of citizens who are represented in policy deliberations, and sustaining the engagement of common citizens in mass participatory politics? Or, despite the hoopla, are participatory budgets ultimately a bust when it comes to engaging mass citizens in democratic policy-making—yet one more example of the difficulty or impossibility of creating institutional arrangements that nurture participatory democracy, and thereby one more testament to the inherent preimminence of elitist politics? I will let Bill Nylen present the findings from his mass surveys, walking you through them step by step. As a genuine social scientist, committed to systematic inquiry and objective empirical analysis, Bill pulls no punches. Concerned as he is about the strengthening of democracy through mass participation, he might like to tell you that a participatory budget is the magic bullet that empowers the common citizen and slays the elitist dragon. But that is not what he finds, and that is not what he reports. Instead, Nylen paints a complex, discerning, and true portrait of the effect of participatory budgets on the common citizens of Brazil. Part of his story is disturbing. Thus he reminds us that in a nation characterized by great poverty, the poorest of the poor may be so impoverished that they simply lack the time, strength, or energy to participate in politics. Similarly, he determines that the empowerment of common citizens is a difficult and tenacious problem, so that relatively few citizens engage in participatory budgets who have not previously participated in some form of politics. The existence of participatory budgets does not draw the disengaged into the political battle except in special and limited cases. One the other hand, much of his story is hopeful. Thus, for example, women participate far more equally as a result of participatory budgets than they would through membership on city councils. The moderately poor do

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have greater input into policy-making than they otherwise would. City councils feel subjected to much greater oversight, and are thereby less likely to cave into clientelist politics or patronage influence than they might were participatory budgets absent. And those common citizens drawn to politics by mass participatory movements are more likely to sustain their long-term involvement in politics if additional outlets for effective participation exist, such as participatory budgets. While a participatory budget may not empower the disengaged or slay the dragon, it does help sustain the participation of engaged activists and keep the dragon at bay. Most critically, Nylen’s story reminds us that the struggle for meaningful democracy is a continuing one, with many paths yet to be trod and many strategies for democratic enhancement yet to be pursued. Moreover, even if participatory innovations have their limits, as does a participatory budget, they also can add in important and measurable ways to the quality of mass political involvement. Thus the budgetary processes in the Brazilian cities Nylen examines appear much more vibrant and responsive to mass citizen input, particularly the input of the poor, than is my sense with respect to American cities. Reading about participatory budgets in Brazil, against the backdrop of the stunted and elitist politics of contemporary American democracy, one wonders why “we” didn’t think of such a participatory reform, and why we have failed to join the list of nations he presents who are now utilizing it. Despite being about Brazil, and in many ways precisely because it is about such a developing democracy, Nylen’s book has much to say to students of American politics and of established democracies in general. In truth, after reading “Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy,” I was left to wonder whether the phrase “established democracy” may in fact be an oxymoron. Perhaps any nation with an “established” democratic order is a nation that will inherently generate elitist dominance and mass disengagement, ceasing thereby to be a truly vibrant and true democracy. In contrast, a nation continually in the process of developing and transforming its democracy, particularly through the broadening and deepening of mass participation in its central policy decisions, may well be the more authentic and innovative democracy, no matter how poor its citizenry or poorly established and routinized its rules and procedures. Perhaps we in established democracies have failed to embrace participatory reforms such as the one examined here by Bill Nylen precisely because our procedures are so established and rigid, our elites have come to so totally dominate them, and our citizens are so fully disillusioned that new and truly innovative participatory processes are impossible to envision, much less to

Foreword

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implement. To imagine thousands of American citizens joining together in local meetings in their neighborhoods, and then in collective assemblies, and then at city council meetings, pushing for the budget priorities they have embraced through local deliberation and mass votes—that is a vision worthy of de Tocqueville. Reading about Brazil, I am left to wonder when it is that we will join the ranks of “developing” democracies and push beyond elitism to truer forms of mass democratic participation. It is in this spirit that I recommend Bill Nylen’s masterful little book to you. It is a rare find—walking the line carefully and effectively between research monograph and classroom text, between normative advocacy and objective scholarship, between democratic theory and empirical reality, between an in-depth grasp of local politics in Brazil and insightful awareness of the implications of his story for First World nations such as the United States. I found myself thinking about the possibilities for mass democratic participation in new ways after reading “Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy.” I also found myself wanting to share it with friends, colleagues, and students. I suspect that you will as well. Lawrence C. Dodd University of Florida May 9, 2003


CHAPTER 1

Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in the United States

N

orth Americans at the beginning of the twenty-first century have what can only be called a schizophrenic love–hate relationship with their democratic political system. On the one hand, we hate politics, most of all, we hate politicians and bureaucrats. On the other hand, we’re convinced that we have the best political system in the world. How is it possible to feel so proud of something you hate so intensely?1 Some would argue that a good part of the puzzle lies in today’s particular crop of politicians. Election year 2000, for example, gave us Al Gore and George W. Bush. Each was criticized for talking a lot but actually saying very little—minimal substance, minimal convictions—all for the sake, paradoxically, of not alienating potential supporters. Surely, there are better, more inspiring politicians out there . . . somewhere. Others might point to the way our two major parties have evolved. In this day and age, the democratic and republican parties are essentially fund-raising machines. While attacking each other for pandering to “special interests,” it is undeniably clear to most Americans that both parties have become increasingly beholden to big money contributors—extremely wealthy individuals, corporations and corporate lobbying organizations—many of which have been proven to be, shall we say, “ethically challenged.”2 The vast majority of Americans can’t pony up with the Big Money, and it’s only logical that growing numbers would be upset over their “unconstitutional” insignificance.

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Participatory versus Elitist Democracy: Brazil

As if that’s not bad enough, political parties have the maddening capacity to turn anything and everything into seemingly irresolvable conflict. Most Americans seem to believe that all problems have solutions. Thus the popularity of the word “bipartisan.” But American politics, since the 1980s, has been anything but bipartisan. Indeed, the word “politics” is synonymous in most people’s eyes with “gridlock” and the incapacity of politicians to reach a reasonable and just compromise.3 Surely, parties could do a better job in promoting negotiations and compromise for the good of the country. But whether they hate today’s politicians or political parties or both, many Americans continue to believe that our political system itself—constitutional representative democracy—is essentially sound and good. To them, the problem lies with those who have somehow abused democracy.4 Most believe that if we could just “throw the bums out” (maybe even force them out with a gimmick like term limits), or start up a viable third party, or maybe even institute restrictions on campaign financing, we could reclaim our democracy and be proud of it once again. Reform, in other words, is desirable and even possible. But where and how to begin? What Democracy Is, and What It Is Not Rather than answer that last question right away, let me pose a much more provocative one in its stead: What if the problem is not just with today’s politicians or parties? What if bad politicians and ugly parties were the result of the two very pillars of American society: representative democracy and free enterprise capitalism? Most Americans cannot even read those words without feeling angry or defensive. That’s how strongly we have come to identify, not only with the ideals of representative democracy and capitalism, but with a sense that these ideals are fully realized in the original design of our democratic system and in the legal and social structures that underpin our economy. Since this is a book primarily on democracy, let’s focus on the ideal versus the reality of representative democracy in America.5 It’s certainly true that Americans’ dual commitment to an ideal of democracy (“liberty and justice for all”) and to an institutional design of representative democratic politics (constitutional government, checks and balances, bill of rights, etc.) is the envy of many throughout the world. It goes a long way toward explaining our political stability in the face of many challenges over the years, from civil wars to great depressions to political scandals. Stability, however, has a nasty habit of transforming itself into stagnation and even decay. And that’s where I believe we are today in terms of our country’s political development: stagnant and beginning to decay.

Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics

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Let me begin to explain by pointing out that political stagnation and decay are the absolute antithesis of democracy. In the words of Italian political scientist, Norberto Bobbio, “For a democratic system, the process of ‘becoming,’ of transformation, is its natural state. Democracy is dynamic, despotism is static and always essentially the same.”6 Democracy is dynamic because, first and foremost, it is a conflictual process of inclusionary adaptation both reflecting and spurring on changes in the overall balance of social and political power. While originally a means of adapting to the competing demands of a relatively small number of rich and powerful groups and individuals by sharing power, public revenues, and responsibilities among them (rather than fighting it out until one individual held complete and unchallenged power), the history of democracy in the West has seen such inclusionary adaptation extend itself outward from the well-to-do and the well-connected, deeper and deeper into the ranks of average citizens: working men, women, people of color, etc.. Throughout the twentieth century, democratic adaptation came to include the extension of governmentprovided social goods and services in favor of citizens suffering the effects of various types of market failure, from economic downturns, to entrenched poverty rooted in ethnic and gender discrimination, to urban decay, to environmental degradation.7 Such adaptation has always followed upon a groundswell of actual or potential public unrest. Each generation has seen its social movements of the excluded and/or ignored arguing and struggling for equality and justice—for inclusion as citizens—against the exclusionary practices of the powerful, the well connected, and/or the simply intolerant. Such struggles, and their periodic victories, constitute the very definition of democracy.8 This can be seen repeatedly in the development of democracy in the United States. Let’s look at three different examples. The very fact that the U.S. Constitution of 1788 was drawn up and ratified in the shadow of Shays’ Rebellion (1786–1787)—an armed uprising “from below” of indebted Western Massachusetts farmers against the state government’s high taxes and threats of imminent foreclosure on their farms—calls attention to the nature of the nation’s foundational legal document as part inclusionary concession, part exclusionary retrenchment. Most of the Founding Fathers were landowners; many were slaveholders. They were an educated and moneyed elite among a virtual sea of slaves and uneducated small farmers and shopkeepers. While progressive for the time, most remained as true to their class and status interests as they could while, at the same time, touting the inclusive “democratic” nature of the new Constitution. And for the day, thanks in no small part to the threat of Shays’ Rebellion, it was inclusive and democratic. By the same token, activism from labor and small farmers’ groups in

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the latter part of the nineteenth century and the concerted efforts of Progressive reformers in the first decade of the twentieth century ultimately changed the Constitutionally mandated, but corruption-filled, indirect election of U.S. Senators via state legislatures into direct elections (the 17th Amendment of 1913). Similarly, the Civil Rights legislation, of the late 1950s and early 1960s, followed upon at least a decade of grassroots civil rights activism by such groups as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Council of Baptist Churches, and such previously unknown individuals as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Only when such protests threatened to turn violent in 1963, however, did Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party introduce the landmark Civil Rights legislation of 1964 and 1965, inviting moderate leaders to share in claiming victory for their cause while, at the same time, pointedly excluding more radical claims and claimants. Once we understand this fundamental point about what democracy actually means (i.e. a conflictual process of inclusionary adaptation), we can also see the problem with the way most people define democracy: the so-called procedural definition of democracy—universal suffrage, regular and free elections, freedom of association and political organization. Rather than being defining end-points of democracy, these important procedures and institutions should be seen as hard-won democratic victories emerging from an ongoing historical process of democratic struggle for inclusion. They exemplify the outcomes of democratic adaptive mechanisms so far, at the same time that they constitute important building blocks for future democratic gains.9 So when I say that democracy today in the United States is stagnant and beginning to decay, I mean that the process of inclusionary adaptation has essentially stopped, even as the democratic institutions and procedures of the past continue to function, albeit without much enthusiasm or participation. Elitist Democracy We find ourselves today in an unhealthy situation where the powerful, well connected, and intolerant have become extremely well adept at using those institutions and procedures to further concentrate wealth and power among themselves.10 In the process, what were originally constituted as inclusionary mechanisms are transformed into mechanisms of exclusion. This is what I call “Elitist Democracy.” In the United States, socio-economic influence and political-institutional control/exclusion come together primarily in the realm of campaign financing


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and in the political propaganda that emerges from the now-constant campaign process.11 Politicians from both major parties are dependent on wealthy individuals and corporations to finance their increasingly expensive runs for office. Political fund-raising becomes a full-time activity, oftentimes requiring more time from incumbents than legislating or administering the public good. At the same time, the present and future interests of large donors have become increasingly dependent upon decisions (and, perhaps even more important, on non decisions) made in the halls of Congress and in the Executive branch, as well as in the interpretive “spin” that both parties put on events and political agenda items.12 Both parties, in fact, have done their utmost to make us dislike—and, therefore, turn our attention away from—democratic politics and government. Since the early 1980s, the Republican Party has been phenomenally successful in waging war against the State, routinely identified with an inherently out-of-touch “Big Government” full of lazy bureaucrats distributing tax-guzzling government handouts to the undeserving poor-because-theywant-to-be-poor. Republicans have waged this war even as they have diverted attention from the reality and political implications of growing socioeconomic inequality and the “capture” or “colonization” of the State by corporate interests and their well-financed interest groups. Republican-induced nervousness about an overactive national government readily taps into a deeply ingrained and still-popular strain of North American political culture of “rugged individualism” and distrust of authority (remember the words on our first flag: “Don’t Tread On Me”). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has largely failed in mounting a progressive attack on the antidemocratic effects of economic and social privilege and “corporate welfare” (“crony capitalism”) largely because they, themselves, are dependent upon Big Money contributions just like the Republicans, and because they have adopted a strategy of fighting the Republicans at the polls by moving to the Right to attract more “moderates.” It turns out that the institutions and procedures of representative democracy form a perfect framework for the creation and solidification of a mutual interdependency between political and economic elites.13 Meanwhile, the rest of us find our “official” political relevance reduced to the periodic casting of votes for one or another already bought-and-sold candidate. Typically, no party or candidate acknowledges the extent to which they have sold themselves to the highest bidders. Yet the buying and selling is obvious to the rest of us. So the parties and candidates end up looking like liars or, at best, panderers. Elections end up looking like saturation marketing campaigns for competing “products” that are, in fundamental respects, the same, and that so many of us don’t really like or want anyway.14

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But partisanship and ideology aside, the growth of the modern regulatory, welfare and military-industrial-corporate State really does bring with it a host of antidemocratic tendencies well captured in Edward Rubin’s description of the contemporary “administrative state” which, he argues, “exponentially increases the difficulties that political representation creates for the theory of self-government”: An administrative state is not governed by elected representatives, but by a vast number of appointed, specially trained, hierarchically organized officials. Elections provide the means of choosing a small number of representatives who are authorized to issue commands to these officials and to supervise their actions. Administrators make the vast majority of government decisions, including many of the most important ones, on their own. In short, elected representatives are only partially responsive to the voters because the inherent limitations of the representative and administrative processes limit voter control over the government. Any control that the people themselves exercise over governmental operations is thus doubly attenuated by the intervening representatives and administrators, and far removed from anything that could plausibly be described as self-government.15 Rubin’s administrative state challenges democratic representation in much the same way that the German Sociologist, Max Weber, foresaw modern “bureaucratic rationalization” increasingly diminishing the scope of democratically elected political leadership and, indeed, of the individual liberty of all citizens.16 Both Rubin and Weber, however, clearly understood that only a large and powerful State could carry out the necessary tasks of administering, regulating, and policing an increasingly complex society while, at the same time, compensating for the social inequalities inevitably produced by capitalism’s “creative destruction.” Both authors, then, present us with the same political challenge: how to find a way to democratically oversee and monitor or, at the very least, to politically check and balance such a powerful State? Unfortunately, contemporary representative democracy has not evolved in such a way as to meet that challenge. Instead, we seem to be following the arguments and prescriptions of a distant and frankly irrelevant past: the eigteenth-century neoclassical liberal critique of the Mercantilist and Absolutist State (e.g. Adam Smith) and/or the early twentieth-century neoliberal critique of the pre-Fascist and Socialist States (e.g. Friedrich Hayek). Contemporary republicans, however, use these same basic arguments


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to attack and delegitimate a capitalist (not Mercantilist) and democratic (not Absolutist, or Fascist, or Socialist) State. Yet, when and where they gain elected office, they have cynically used that same “over-active” State to actively promote the interests primarily of wealthy campaign contributors, powerful corporations, and other established socio-economic elites. Democrats have responded with a strategy perhaps best characterized as “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” So welfare programs for single mothers and poor children are cut to the bone, while subsidies to wealthy agribusinesses and tax cuts to the richest 1 percent reach record levels.17 Because public life is essentially closed to the majority and because public policy is increasingly focused on the wealthy minority, growing numbers of citizens retreat into their private lives. In the words of the American professor of politics and sociology, David Held: “If democratic life involves no more than a periodic vote, the locus of people’s activities will be the ‘private’ realm of civil society and the scope of their actions will depend largely on the resources they can command. Few opportunities will exist for citizens to act as citizens, as participants in public life.”18 For the great majority of nonelite Americans, politics, very simply, is what they—the wealthy and well connected—do. It’s not what we do. In the telling words of Richard M. Valelly, “It’s not that Americans are tuning out. They’re being left out.”19 Civic Disengagement Is there any wonder why so many people are cynical or simply dismissive of contemporary democratic politics? This cynicism and disillusionment has not gone unnoticed by social scientists. The North American political scientist, Robert Putnam, for example, made a name for himself in the 1990s by carefully chronicling North Americans’ “civic disengagement” in terms of low and declining voter turnouts (e.g. voter turnout for presidential elections declined more-or-less steadily from 1964 to 1996), increasing distrust in democratic politicians and processes (e.g. levels of distrust in government rose from 30 percent in 1966 to 75 percent in 1992), and declining levels of participation in organized civil society.20 So why don’t more people complain? First, I would argue that the growing majority of Americans who don’t vote are, in fact, complaining by “exiting” from democratic politics altogether. All Americans know they “should” vote. When they don’t vote, it’s because they feel that it’s not worth their time. Again, given the bought-andsold nature of contemporary democratic politics, where the voices of those

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with hefty campaign contributions and/or the voices of faceless government bureaucrats are so much louder than the voices of common citizens, this is by no means irrational behavior.21 By the same token, the growth of “independent” voters and the flirtation with third-party politics in the 1990s, are further indications of rational dissatisfaction with the traditional political parties and politicians. Similarly, the jump in popular initiatives and referenda—effectively bypassing traditional representative institutions just as their creators in the Progressive Movement of the early twentieth century intended them to do—can be interpreted as a sign of dissatisfaction with status quo political institutions and processes.22 Second, many Americans don’t express their complaints about politics— vocally or by joining political groups—because they are engaged more-or-less full-time and more-or-less contentedly in the engaging world of consumer capitalism. Up to the year 2001, the economy had been booming for decades. And while economic inequality had been growing, and salaries for many Americans had been stagnant or actually declining in relative terms, the prices of most consumer goods were dropping, and credit cards had become universally available to all. Americans were swimming in toys and electronic distractions (many of which were now produced abroad by workers earning pennies to the dollars once earned by American workers). Americans were also swimming in mountains of consumer debt, hundreds of billions of dollars of it. At the same time, prior to the events of September 11, 2001, alienation and cynicism had themselves become hot commodities, especially in the entertainment and fashion industries, as the growing number of uninformed and disengaged noncitizens were invited to feel proud of their rejection of any notion of civic duty or responsibility, at the same time attracting younger and younger consumers into the lucrative fold of detached coolness. Of course, “detached coolness” is the perfect complement to bought-andsold politics. Each one reinforces and reconfirms the other. The more the citizens “just don’t care,” the more they “hate politics,” the more the politicians and the wealthy turn politics into their own exclusive game. The more that happens (and as long as the toys and distractions are readily available), the less the citizens care to dirty their hands messing with politics.23 Citizen Politics Finally—and somewhat counter to the forgoing discussion of civic disengagement—it turns out that some Americans do, in fact, complain about the policies and processes of elitist democracy. North American


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political scientists, Russell Dalton and Pippa Norris, have each contributed to a growing body of literature suggesting that, while dissatisfied with the reality of contemporary democracy, a substantial number of American (and European) citizens have gone beyond either rejecting politics outright, or simply “playing the game.” Instead, they are actively reengaging in nonpartisan forms of political participation such as issue-specific social movements, local-level community activism, and civic and philanthropic voluntarism: what Dalton calls “citizen politics” and Norris calls “critical citizens.”24 And while each one sees these as potentially hopeful signs for the future, the continuing disconnect between these new forms of politics, on the one hand, and the well-entrenched official politics of political parties, politicians and their socioeconomic elite supporters, on the other, seems unlikely to stall the ongoing slide from today’s stable and stagnant democracy to tomorrow’s democratic decay. What we need, I would argue, is some sort of bridge to connect these two increasingly distinct realms of political activism. The alternative would either be a drift into more intense and possibly antidemocratic confrontation, or a withering of citizen politics into even more pronounced civic disengagement. What Me Worry? Some, however, might argue that so-called stagnant democracy is really not all that bad. If people freely choose to become disengaged from politics, can’t they freely choose to reengage whenever they wish? And isn’t it a good thing—an indication of governmental success in nurturing the market economy—that so many Americans are “swimming in toys”? In partial answer to the first question, we need to recognize that some public policies made outside of the light of public oversight cannot ever be reversed, not even by a widespread rebirth of civic activism. We cannot reclaim, for example, a pristine wilderness or a vital watershed destroyed by collusion between lawmakers and polluters. We cannot bring back to life consumers of dangerous or faulty products brought to market through collusion between lawmakers and unscrupulous or careless manufacturers. We cannot simply erase the debt incurred and charged to subsequent generations by collusion between lawmakers and well-heeled recipients of “corporate welfare,” pork barrel spending and nonsensical tax cuts for the rich.25 Neither can we easily restore the hopes and opportunities of generations of poor children lost to crime, drugs, and disease due to cutbacks in public education and the welfare state ordered by lawmakers in open collusion with corporate and wealthy interests touting fiscal discipline and a “fair” tax code.

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Not only policies, but also democratic processes themselves can become difficult if not impossible to reclaim via a potential burgeoning of citizen politics. The two-party system is, perhaps, the biggest and longest lasting example: it has become so entrenched that no amount of periodic third-party activism has been capable of transforming its fairly rigid logic of competition toward the ideological center—which is to say, toward the ideologically imprecise and programmatically vague. One of the veritable laws of social science is that once born, institutionalized and peopled with a bureaucracy, organizations and procedures develop an active adversity to subsequent efforts at reform. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), most Americans still have their families, jobs, communities . . . and their toys and distractions to fall back on. These afford them the opportunity to disengage from politics— to disengage from their anger and disappointment—and to “retreat into the personal” or into apolitical micro-communities of family and friends where they can still find a measure of happiness and a sense of purpose and belonging not available to them in the traditional arenas of democratic citizenship. Such happiness as they can find in such activities, however, does not cause political disengagement. Rather, it compensates for whatever psychological or ethical issues may emerge in the minds of individuals who know very well that they “should” care about politics, at least to the extent of voting, but who also know that politics in the United States is no longer “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” The national community of democratic citizenship is thereby exchanged for much smaller issue-specific, non-political, or even anti-political communities and/or isolated but materially comfortable individuals. Society as a whole becomes fragmented. In the meantime, those in charge of the formal institutions and processes of democracy have only to promote political “stability” and economic growth in order to maintain a de facto divide and rule strategy over the great majority of ex-citizens and the brave few voices in the wilderness, as it were, who continue to press the democratic ideal. Solutions? And now we come to the crux of the matter: a philosophical, or normative, question. Should we trust these “democratic” rulers? Are their material and political interests consistent with those of the “great majority of ex-citizens”? My answers to these questions are obvious from the way I have framed the discussion up to now. I am morally offended at the galloping inequality in our nation (now being politically institutionalized by efforts to abolish the


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reforms of the Progressive Era, the New Deal and even the lukewarm reforms of the Clinton era). I am outraged at the ability of so many elected officials to let environmental degradation run rampant in return for a few campaign dollars and a process of “development” that disproportionately benefits a relative handful of the well placed. And I am alarmed at the potential for today’s civic disengagement to turn into tomorrow’s “uncivil movements” (as the line between angry “exit” and angry “voice” has historically been so easily breached by the democratically fatal combination of personal charisma, us-versus-them rhetoric and weak public commitment to democracy-asusual).26 Therefore, I conclude that we cannot trust those who would support the “divide and rule” status quo. Their interests are their interests, and no one else’s. An oligarchy, no matter how benevolent it would appear on the surface, is still an oligarchy. So what is the alternative? Let me recall one of the points I made earlier: that today’s bought-andsold politicians and parties, our increasingly disengaged citizenry, and the relative few and relatively isolated “critical citizens” are the natural and inevitable result of the institutions and procedures of representative democracy and the free market economy as each has evolved (or co-evolved) so far. That being so, we cannot simply “kick the bums out” or try to introduce a third party into the game. The game itself is flawed. It has become fundamentally elitist and exclusionary. For real democracy to reemerge, there must occur an inclusionary adaptation or a series of inclusionary adaptations on behalf of the excluded and ignored—that is, on behalf of so many Americans alienated, disengaged or otherwise isolated from contemporary official democratic politics. Representative democracy needs to be democratized. But where is the groundswell of political activism from below that has historically heralded in such inclusionary reforms? How can exclusionary elitism be countered if so many of the excluded and ignored prefer to “exit” from politics rather than raise their voices and join together against the injustice of political exclusion and social inequality? For those of us who see the problem of democratic stagnation and decay, who understand its implications, is there no other option than the self-defeating one of renouncing politics altogether or the exhausting one of “raging against the machine”? Those questions are the reasons for my writing this book. Hopefully, I’ve already been able to pass on something of their sense of urgency, at least from the point of view of someone who shares that sense. In the following chapters, I will look beyond the boundaries of the United States, first, in order to emphasize and illustrate that elitist democracy and

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civic disengagement are by no means exclusively North American problems. The same will hold true for the existence of critical citizens and citizen politics. Then I will introduce a set of ideas and practices that purport to offer answers to the questions just posed by means of an alternative to the antidemocratic options of politics-as-usual, on the one hand, and the renunciation of politics (“exit”), on the other. That alternative is called “Participatory Democracy.” After introducing the idea and intellectual history behind the Participatory Democratic model, I will enter into the realm of Brazilian politics to explore a concrete example of Participatory Democracy in action: the Participatory Budget (Orçamento Participativo—OP) as practiced in the cities and states in Brazil that are administered by the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT), Latin America’s largest Left-wing party and the party of Brazil’s president as of 2003, Luís Ignacio Lula da Silva. Following an analysis of the OP—as representative of a series of efforts on the part of the PT to “democratize democracy” by way of Participatory Democratic innovations, I will argue that Participatory Democracy should be seen not so much as an alternative to representative democracy than as a complementary set of inclusionary institutional reforms that could help to harness the “social capital” inherent in citizen politics everywhere and, thereby, revive some of contemporary democracy’s lost luster. I will further argue that the model of Participatory Democracy, as a model, has the emotional appeal—and the mobilizing potential—of an ideology. It resonates with the well-known principles that have led so many people to revere democracy and, at the same time, to reject what democracy has become in today’s real world. It explicitly makes that distinction between what is and what should be; and it just as explicitly makes the claim that what should be could be. It is by no means a panacea, nor is it a Utopia. It may be, however, a blueprint for a necessary democratic revival in the twenty-first century.

CHAPTER 2

Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in Brazil

A

s argued in the last chapter, a growing number of North Americans have become cynical about or disillusioned with their country’s version of democracy—defined as the politicians, political parties, and special interests of the day. It turns out that the United States is merely one among many democratic countries with similarly low and/or declining rates of voter turnout, trust in politicians and belief in government efficacy. Among other long-term democracies, voter turnout records alone show Switzerland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and France to be in a comparable situation.1 If we look more broadly at indices of public confidence in democratic leaders and in the performance of representative institutions, Japan and virtually all of Europe turn out to be, in the words of Susan Pharr and Robert Putnam, “disaffected democracies.”2 At the same time, many socalled emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Latin America—especially Venezuela (since 1973), Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Argentina (since the late 1990s), and Brazil—have been equally plagued by citizens’ disengagement and, in some cases, their engagement in “Antipolitics:” antidemocratic uncivil movements and Neopopulist demagoguery.3 As one should expect, political analysts have not been blind to this phenomenon. In the words of the American political scientist, Ken Roberts: “The proliferation of concepts such as ‘low-intensity democracy,’ and ‘schizophrenic democracy,’ ‘protected democracy,’ ‘exclusionary democracy,’ and ‘delegative democracy’ suggests that the initial

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euphoria surrounding the demise of military dictatorships has yielded to a growing malaise regarding the ambiguous character and quality of new civilian regimes”.4 The long-time analyst of Latin American politics, Abraham Lowenthal, similarly notes “In country after country, polls show that most people although they still say they favor ‘democracy,’ are increasingly critical of the performance of democratic governments and deeply skeptical of all democratic political institutions.”5 Symptoms of Civic Disengagement in Brazil Brazil is a perfect representative case of civic disengagement and disaffected democracy.6 Its “index of voter alienation” (the sum of abstentions, blank and invalid votes during national elections) rose from 17.6 percent of eligible voters in 1989 to 33.39 percent in 1994, rising to a high of 40.19 percent in 1998 before dropping down to 28.13 percent in 2002.7 While voting is mandatory in Brazil, 49 percent of respondents in a 1998 poll said they would not vote if they had the choice. In that same year, 75 percent of respondents couldn’t remember whom they had voted for in the previous Congressional elections less than four years earlier.8 In another poll from 1998, respondents were asked which institutions contributed most, and which least, to the good of the country; Congressmen and Senators scored last, far behind bankers, businessmen, and even the armed forces.9 In a 1999 poll of voting-age residents of the state of São Paulo, 60 percent of respondents said they did not trust the national Congress; another 36 percent said they trusted it only a little. Forty-three percent said they couldn’t trust the President; another 49 percent said they trusted him only a little.10 Meanwhile, much of the literature of the 1980s and 1990s documents the decline of union membership and of participation in the grassroots organizations and social movements that had played a significant part in democratization processes in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s.11 Implications and Explanations of Civic Disengagement in Brazil As alluded to in chapter one, one of the most predominant implications of civic disengagement is its tendency to spiral into a cycle of ever-increasing disillusionment with, and further disengagement from democratic politics. Individuals feel increasingly distant from democratic politics and begin to distance themselves even further by retreating into their private lives and into micro-communities of family, friends, and others more obviously “like themselves.”


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In order to understand why that might be a problem, it’s worth emphasizing that when one is talking about democratic participation (or the lack thereof ), one is necessarily talking about individuals acting upon a feeling of citizenship (or the lack thereof ); that is, a sense of belonging (or not) to a political community that both defines and protects individual rights and responsibilities of membership in the broader society. According to Canadian political theorist, Ronald Beiner, these are issues “having to do with membership, national identity, civic allegiance, and all the commonalities of sentiment and obligation that prompt one to feel that one belongs to this political community rather than that political community . . .”12 The point here is that democracy depends upon the construction or reconstruction of a broadly diffused sense of belonging—or having the right to belong—to a (generally) national political community of protected individual rights and well-defined responsibilities. Without such a collective identity, the functioning of democracy is difficult if not impossible. In the history of Brazil, as in much of the so-called developing world, such a collective identity has been repeatedly thwarted by long-standing traditions of patron clientelism or patrimonialism where the game of politics is centered around individual politician’s distribution of patronage and “favors” (e.g. legislative votes, public funds, public sector jobs, etc.) and candidates’ promises of such, in exchange for political/financial support and votes.13 Describing patronage as one of the “guiding principles of Brazilian social organization” in the nineteenth century (and beyond), the American historian Richard Graham defines it as an “exchange of protection for loyalty, benefits for obedience” with obvious implications for social domination: . . . failure to obey or be loyal subjected one to punishment by the patron and left one openly vulnerable to exploitation by others. No dichotomy existed between force and benevolence: each drew its meaning from the other. [. . .] In a culture of genuine paternalism, the recipient [of a “favor”: a job, a contract, a public service, etc.] must see himself as a child, with cloying gratitude for a father’s benevolence that cloaks enormous relief at escaping punishment.14 The Brazilian anthropologist, Roberto DaMatta, explains that in rigidly hierarchical societies such as Brazil’s, in which personal connections (e.g. “who you know, not what you know”) are the dominant currency in all social transactions, there is nothing worse than to be reduced to being an anonymous individual “subjected to the impersonal codes of traffic, of supply and demand, and of all levels of government.”15 Brazilians attempt to

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avoid this by “knowing one’s place” and staying there (e.g. staying close to one’s family, cultivating personal bonds of mutual support, and commitment to social “superiors” and “inferiors,” respecting politics and even economics as distant social realms controlled by and for “superiors”), although this is not usually a conscious decision.16 In such societies, the political game is highly personalistic. Political parties, for example, serve primarily as local-based electoral machines for elite political personalities who control and sometimes literally own them. Nationally, they exist in the sense of loosely organizing and uniting a number of these local-level machines and their leaders into a type of mutualaid society. These parties are neither ideologically coherent or issue-oriented, nor are they bureaucratically organized “catch-all” parties pursuing goals of interest articulation and intermediation. In fact, representation is not really on their agenda at all. In the words of the Argentine political scientist, Guillermo O’Donnell: Instead, there is the rule of those individuals who, by virtue of their traditionally dominant position, in exchange for “favors” expect continued loyalty from their subordinates. [ . . . ] To the extent that this type of relationship prevails, both a requisite and a result of it is the fragmentation of the popular sector, as well as a fierce resistance to any effort on the part of the subordinated classes to organize as collective subjects and to be represented as such.17 Brazil’s modernization (urbanization, industrialization, advances in public education and health, etc.) throughout the twentieth century transformed these traditions of locally rooted patron-clientelism and personalism but did not eliminate their basic operating logic.18 Corporatism,19 Populism,20 Nationalist-Developmentalism21 and political centralization—all initiated under authoritarian auspices by Getúlio Vargas in the 1930s and reinforced to a greater or lesser extent by subsequent political regimes well into the 1990s— merely turned the national State into something of a Super Patrón. Various elite groups competed for the prize of “taking over” the State or portions of it, offering clientelistic bargains—patronage in return for support—to other networks of political and economic elites and to organized nonelites (e.g. urban labor), while strictly forbidding autonomous social movements or political representation outside of elite-dominated party machines and State-run organizations. In the words of the American political scientist, Rebecca Abers: Today, many local politicians continue to mobilize electoral support both for themselves and for their allies at the state and federal levels through


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complex systems of patronage, distributing state resources on a particularistic, personal basis. Not only does this system tend to concentrate power in the hands of incumbents who have access to state resources, but the highly discretionary nature of public resource allocation under clientelism also inhibits systematic planning and the implementation of generalized, egalitarian social policies.22 The contemporary result is what I have been calling “elitist democracy,” led and dominated by what the American political scientist, Francis Hagopian, identifies as a series of “closed circles of power holders that dominate a range of state institutions and political processes, and that concentrate political as well as economic power within a limited number of families.”23 Brazil’s historical context of patrimonial elitism allows us to better understand contemporary political disengagement, especially on the part of nonelites, as the rule rather than the exception. The Brazilian political scientist, Evelina Dagnino, aptly labels the resulting social system one of “social authoritarianism”: . . . in which economic inequality, misery, and hunger are the most visible aspect of a social order presided over by the hierarchical and unequal organization of all social relations: what we could call social authoritarianism. Profoundly rooted in Brazilian culture and based predominantly in criteria of class, race and gender, social authoritarianism reveals itself as a system of classifications that establish different categories of persons, laid out in their respective places in society. [ . . . ] This social authoritarianism engenders forms of sociability and an authoritarian culture of exclusion that infuse the whole of social practices and reproduce the inequality of social relations at all levels.24 Today the situation is further complicated by an additional barrier to nonelite activism and mobilization: the growth and proliferation of organizationally sophisticated, well-armed and ruthlessly violent crime syndicates in virtually all of Brazil’s urban poor and working-class neighborhoods, especially in the notorious favelas (shantytowns) interlaced throughout Brazil’s cities and towns.25 In large part due to a seemingly never-ending three-way civil war among and between rival crime organizations, and/or between one or more of them and the corrupt and equally ruthless local police forces, residents of these neighborhoods find themselves quite literally caught in the crossfire.26 Loyalty to one or another side is either rewarded or

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punished depending on which side is currently winning. For most Brazilians, looking the other way, remaining uncommitted and keeping quiet are the best ways to stay alive. To make matters worse, when politicians either informally ally themselves to one of the crime organizations (usually offering impunity in exchange for financial support) or, conversely, when they decide to “get tough on crime” and side with the police (usually grandstanding in hopes of gaining middle-class support), democracy and society itself becomes infected with the ensuing violence. The logical outcome of this combination of elitist patrimonial social structures and political traditions with new forms of organized social violence is the reinforcement of Brazil’s tradition of nonelite social engagement in apolitical micro-communities. As Emile Durkheim pointed out more than a century ago, and as Communitarians continue to argue today, humans are inherently social beings. By nature, it seems, we need to feel and experience community and solidarity with other human beings. Brazil’s popular culture provides numerous opportunities for experiencing such solidarity in day-today life. Almost all Brazilians play an active role in one or more small-scale apolitical micro-communities (e.g. family, church congregation, neighborhood, gang, turma, camarada, torcida, etc.) where they feel the solidarity of being with others “like themselves.” This is made all the more satisfying when it is regularly combined, as it so often is in Brazil, with socializing and festivities (e.g. preparing for and performing in carnival and Saint’s day activities, dancing, singing, drinking, conversing, playing or watching soccer, etc.). Sometimes, membership in these micro-communities is as simple as wearing a certain T-shirt or being a resident of a particular part of town. Being “in” is easily recognized by those both within and without. At the same time, membership is usually fairly fluid; that is, members can join and drop out with relative ease and acceptance. What seems most important of all is that these apolitical social spaces seem to provide individual Brazilians with a personally satisfying feeling of solidarity with others. For nonelites, they seem to compensate for the lack of broader-scale horizontal solidarities (i.e. nation, class, race, gender, etc.) and upward social mobility. Impoverished, hierarchically segregated, politically ignored or excluded, and threatened by violence from multiple fronts, nonelite Brazilians are nonetheless socially satisfied.27 For the poor and other nonelites, conforming to these cultural pathways certainly constitutes one more barrier to the possibility of self-reliant upward mobility as well as to the development of a “modern” and democratic sensibility that one can/should be an agent in the unfolding of one’s own and one’s society’s fate.28 Indeed, as argued in chapter one, such a sensibility lies


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at the very foundation of the social movements and reformist politics that define democracy as a process of “inclusionary adaptation.” But conformity to such cultural pathways, no matter how “irrational” in terms of social and political mobility and reform, is also a source of very real individual comfort and happiness and is, therefore, entirely rational as well as functional from an individual point of view.29 So, while it’s certainly true that with Brazil’s widespread poverty, social violence, and political exclusion, most Brazilians cannot possibly be “citizens” in the classic sense of the word, neither are they living in a Hobbesian world of all-against-all. Neither citizens, nor isolated individuals, most Brazilians are socially integrated in numerous and assorted but essentially disconnected micro-communities. They are divided and they are subdivided, and they are ruled over accordingly.30 Brazil’s history, however, does show us repeated instances of nonelite political activism. A series of autonomous nonelite movements emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, allied to an increasingly radicalized Left that gave little if any allegiance to the frankly elitist democratic system then in place.31 These were violently squelched by the repressive military reaction of 1964, which in turn lasted until the mid-1980s. Eventual liberalization and democratization took the form, primarily, of elite negotiations; although, once again, a significant degree of autonomous nonelite activism and mobilization accompanied those negotiations and, arguably, pushed them in a more “popular” direction than might otherwise have been the case.32 This “resurrection of civil society” was much commented upon at the time.33 Many expressed the hope that with the reemergence of autonomous nonelite activism (e.g. “new social movements,” “new unionism,” the progressive Catholic Church, the “New Left,” etc.), Brazilian democracy might move beyond its historically elitist and highly fragile forms. Virtually all observers of contemporary Brazilian politics now believe that these hopes were overly optimistic.34 The return of clientelism and personalism, and growing socioeconomic inequality (which will be discussed later), has brought with it their seemingly inevitable fruits, so familiar in Brazilian history: elitism, corruption, nepotism, and the aforementioned “fragmentation of the popular sector.” Nonetheless, as American political scientist, Kathryn Hochstetler, among others, has pointed out, “[a]lthough the mid-1980s did see significant changes in social movements organizing in Brazil, popular and middle-class actors did not retreat from active mobilization then.”35 Instead, she argues, many transformed their former antiauthoritarian activism into participation in democratic political parties and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs).

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As in the United States and Western Europe, then, a healthy presence of “critical citizens” remained active in Brazil in confronting an otherwise dreary postauthoritarian political history of elitist politics and civic disengagement. As we will see in subsequent chapters (and quite unlike what we see in the United States), the articulation of many of these democratic and nonelite political activists into a progressive political party with a clear commitment to further democratization—the Workers’ Party—has served to bridge the gap between official political institutions and processes and the “citizen politics” of nonelite political activism. As a consequence, as “unconsolidated” and “incomplete” as Brazilian democracy may be, it is by no means as stagnant as its North American counterpart. Nonetheless, many obstacles and dangers remain. Neoliberalism—Disguised as a Solution, but Making Matters Worse While democratic processes of inclusionary adaptation are clearly threatened by patrimonial traditions and practices, and by increasing levels of violence, democracy is also threatened from a very different direction: from technocratic neoliberals and their academic apologists. Neoliberals routinely call attention to the penetration, capture, and subsequent fragmentation of democratic States by narrow self-interested groups and individuals (e.g. organized labor on the Left and clientelistic politicians on the Right). Latin American States are frequently cited as all the more susceptible to such capture and fragmentation due to the region’s long history of State interventionism in the economy and the organization of State–civil society relations along elitedominated corporatist and clientelistic lines.36 Neoliberals therefore talk of the need to build up the State’s administrative capacity by fostering or insuring policy makers’ autonomy and insulation from civil and political society.37 In practice, though rarely stated explicitly, neoliberalism rejects both patronage politics and democratic representation; indeed, the two are seen to go hand in hand. Accordingly, neoliberals’ proposed solutions lie with cadres of highly trained experts (usually like themselves and, evidently, perceived to be above politics) united behind a single banner: to restructure the rules and institutions of the State so as to allow the “magic of the marketplace” (competition, innovation, efficiency, etc.) the greatest possible latitude in redefining the organization and predominant logic of social relations in favor of the Liberal ideal of competitive individualism. All groups and individuals need to feel and act personally responsible for their own behavior—including their own economic success and failure. The only legitimate job of the State


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is to create the proverbial “level playing field” by setting up strictly delineated rules and regulations that apply to all citizens at all times. At most, democratic politics (exclusively identified with elections and civil rights) serves the purpose of drumming out clientelistic politicians and corrupt bureaucrats as “unacceptable sources of inefficiency”; at the same time, in the words of the American political scientist, Kurt Weyland, neoliberals hope that “an increase in state capacity could motivate more citizens to advance their interests and ideas through politics . . . to hold public officials and politicians accountable.”38 In terms of the claim that their proposed economic reforms will ultimately benefit democracy, however, neoliberals are their own worst enemies. In the short-to-medium term, neoliberal economic reforms generate recession, unemployment (and the “informalization” of employment), reductions in welfare and social programs that hit the poor the hardest, and increased crime and violence. In the medium-to-long term, they concentrate income and resources, and lead to a growing gap between a minority of “haves” and a majority of “have nots.” In the words of Argentine political scientist, Atilio Borón, “The class selectivity of the neoliberal state is blatant: strong to promote the market forces and to advance the interests of big capital, weak to defend the public interest or to be responsive to the needs of the poor.”39 A large and growing number of desperately poor or downwardly mobile citizens will not actively support democracy (e.g. civic disengagement), and may even side with those intent on destroying it. In the words of the American political scientist, Henry Dietz: If individual citizens perceive or undergo decreasing welfare, their preference for democracy may weaken. Thus the presence of democratic mechanisms (the vote, the right to protest or to demand attention to grievances) can paradoxically threaten not only a regime but ultimately the system itself. [ . . . ] Authoritarian regimes can, if they must, force compliance, at least over the short run, but democracies must convince the citizens that they have some specific minimum probability of benefitting from democracy itself.40 Similarly, the American political scientist, Tim Power and sociologist, Timmons Roberts, argue that “If, after repeated use, the vote has no apparent effect on the problems of poverty and inequality, the result is apathy, cynicism, and the delegitimation of parties and politicians.”41 Technocratic and antidemocratic at its core, neoliberalism increases the likelihood of an antidemocratic “neopopulist” reaction to the painful implications of its policies (discussed in greater detail in the following section). To this date, events in Venezuela surrounding the neopopulist presidency of

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Hugo Chavez, and those leading to the military coup in Ecuador in January of 2000 (to forestall a neopopulist outcome) provide the best illustrations of Dietz’s analysis being borne out in reality. Finally, some social scientists argue that neoliberalism’s elevation of individualism and consumerism above all other social values creates an ethic of self-centeredness that is ultimately detrimental to social cohesion and, therefore, to democracy.42 The Brazilian psychologist, Iziná Helena Traváglia, for example, describes a “New Ethic” emerging from Brazil’s embracing of neoliberalism in the 1990s in the following terms: Every individual chooses their own rules and lifestyle, without sacrificing anything for collective principles, traditions or models that restrict individual freedom. There is a return to “every man for himself.” Due to a total disenchantment with traditional values, heroes or higher ideals don’t exist anymore, only individual enjoyments. This leads to the fragmentation of affective and social bonds. . . . [T]he great teacher is the market, which always offers new and attractive objects for consumption.43 This New Ethic undermines not only the elusive national collective identity of citizenship (discussed earlier), but the “social sufficiency” rooted in Brazilians’ participation in multiple micro-communities as well. Social fragmentation is thereby exacerbated, first, as the growing number of “have nots” increasingly recognize themselves as such and are made to feel personally responsible for their “failure” (even though it is much more likely to be the result of the very “magic of the marketplace” they are encouraged to embrace); second, as fellow “have nots” are seen to be failures and, therefore, unworthy of sympathy or solidaristic collective political action, and; third, as the democratic State—Big Government or politics in general—is seen to be the problem rather than the solution to inevitable market-created inequalities (the preferred solution being, naturally, more “magic of the marketplace”).44 To be fair, many neoliberals have more recently come to recognize the negative social and political implications of their economic proposals. Some have attempted to compensate by providing what the American political scientist, John Fox, calls targeted “semi-clientelist” side payments: financial resources, public policies, technical and logistical support, etc. distributed to adversely affected groups (especially those most vocal and organized), thereby effectively co-opting them and hindering the possibility of more widespread opposition.45 The former president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), for example, established his now famous National Solidarity


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Program, or PRONASOL, to function precisely in this manner.46 Others have obtained similar results by running side payments through traditional patron–client networks and political machines, allowing well-placed regional and local-level political elites to distribute patronage as they see fit. Brazil’s president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), for example, utilized this strategy in his efforts to gradually implement neoliberal restructuring of Brazil’s economy.47 Regardless of the specific tactics utilized, the political point is clear: in order to effectively implement neoliberal reforms, the State must somehow demobilize the popular sectors who are most adversely affected. But if the problem is with Elitist Democracy itself, as I have argued, then demobilizing nonelites will only make matters worse, not better. The Threat of Antipolitics: Targeting Democracy as the Problem At some point, even stable, long-term democracies have to be concerned about the potential transformation of chronic civic disengagement and frustrated citizen politics into “Antipolitics,”48 also referred to as “Neopopulism”49 and “uncivil movements.”50 Contemporary examples include the rise of neo-Nazism and antiimmigrant sentiment in Europe. In the United States, it is visible as antigovernment and pro-gun paranoia (e.g. the militia movement of the 1980s), organized antiabortion violence and the oft-noted general decline in “civic discourse.” The situation is much more worrisome in Latin America and other parts of the developing world where, as we have seen for the case of Brazil, political and economic elites have historically held only the most precarious instrumental commitment to democratic politics, and where nonelites have normally been severely punished when they’ve tried to mobilize or even protest. Brazil also illustrates how dangerously heightened levels of economic inequality (what some aptly call “social apartheid”), violent crime, and generalized insecurity have more recently resulted from the developing world’s vulnerability to volatile international economic ups and downs and from neoliberal economic policies that exacerbate inequality and insecurity. Not surprisingly, then, Latin America has seen the rise of virulent and sometimes violent Neopopulist politicians and parties (e.g. Alberto Fujimori in Peru and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela) and various “uncivil movements” (e.g. Colombia’s violent guerilla and paramilitary organizations).51 Neopopulists oftentimes invoke a benevolent-dictatorial Savior of the People as the only means to clean up “dirty” democratic politics (along the lines of arguments historically associated with most military interventions and fascist

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experiments throughout the world). Some Neopopulists may even ally themselves with uncivil movements that set out to demonize, isolate, exclude, or even eradicate “impure” scapegoats—foreigners, ethnic or regional minorities, “class enemies,” and the like. Commenting on Brazil’s situation in early 1999, for example, following a steady stream of evidence of insider trading deals and favoritism between top-level government officials and private sector groups (all in the midst of the collapse of the country’s currency and the all-too-familiar inequality-enhancing recessionary policies that the recently reelected president had promised during the campaign that he would not impose), political columnist of the influential newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, Clóvis Rossi, warned of the threat of a future turn toward Law and Order, Clean-up-the-Corruption types of antipolitics: “Let nobody complain of the voter who, in the next election, bends his ear towards some adventurer appearing as a ‘vigilante for justice’ or a ‘hunter of the corrupt’ or some worse thing. The country has already seen that film before. If it be condemned to repeat it, it is because the omission of the authorities more and more is taken as connivance.”52 The crucial point for our discussion here is to emphasize that many disaffected and disengaged citizens, in their desire to simply avoid politics altogether, end up providing space for these antipolitical groups and individuals to gain a foothold in the political arena. Others may be induced to actually join the antipolitical crusade, turning their former civic disengagement into a puppet’s dance of choreographed mobilization against specified enemies and against democracy itself. While these antipolitical groups and individuals and their crusades may be dismissed as extremist expressions of discontent on the part of a relatively small number of people, their existence and their staying power over the years reveals that many citizens share their rabid discontent with and mistrust of democratic institutions and values.53 Bringing the issue back to the doorstep of North Americans, Robert Putnam argues forcefully that “the greatest threat to American liberty comes from the disengaged, not the engaged. The most intolerant individuals and communities in America today are the least connected . . .”54 We have seen that traditional patrimonial conservativism, “modern” neoliberalism and neopopulism are, in part, the cause and, in part, the consequence of contemporary Elitist Democracy and civic disengagement in Brazil (and, I would argue, in many other disaffected democracies as well). All three share the common denominator of seeing the task of governance as one of preserving or constructing new mechanisms of exclusionary politics; that is, continuing or accentuating the demobilization of nonelites. The “task of governance,” in other words, is to squelch democracy itself. This is the


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same “democratic stability” discussed in the chapter one. It is a stability, however, that suggests troubling weaknesses, not reassuring strengths. Borrowing from John Stuart Mill’s version of utilitarian Liberalism, I would argue that when any group or individuals in society, let alone a majority group, are either politically excluded, marginalized, or otherwise ignored, society itself is deprived of the vibrant pluralism necessary to keep itself from stagnating and decaying.55 Similarly, Putnam and others have more recently warned us of the need to recognize and conserve precious supplies of “social capital” (i.e. currently engaged and responsible citizens or, at the very least, the inculcated notion that engagement is the proper thing to do) or risk losing democracy to new forms of authoritarian practice or, on the opposite extreme, social and political breakdown.56 In the words of Ken Roberts: “Over the long term, democracy . . . thrives on deep social roots, a broad base of support, and a capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and newly emerging social pressures, all of which require a participatory civil society. Democratic regimes that short-circuit such participation may be deceptively calm on the surface, but they often contain deep seismic rifts that periodically shake their foundations and threaten their institutional edifice.” 57 In sum, a combination of civic disengagement and a disconnect between “citizen politics” and the well-entrenched official politics of political parties, politicians and their socio-economic elite supporters is a clear and present danger (at least it is for those of us who take democracy seriously). If traditional methods and practices of Elitist Democracy, neoliberalism, and neopopulism do nothing but exacerbate that problem, what is to be done? The Problem of the (Perceived) Lack of Alternatives I have argued that public cynicism and disillusionment with existing democratic politics does not necessarily mean that people dislike democracy per se.58 On the contrary, it seems that most would prefer better democracy to no democracy at all. But how to obtain better democracy when the existing rules of the game favor and are guarded by those who most benefit from the status quo? That is the big question that plagues so many democratic citizens throughout the world and has engaged so many democratic theorists as the so-called third wave of democratization around the world enters its fourth decade.59 An even more fundamental question, however, is how to implement a better democracy in the absence of anything even approaching consensus on a practical alternative to the status quo. Winston Churchill’s well-known adage, that “democracy is the worst political system . . . except

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for all the others,” may continue to make us smile. But it rings increasingly hollow in the face of the reality of disengaged citizens and disaffected democracies around the world. To many of us here at the outset of the twenty-first century, especially in the United States, democracy simply is and will be. To talk of an alternative, or even to talk of the threat of democratic breakdown, is to be seen as a speaker of nonsense. To talk seriously of fundamentally reforming democracy is to be seen as something of a pie-in-the-sky dreamer. Since fundamental change is inconceivable, fewer and fewer people seem to bother trying, or even caring. Many intellectuals—fortunately, not all—engage themselves in dry academic debates complete with an invented vocabulary that says absolutely nothing to those outside their own rarified circles.60 The politically active focus ever more closely on working within the existing rules of the game and/or on “getting mine while the getting is good.” “Getting real” and thinking purely in “practical” terms becomes a stand-in for motivational goals and transformative ideals. At the same time, average citizens either continue to retreat into their own private lives and micro-communities or, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 eagerly and sincerely take part in the initially spontaneous, but increasingly scripted and choreographed cheerleading and flag-waving sessions of wartime patriotism. Meanwhile, national security concerns chip away at civil liberties, government business is increasingly cloaked in secrecy, economic bailouts target the wealthiest of the wealthy while government cutbacks target the poor, criticism of the government is roundly criticized as “unpatriotic” . . . and democracy increasingly trickles up and away. What is to be done? The following chapter will introduce one alternative model of democracy—Participatory Democracy—that in one form or another emerged from the late twentieth century as the most promising progressive alternative to traditional Elitist Democracy, neoliberal technocracy, and neopopulist anti-democracy. That it is no mere theoretical construct will become very clear in subsequent chapters when we turn to an analysis of a fascinating real-world example of Participatory Democracy in Brazil: the Participatory Budget.

CHAPTER 3


P

articipatory Democracy has been embraced by a growing number of intellectuals, and by leaders and activists of the political Left and Center-Left throughout the world, as a means to directly address the problems of Elitist Democracy.1 It has also been adopted by many within the international development community, and even by a large number of ostensibly nonideological municipal leaders and administrators in the United States.2 Proponents of Participatory Democracy are characterized, first, by their unwillingness to accept the antidemocratic and citizen-demobilizing conclusions of either “do-nothing” status quo conservativism, antiState neoliberalism or demogogic neopopulism. Second, they claim that such indicators of civic disengagement as low and declining voter turnouts, increasing distrust in democratic politicians and processes, and declining levels of participation in organized political society can be countered by actively promoting citizens’ involvement in important decision-making processes— fostering what Avritzer calls “participatory publics”—especially at the local or grass-roots level where politics can more easily be seen to be relevant to peoples’ day-to-day lives.3 Empowerment The operative hypothesis here is that citizen participation produces “empowerment,” defined by Dagnino as “the construction of active social subjects, defining for themselves what they consider to be their rights and fighting for recognition of those rights.”4 More specifically, empowerment refers to the transformation of an individual’s prior mentality of fatalism and dependency on “higher ups” and/or an active disgust regarding all things political,

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to a new sense of personal responsibility to struggle against systemic exclusion and domination, and a belief in one’s efficacy to be successful in doing so. In the illustrative words of political theorists, Jane Mansbridge and Arnold Kaufman, “democratic participation—by which meant exercising real power over the decisions that affect one—would improve, generally, ‘one’s powers of thought, feeling and action.’ ” 5 In terms more familiar, perhaps, to North American political scientists, empowerment means moving from “parochial” and “subject” mentalities toward a “participant” mentality.6 Proponents of Participatory Democracy see political participation, therefore, not only as a collective action strategy necessary for furthering the interests of repressed, excluded and ignored individuals and groups (i.e. power and persuasion through numbers), but as the vehicle for an individual’s psychological emancipation from the idea of natural sociopolitical hierarchies (e.g. class, gender, race, etc.) and the sense of personal impotence in breaking out of such hierarchies (e.g. perceptions of “natural” social hierarchy and/or of politics as inherently elitist generating nonelite passivity, stoicism, etc.).7 The imputed importance of empowerment for the broader health and progress of democracy cannot be overstated. In the words of the American political scientist, Larry Diamond, “prominent theories of democracy, both classical and modern, have asserted that democracy requires a distinctive set of political values and orientation from its citizens: moderation, tolerance, civility, efficacy, [and] participation.”8 Theorists of political culture in the 1960s often theorized—and many observers continue to believe to this day—that, in the absence of such democratic values (an oft-cited problem of the “Third World”), democracy just won’t “fit.”9 Contemporary proponents of Participatory Democracy reject such culturally deterministic logic, arguing in its stead that properly designed and promoted opportunities for meaningful and efficacious political participation can generate empowered citizens, and that empowerment can generate something of a snowball effect of deepening citizen participation.10 To the extent that empowerment takes place among previously excluded, ignored, and/or underserved sectors of the population, proponents of Participatory Democracy argue that politics becomes more pluralistic and democratic.11 Existing representative democracies become even more representative as they become more participatory. Another important, and related, claim is that an empowered and active civil society provides an oversight function, and therefore a democratic check, to the sort of corruption, backroom politics, and clientelistic log-rolling common to elitist politics anywhere.12


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Empowerment is said to occur as an initial instance of political participation generates an understanding that one’s individual interests are inextricably intertwined with, and arrayed against, the interests of others (“political consciousness”) and that seeking to further those interests necessarily involves further political participation and conflict (“civic engagement”). Scholars frequently cite various arenas of organized civil society (e.g. interest group politics, social movements, organized social activism, and/or philanthropy, etc.) as the most empowering “schools of democracy.”13 Becoming active in political society (e.g. joining a political party, campaigning on behalf of a candidate and/or a party, etc.) is another oft-cited means of taking the first step into political awareness and activism. Once engaged in one arena of democracy, empowered citizens purportedly expand their participation to other arenas.14 This notion of empowerment spilling over from an initial instance of participation is widely held by scholars like Robert Dahl, who writes “Joining organizations and participating in politics reinforces [sic] one another.”15 Similarly, Jana Everett writes “as in grass-roots movements generally, activism frequently induces broader participation in the political system.”16 The big question, of course, is “Does empowerment really happen and, if so, how?” We already know that in contemporary contexts of civic disengagement, most people have become completely turned off by virtually all aspects of political society while many have distanced themselves from organized civil society as well. So, how do the disengaged become empowered?17 In looking for an answer to this question, contemporary proponents of Participatory Democracy make the inevitable bow to the previously cited works of Robert Putnam and his concept of “social capital.” I will too. But we are obliged to begin with the classic work in the field of social capital: the arguments of the early nineteenth-century French political writer, Alexis de Tocqueville, whom Putnam himself has called the “patron saint of contemporary social capitalists.”18 Alexis de Tocqueville and Contemporary “Neo-Tocquevillians” Tocqueville argued that centralized State “tyranny” (a paradoxical tendency of democratic regimes) could/should be countered through administrative decentralization and through local-level citizen participation in political organizations and civic duties.19 “[T]he strength of free peoples,” he argued, “resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach

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people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment.”20 Tocqueville praised both the political and administrative decentralization he found in the pre-industrial Northeast of the United States (as compared to his native France). He reserved special praise for New England’s unusually democratic political culture apparently sustained if not actually created by participation in local-level politics and civic duties. Tocqueville’s arguments in favor of political decentralization have always found an audience among liberal and neoliberal thinkers unhappy with the effects of “Big Government” on individual liberty.21 But while liberals and neoliberals praise decentralization for its ability to check the seemingly inexorable “tyrannical” encroachments of Big Government on local and private spheres of activity, New Left and Communitarian thinkers prefer to focus on Tocqueville’s insights that are more appropriate to the contemporary problem of civic disengagement (a phenomenon Tocqueville might have called “the diminishing of civic spirit” and “the degradation of public life”).22 Accordingly, today’s Neo-Tocquevillians focus their criticism of Big Government on the psychological and behavioral effects on individual citizens who observe their democratic government becoming ever more remote and ever more scripted by groups and individuals—lawyers, bureaucrats, professional politicians, lobbyists, pollsters—who are nothing like “the rest of us.” The practical implication of such a perception is that local issues and offices are essentially powerless, so why bother? Indeed, “Why bother with Washington (or Brasília) since who am I to make any kind of difference?” Tocqueville and Neo-Tocquevillians alike argue that citizens need to feel that their community matters before they can come to feel that their participation is worthwhile. In such communities as those he saw in New England, Tocqueville noted that the individual citizen “sees the township as a free, strong corporation of which he is part and which is worth the trouble of trying to direct.”23 Similarly, Neo-Tocquevillians argue that political and administrative decentralization, by enhancing local decision-making authority, can make citizens see their own political engagement as useful both to themselves and to their community. In the words of the American political scientist, Robert Dilger: . . . advocates of decentralization argue that active state and local governments promote a sense of state and community responsibility and selfreliance, that state and local governments are closer to the people and better able to adapt public programs to state and local needs and conditions, that they encourage participation and civic responsibility by


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allowing more people to become involved in public questions, and that they encourage experimentation and innovation in public policy.24 Unlike their liberal and neoliberal counterparts, however, most NeoTocquevillians recognize that political and administrative decentralization in and of itself is not enough to effectively counter citizen disengagement.25 In some contexts, such as those most prominent in rural areas and small towns throughout the world, decentralization can merely open the door to repressive and demobilizing forms of elitist local tyranny. As argued in the last chapter, in Latin America and much of the developing world, such local tyranny has historically taken the form of patrimonial clientelism practiced by local elites (caudillos and coroneis) and their political machines, as well as by the corporatist/developmentalist State.26 Decentralization can also generate an insidious form of “modern” local tyranny, especially in urban areas: a supposedly benevolent technocracy of bureaucrats and neoliberal politicians justifying their antidemocratic exclusionary rule under such banners as “Total Quality” and “Best Practices.”27 To counter such local tyrannies, New Leftists and Communitarians strongly emphasize Tocqueville’s arguments that local-level participation in “secondary institutions” and civic duties fosters a sense of connectedness— social solidarity, civic consciousness, social capital—among otherwise selfseeking and/or envious individuals.28 Working together in various and assundry localized civic duties such as jury duty, town council meetings, community barn raisings, and the like, individuals become empowered as citizens. They “wake up” in that they come to understand that, in a great many instances, both attaining and maintaining their own self-interest is inextricably intertwined with attaining and maintaining the interests of their neighbors, and vice versa—a phenomenon he labeled “self interest properly understood.”29 In the words of American political scientist, Benjamin Barber, “civic activity educates individuals how to think publicly as citizens even as citizenship informs civic activity with the required sense of publicness and justice.”30 The American historian, Derek Phillips, seems right in arguing that Tocqueville and many contemporary Communitarians romanticize the extent of local-level solidarity in early nineteenth-century New England towns and, indeed, in most real-world communities.31 I would argue, however, that most Neo-Tocquevillians—particularly those from the New Left—understand that where local-level participation doesn’t create an allembracing solidarity among all members of a given community, it can create more limited group solidarities among some members. These are usually built

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up around a new-found consciousness of existing lines of social cleavage (e.g. class, ethnicity, etc.) or of the individuals and groups involved in more issue-specific localized conflicts. Far from being a bad thing, however, this “new found consciousness” and “more limited group solidarity” are the fundamentals of “empowerment” as discussed earlier (i.e. beginning with “the construction of active social subjects” out of individuals in a given society so that they may act collectively against various forms of tyranny, both centralized and decentralized). Ignored, actively excluded, or disengaged citizens do not wake up (when and if they ever do) to a world of civic harmony and love. Rather, they discover the real world of politics that Max Weber so adequately labeled “organized domination” and that I identified in chapter one as a never-ending struggle among competing interests (with democracy being the process whereby nonelite interests gradually gain access to such public goods and privileges as human rights, civil liberties, and State-provided social services).32 Seen this way, political consciousness means, first and foremost, the ability to distinguish political allies from enemies, while civic engagement means identifying with one’s allies even to the point of actively joining them in organized efforts to pursue and/or defend shared interests. Empowerment is, therefore, the first step—taken at the level of the individual—in actually creating the pluralistic society so often simply (and simplistically) assumed by observers and even some theorists of contemporary democracy. Perhaps the most important point out of all of this is Neo-Tocquevillians’ recognition that empowerment—especially of nonelites—needs to be actively promoted and maintained; thus the central concern with the problem of civic disengagement, which can now be seen as the opposite of empowerment, or disempowerment. The Debate over Origins and Strategies of Empowerment But Neo-Tocquevillian thinkers are of two minds on pinpointing both the origins of empowerment and the political strategies necessary to maintain and/or expand it. On the one hand, civil society-centered theorists and practitioners argue that empowerment occurs spontaneously in response to historical events or processes—for example, in opposition to an unpopular authoritarian regime,33 in response to a new consciousness of formerly unseen or “forbidden” collective identities,34 in response to a new consciousness of new or formerly unseen interests or concerns,35 or during what the American political scientist Sam Huntington has called moments of “creedal passion” when deeply held cultural myths and ideals about society and politics are suddenly shattered by revelations of a starkly opposing reality.36


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Evidence of such spontaneous empowerment can be seen in “resurrections of civil society” during such special periods in numerous countries throughout history: street demonstrations, letter writing campaigns, civil disobedience, ostensibly apolitical Nongovernmental organizations providing services and training to the poor and otherwise excluded, etc.37 but also in the more gradual emergence of “citizen politics” in the latter portion of the twentieth century. The practical implications of this civil society centered view are that dedicated New Leftists and Communitarians need to work within civil society itself to make sure that these spontaneous eruptions of activism from below become organized and self-sustaining, and that they maintain their fundamentally grass roots (i.e. localized and personal) character as well as their equally fundamental autonomy from political society and the State.38 Only thus, it is argued, can they maintain pressure on the status quo while avoiding the co-optation and demobilization that is said to inevitably occur when one works for change within the system. Others argue that the politics of empowerment should be more focused on political society.39 This political society-centered view argues, first, that leadership from political party and even sympathetic government leaders is essential to overcome the issue-specific and highly fragmented nature of grassroots-based consciousness raising and activism.40 Equally important, they argue that a logical conclusion of the civil society-centered view is that once any given moment or wave of spontaneous empowerment passes, especially (albeit paradoxically) if by victory over the offending historical situation, so too does much of the activism that it spawned.41 The social capital thus created can, at best, only be maintained and rarely if ever actually expanded upon. Proponents of the political society-centered view argue, however, that empowerment politics needn’t merely respond to the tides of history, or play a rearguard action to try to preserve existing stocks of social capital “in the trenches” of civil society, as it were. Instead, legislation and administrative practices can be specifically designed to enhance and encourage popular participation and empowerment—to “deepen democracy.” In the words of Richard Valelly, “people don’t just come to politics; politics also comes to people.”42 Participatory institutional reforms, understood to emerge (if at all) from the machinations of political society, hold the promise of bringing even more citizens into the game of democratic politics, including the politically alienated and otherwise disengaged. Thus, as flawed as political parties and elections may be in practice, political society-centered New Leftists and Communitarians argue that it is only through parties and elections that an initially small number of empowered and committed people can popularize and begin to implement an actively empowering

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participatory model of democracy from above and possibly even institutionalize it so as to avoid the more ephemeral moments of social movement empowerment from below. We will return to this debate about the proper “creative political agency” in subsequent chapters; but an important point to emphasize here about both versions of the New Left and Communitarian arguments is their willingness to work within the rules of the game of formal-institutional representative democracy while, at the same time, professing a transformative vision of reforming democracy in a more participatory direction.43 Both speak, in other words, in gradualistic terms of democratizing democracy, not replacing it or ignoring its failings.44 Popular participation via a radical authoritarian imposition, in addition to being a contradiction in terms, harkens back to a Leninist/Stalinist past that New Leftists would rather forget than recreate, and one that Communitarians never embraced.45 But simply working within the rules of the game without pursuing any transformative vision would be to abandon the dreams of social justice that have defined the very meaning of progressivism—both socialist and democratic— for over two centuries.46 At about the same time that the post–Cold War Left was revamping its ideology, bringing it closer to Communitarian ideas, the mainstream international development community was also adopting what I have been calling Neo-Tocquevillian strategies of decentralization and popular participation and adding them to its more traditional emphasis on poverty reduction.47 The dovetailing of these two processes occurred within the ongoing Third Wave of democratization. This provided impetus and support for the political society-centered approach to empowerment as many NeoTocquevillians originally based in civil society found themselves elected or appointed into political society as party leaders, legislators, and administrators of public policy. In the process, a great many once-active social movements and grassroots groups disappeared or became less active as their ranks of leadership thinned.48 The end result, for our purposes here, was reduced support for the civil society-centered approach to empowerment politics. In chapter five, I will flesh out one increasingly well-known effort on the part of what I have been calling “political society-centered” NeoTocquevillians to bring the Participatory Democratic model down from the realm of political theory into the real world: the Participatory Budget (or Orçamento Participativo—OP) as practiced in local and state governments administered by the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT) in Brazil. The next chapter, however, contains a necessarily brief sketch of the history of the PT in the context of the broader historical evolution of the Brazilian Left in general.

CHAPTER 4

Participatory Democracy in Practice—Brazil’s Workers’ Party and the Participatory Budget

O

n November 15, 1988, former City Council member, Luiza Erundina, of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT) was elected mayor of Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. Erundina’s election was truly a historical event in Brazil’s political history. Much of the São Paulo PT leadership and active militancy were the same leaders and activists of the metalworkers strikes ten years earlier that had brazenly and successfully challenged both the government and the powerful oligopoly of foreign-owned automobile companies for the first time since the military took power in 1964. Then there was Erundina herself: a middle-aged unmarried woman, an immigrant from the Northeast of Brazil (generally considered the country’s economic and cultural backwater by São Paulo natives), and an activist in one of the more radical wings of the openly Socialist PT. Finally, the contrast with Erundina’s predecessor could not have been more pronounced: the quixotic octogenarian, Jânio Quadros—a former president (until resigning suddenly in 1961 in his first year of office), and a master at Brazil’s traditional intra-elite game of stitching together electoral and governing coalitions by trading public funds and privileged access to public services and jobs in return for political and financial support among boss-style city council members and powerful economic elites. Erundina’s victory was a complete surprise to most observers. No polls had predicted it. The state and national leadership of the party had previously abandoned the campaign as a lost cause. The second-place candidate,

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businessman and former mayor under the military, Paulo Maluf, with an enormous political machine and seemingly limitless financial resources, had been the clear frontrunner throughout most of the campaign. But when the votes were fully counted, Erundina had won with a plurality of 29.84 percent of the vote in a field of fourteen candidates.1 Late in the afternoon of election day, with returns coming in showing Erundina’s surprise victory, word went out that there would be a big victory celebration up on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s “Wall Street” and the site of numerous marches and manifestations in which the PT had participated in previous years. Living only a few blocks away, I grabbed my camera and ran to take a look. In the last minutes of daylight, I was able to capture on film the euphoria of the first several hundred people arriving, many with party flags in hand, campaign stickers stuck to their clothes and faces, and wearing PT and Erundina campaign T-shirts. Several hours later, the street was packed with thousands of people dancing, waving flags, exchanging embraces, and, of course, holding up traffic. Over the next few months, the euphoria of unexpected victory gave way to the harsh reality of governance. Quadros had left the city with a staggering debt, a bloated payroll, and a chaotically disorganized bureaucratic machine: another common feature of Brazil’s patrimonial political tradition. Erundina was forced to stop work on several highly visible highway and tunnel construction projects in the central zones of the city so that she could rein in the city’s deficits and target her limited spending capabilities on the impoverished zones in the sprawling slums ringing the city. Opposition politicians and the ever-critical media were relentless in their criticisms of her Administration’s “incapacity” to govern. Surprisingly, perhaps, leaders and city council members from her own party were, at times, some of her harshest critics. I mention the São Paulo experience (without entering into a more detailed analysis) because it is widely recognized within the PT as having been an eye-opening example of the multiple challenges of moving from the realm of ideologically oriented opposition into the “real world” of democratic governance.2 For our purposes here, two challenges were particularly important. The first involved recognizing the need to negotiate with opponents and to abide by preexisting administrative rules even when doing so seemed repugnant to party and individual principles. Like it or not, this was and is the give-and-take of democracy in practice. Meeting the challenge well means relaxing certain ideological principles (without abandoning them) and adopting new principles of pragmatic public administration (without elevating pragmatism to the central guiding principle).3 Successfully confronting this challenge constitutes, in the words of the Mexican political scientist, Jorge Castañeda, “the apprenticeship of democratic rule.”4

Participatory Democracy in Practice

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The São Paulo experience also clearly illustrated the second albeit related challenge of real-world democracy that has been going on within the PT since its inception in 1980: surviving the inherently conflict-laden processes of party building and institutional learning as different party factions battled it out for ideological and political dominance, or “hegemony,” within the party.5 While the party has sometimes seemed to teeter on the edge of fratricidal dissolution (an impression heightened more by the deliberate openness of party debates and the hostility of media coverage than by any real threat of dissolution), the history of the PT shows how the processes of party building and institutional learning have resulted in the internal hegemony of an interpretation of Socialism that can only be labeled Neo-Tocquevillian in its adoption of Participatory Democracy as the backbone of the modo petista de governar (the PT’s mode of governance).6 A Brief History of the Workers’ Party

7

The history of the PT reflects a fundamental transformation of the Brazilian Left in the final thirty years of the twentieth century: it has largely emancipated itself from both State corporatism and Marxist-Leninism, and it has fully embraced political democracy (albeit a vision of democracy much different from the Brazilian status quo and the North American “mainstream” procedural definition of democracy discussed in chapter one). Since Getúlio Vargas’ authoritarian and populist Estado Novo (1937–1945), the organized Left in Brazil had been repressed and the urban working classes integrated into politics from the top-down by State-controlled corporatist unions.8 The unorganized poor remained politically inert due to the stranglehold of traditional clientelism in the countryside, machine-style party clientelism in the cities, literacy requirements for voting, and numbing poverty. During the postwar period (1945–1964), nationalist-populist “parties of the State”9— especially Vargas’ Brazilian Workers’ Party (PTB)—continued this legacy of State incorporation and control, albeit in an institutional context of Elitist Democracy. In the charged atmosphere of the Cold War, however, political debate became increasingly polarized, and the PTB split between its moderate deal-brokering Vargista leaders and its more radical grassroots. The Cuban revolution in 1958 and 1959 seemed to present a viable alternative to the radicals’ frustration with “bourgeois democracy”: only violent revolution spearheaded by a small but dedicated vanguard party or guerilla movement could bring forth social justice by eliminating capitalism and its democratic facade. Subsequent events, however, took their toll on the revolutionary Left. Communism and Marxist-Leninist vanguardism were relegated to the fringes

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by thirty years of failed armed struggle, brutal military repression of real and imagined opponents, an enormous growth of the urban working class and an intensive modernization of vast rural areas (both accompanied by rising wages and expanded access to social benefits), the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialism in the late-1980s, and the subsequent decay of Cuban socialism. New “Post Cold War Left” goals and strategies emphasized “democratizing democracy” (empowering citizens to participate more directly and independently in institutions of contestation and governance) and, at least in the short-to-medium term, “humanizing capitalism” (redirecting a significant portion of the economic surplus toward improving the quality of life and future prospects of nonelites) until a new vision of an anticapitalist socialist “Utopia” could be adequately theorized.10 Meanwhile, in Brazil, many who had never considered themselves Leftists or even political joined in opposition to the country’s authoritarian and highly unequal style of capitalism and demanded a return to democratic government. Founding the PT In 1978 and 1979, massive strikes in the industrial outskirts of the city of São Paulo brought participating union leaders and sympathizers to the conclusion that union representation of members’ demands for better working conditions, wages, etc. was not enough to ensure a better life for Brazil’s working classes.11 Workers were also citizens, with needs and interests outside of the workplace; and they needed to be represented as such in the national political arena. Even for workplace issues, unions were seen as highly vulnerable to State repression, whereas a party might operate in multiple locations within and outside the State. In supporting the idea of a workers’ party, the recognized leader of the strikes, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, called attention to Brazil’s history of oligarchical and populist parties of elites cutting deals among themselves while making grand promises to an inert mass of client-supporters. Lula argued that a true workers’ party could only construct itself from the bottom up ( pelas bases), acting as an umbrella organization for the political participation of urban workers and all others who felt unrepresented by traditional politics.12 Lula’s “New Unionist” leaders formed the initial core of the PT, alongside a small but significant number of longtime Leftist activists and intellectuals. They found support in the “progressive wing” of the Catholic Church, and from numerous community-focused and identity-based social movements throughout Brazil.13 In the words of Brazilian social scientists, Lúcio


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Kowarick and André Singer, “We are dealing with a party with a large number of militants that during the 1980s simultaneously assisted in the construction of union and grassroots movements while being forged by these movements.”14 The PT was founded on February 10, 1980 and legally constituted two years later. Party leaders agreed that the formal rules and procedures of democratic politics, flawed as they were, could be used as a means to publicize the struggles of the party’s constituent social movements, to expand and unify their followings, and possibly even to “occupy spaces” of institutional power in order, eventually, to transform Brazil’s unequal social structures (albeit in an, as-yet, ill-defined direction).15 The PT in Electoral and Institutional Politics The PT first garnered truly national attention in late 1984 with its insistent demand that direct popular elections (Dirétas Já) replace the military’s plan for indirect presidential elections. Massive street rallies and demonstrations resulted. Brazilian economist, Paulo Baia, notes this “irony of history” by which “a Left that gave little strategic value to democracy and that even frequently discussed its merely tactical utility ended up being the principal voice in defense of its full installation . . . .”16 When the Direct Elections campaign was adopted and then abandoned by moderate PMDB leaders as a means to get their candidate, Tancredo Neves, indirectly elected, the PT risked public censure by requiring its Congressional delegation to abstain from voting for the popular Neves.17 Neves’ death and the subsequent collapse of José Sarney’s presidency into economic turmoil and corruption, led “many Brazilians [ . . . ] to see the PT as the only political force that had had the courage to stick to its principles.”18 The party’s subsequent “outsider” image fueled its electoral growth, in the late 1980s, and continued to do so well into the early 2000s. The party entered Brazil’s electoral fray in 1982. Table 4.1 outlines the PT’s performance in all arenas of electoral politics from 1982 to 2002.19 Table 4.1 shows that 1982’s first multiparty elections produced eight PT federal deputies. That number doubled to sixteen in 1986, more than doubled to thirty-five in 1990, increased by 43 percent to fifty in 1994, increased again by 18 percent to fifty-nine in 1998, and increased yet again in 2002 by 54 percent to become the largest party delegation in the Chamber with ninety-one federal deputies.20 While it took ten years (1990) before the party elected a senator, it elected five in 1995, added two more in 1998 and became the second largest party in the Senate when its delegation increased

Table 4.1 Outline of PT’s Performance in all Arenas of Electoral Politics from 1982 to 2002.

President Federal Senate Federal House Governor State House Mayor City Council Member

19821

19852

19863

19884

19893

19903

19924

19943

19964

19983

20004

20023

n.a. 0 8 0 12 2 118

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2 n.a.

n.a. 0 16 0 40 n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 36 900

0 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

n.a. 1 35 0 81 n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 54 1100

0 5 50 2 92 n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 115 1985

0 7 59 3 90 n.a. n.a.

n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 108 1808

1 10 91 3 147 n.a. n.a.

n.a.: not applicable. 1 Innaugural elections: Federal Legislators (Senate and House), Governors, State Legislators (House), Mayors, and City Council Members (1982). 2 Innaugural mayoral elections for state capitals (1985). 3 Regular federal and state elections: President (beginning in 1989, aligning with the rest in 1994), Federal Legislators, Governors, Vice-Governors (elected separately, but not listed here), and State Legislators. 4 Regular municipal elections: Mayor and City Council Members (1988).


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to ten in 2002.21 In state politics, the PT elected its first governors in 1994, in Espirito Santo and the Federal District of Brasília.22 While losing the Brasília seat in an upset in the 1998 elections, the party elected governors in the states of Acre, Rio Grande do Sul, and Mato Grosso do Sul. Another upset loss in Rio Grande do Sul in 2002 was offset by reelections in Acre, Mato Grosso do Sul, and a new governorship in Piauí. In the legislatures of Brazil’s 27 states, the party’s initial 12 state deputies in 1982 more than trebled to 40 in 1986, then doubled to 81 in 1990, increased by 14 percent to 92 in the 1994 elections and dropped only slightly to 90 in the 1998 elections. In 2002, the number of PT state deputies spiked by 63 percent to 147. It was in municipal politics that the PT surprised many observers. Beginning with only two elected mayors in 1982 (and its first state capital mayorship— Fortaleza, Ceará—in 1985), the number of PT mayors jumped to 36 in 1988, increased by 50 percent to 55 in 1992, more than doubled to 115 in 1996, and increased by 63 percent to 187 in 2000. By 2001, the party had governed or was governing in a wide variety of cities ranging in size and character from the tiny rural town of Lavandeira in the Centralnorthern state of Tocantins, with its 1,119 inhabitants, to the highly urbanized and industrialized city of São Paulo, with its nine-and-a-half million inhabitants.23 Finally, in presidential elections, table 4.1 does not do justice to just how well the PT fared in each of Brazil’s post-authoritarian elections for national leader. Candidate Lula placed a close second in 1989 behind Fernando Collor, winning 16 percent in the first round of multi-candidate voting, and 46.9 percent against Collor’s 53 percent in the second round. Although there was no second round in the 1994 and 1998 elections due to Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s first-round victories (54.5 and 53.1 percent, respectively), Lula’s second-place results (27 and 31.7 percent) were almost double his first round showing in 1989. Finally, in the 2002 presidential elections, Lula was overwhelmingly victorious, winning 46.4 percent of the vote in the first round and 61.3 percent in the second round against Cardoso’s candidate, José Serra. In spite of losing the presidential elections of 1989, 1994, and 1998, the PT’s strong showings in these and in Congressional and subnational elections further raised the party’s visibility and credibility. In addition, as Fernando Collor’s presidency (1990–1992) collapsed in a wash of economic stagnation and corruption, the party’s opposition remained loud and consistent. Relations with Itamar Franco’s interim presidency (1992–1994) started off with hints of a tacit alliance, but the PT declined any formal participation in Franco’s administration and moved squarely into opposition as he adopted a growing number of neoliberal reforms. It remained steadfast in

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opposing the government of president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), in spite of Cardoso’s initial popularity and that of his flagship neoliberal economic program, the Real Plan. As the economy stumbled in 1999 with a massive devaluation of the artificially overvalued Real, then entered into a slow but steady process of decay, especially in terms of rising unemployment, the PT’s message of anti-neoliberalism (in favor of reviving the role of the State in order to resuscitate the national economy and institute social welfare programs) and anticorruption (in favor of greater citizen participation and oversight of State operations) seemed to find increasing public acceptance.24 By 2002, the party was far from being the isolated voice of radical São Paulo trade unionism that some of its critics had predicted in 1980. It had grown into a national organization with some 750,000 registered members nationwide, an impressive electoral record, a growing number of experienced politicians and administrators, a solid nationwide party preference of 17–19 percent throughout the 1990s (the highest among Brazil’s dizzying array of political parties)25 and, of course, a victorious candidate in the 2002 presidential elections. In many areas of the country, and in all presidential elections up to and including 2002, it was even possible to argue that Brazil effectively had a two-party (or two-coalition) system: PT versus anti-PT. The PT’s Programmatic Evolution as a Function of “Institutional Learning” The PT has always considered elections (and formal democracy in general) as a means to achieving more “substantive” ends. In Lula’s words, the party has been dedicated from the beginning to “showing to the population that institutional democracy is not enough” in a country of such glaring inequalities as Brazil: “It’s necessary, for example, to democratize the economy. To the Brazilian elite, democracy means that the worker can shout out that he’s hungry. For us, democracy means that the worker has the right to eat.”26 This substantive conception of democracy has always included greater citizen participation. In the words of PT President, José Dirceu: The idea that guides the PT’s ideological evolution is the idea of citizenship, and the idea of the public—public space, not Statized space. In Brazil, private space exists, and the State’s space exists, but the public space must come into existence increasingly, to become a reference point. Because while voting is fundamental in electing a legislative representative or the executive chief in each of the three levels of government, we want


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citizens to be increasingly organized to directly participate in public administration, not just in decisions but in deliberation processes. This idea has gone from being an ideology to being an instrument of participation and citizenship . . . of putting one more power in the traditional arrangement of executive, legislature and judiciary.27 The PT’s embracing of what Evalina Dagnino calls “new citizenship” clearly represents a break with traditional Left thinking about the “secondary” nature of politics and political culture relative to “primary” economic and class structures.28 At the same time, however, it represents an equally clear continuation of the Left’s traditional moral crusade to “save” the downtrodden from the ravages of capitalism;29 and to do so in spite of the masses themselves—that is, in spite of the poor majority’s “false consciousness” (or, in Gramscian terms, their self-repression by way of internalizing the values, culture, and ideology of the dominant elite classes as if those values, etc. were actually their own), and/or their conservative fear of the unknown or untested.30 While an organizational strategy of popular organization and mobilization is still paramount, it has been significantly transformed from the orthodox Leninist idea of a revolutionary elite acting within a secretive vanguard party structure, to the embracing of the PT as a relatively loose umbrella-style organization of constituent social movements, ideological factions, and individual party members and “sympathizers” acting within a political context of representative democracy.31 The social struggle—no longer restricted to class struggle—has increasingly come to be seen as taking place in the realm of ideas: the Gramscian struggle for ideological hegemony in the context of an antidemocratic political culture and a set of antidemocratic social institutions.32 In the words of Tarso Genro, former mayor of Porto Alegre, this struggle involves . . . the formation of a free and independent public opinion, one that is not subjected to the large means of communication [i.e. the corporate media], and that, as such, may form a solid foundation capable of constructing a permanent opposition to the process of domination; a process that flows through large media and the huge monopolies of information . . . . Another question is that which refers to the establishment of a new pattern of social organization and interaction . . . This refers to the construction of a political culture open to the idea of socialism.33 But while ideology has certainly been a guiding light throughout the PT’s history, equally if not more noteworthy has been the impact of its

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“real world” experiences in local governance on the party’s ideological evolution (what I earlier called “institutional learning”). Victories in local elections, and Constitutional provisions for substantial fiscal autonomy for local governments (Title VI), provided the PT with opportunities to practice what it preached.34 And practice ultimately had a moderating influence on the party as a growing number of party activists found themselves weighing the ideals and strategies forged in years of union organization, academic theorizing, or social movement activism against the give-and-take negotiations and compromises inherent in democratic governance.35 How far one should compromise became a divisive issue among party members, particularly between those actually in local government, and those in local party organizations, constituent unions, and social movement organizations.36 In some cases, disputes around this issue became so divisive that local parties withdrew their support of the administration and/or the administration withdrew itself from the party.37 In spite of these debates, however, and in part because of their selfdestructive potential, a programmatic consensus within the party emerged in the mid-to-late 1980s around two basic goals of “popular democratic” administration: inverting priorities (inversão de prioridades) and popular participation ( participação popular). These were presented as the party’s version of “State reform” in direct opposition to the then predominant Neoliberal model of diminishing the size and role of the State in the name of expanding opportunities for private initiative. All petistas could agree that Neoliberal State reforms merely concentrated greater power and resources in the hands of economic and social elites. And while the Brazilian State had so far been a less-than-perfect instrument in offsetting the inequalities of capitalist development, the solution was not to dismantle the State, but to democratize it and put it to work in helping to solve the problems and serve the interests of the nonelite majority of Brazilians. Inverting Priorities Inversão de prioridades means targeting public policy to favor the poor and otherwise excluded (e.g. improving public education, public health, public transportation, low-cost housing, etc.), while taxing those most capable of paying.38 In São Paulo, for example, under the administration of Luiza Erundina (1989–1992): . . . social spending reached 48.1 percent of total city spending, up from 33.8 percent during Jânio[Quadros]’s administration [1985–1988] and


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nearly 10 percentage points higher than it had ever been in the past fifteen years. [ . . . ] The only funding source that was readily available to the mayor’s office was a direct tax on property [Imposto Predial e Territorial Urbano, or IPTU . . .]. Erundina increased the share of the IPTU as part of the total municipal income from 9.7 percent in 1989 to an estimated 20.8 percent in 1992. The PT administration was partly successful in adjusting real estate resale assessments to realistic levels and in making tax collection more progressive.39 An objective analysis of the results of inverting priorities in PTadministered cities would require comparative analysis of local government performance before, during, and after the PT (a task beyond the scope of this chapter or book).40 A number of studies exist, however, suggesting an overall positive assessment. Brazilian political scientist, Silvio Caccia Bava, for example, argues that “From an across-the-board reading of the results of the recent democratic administrations [i.e. PT-administered cities from 1989–1996], one can affirm that public services under the responsibility of these municipal governments have improved.”41 From an intensive study of five PT-run cities, Rebecca Abers writes that “Many PT administrations have successfully eliminated traditional forms of clientelism and corruption, such as the widespread practice of farming-out public works projects to select businesses at exorbitant prices.”42 My own work on small-town PT administrations in the states of Ceará and Minas Gerais suggests similar conclusions.43 It’s worthwhile noting, as well, that when Brazil’s federal government in 1995 sought out the country’s most successful experiences in “innovative local government” for inclusion in an exposition at the United Nations’ 1996 Habitat II Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, 8 of 18 selected projects came from PT-administered cities. One poster in the party’s national office bragged, “The party administers less than 1% of our cities, but it contributes 44% of the projects that officially represent Brazil.”44 Similarly, when UNICEF sponsored publication in the early-to-mid 1990s of a 15-volume series of exemplary educational programs in Brazil, 5 of the 15 cases came from PT-administered cities.45 Such evidence points to the seriousness of PT activists and administrators in translating the party’s platform into actual practice. But they cannot gauge citizens’ subjective evaluations of PT performance, nor their subsequent evaluations of the legitimacy and efficacy of becoming more engaged in Brazilian democracy. PT leaders and activists make the following argument in that regard: 1. “inverting priorities” means that PT administrations are more responsive to the needs of ordinarily ignored and excluded citizens;

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2. because of this, a greater number among this majority of Brazilians have felt represented by the PT; 3. therefore, many more nonelite citizens are willing to see the democratic system in a more positive light than would otherwise be the case. PT leaders, however, would be the first to admit that such arguments are difficult to prove.46 First, it seems doubtful that a large number of nonelites feel represented by the PT. The electoral record is certainly inconclusive. Many PT administrations have been voted out of office after just one term (e.g. Fortaleza, São Paulo, and the Federal District of Brasília, to name several highly visible cases). Yet a good many others have continued in office for two or three terms (e.g. Porto Alegre, Santos, Diadema, Betim, Ipatinga). While it is true that many voters have seen the PT as the most ideologically consistent party in Brazil with the fewest number of corrupt politicians, they have also tended to feel it is too “radical” for their tastes—at least preceding the presidential elections of 2002.47 Many PT victories have been the result of time-specific “protest voting” and/or split voting among Center and Right candidates, neither of which indicate long-term partisan or programmatic support.48 The PT also suffers from the fact—discussed in chapter two—that many Brazilians in the late-1980s and 1990s, and the poor most of all, showed little knowledge of, or interest in politics.49 Alongside the poverty and inadequate education that usually accompany and help account for such views, voter indifference allows for practices of elitism, clientelism, and corruption to bias election results. Brazilian television, for example, where the vast majority of Brazilians receive their information about politics, routinely portrays PT administrations in a negative light.50 Absent large expenditures of public funds for self promotion (a practice long rejected by most within the party, but embraced by the vast majority of Brazilian politicians), and absent large campaign war chests, the party is particularly susceptible to media bias. As for the effects of clientelism and corruption, the literature is replete with studies indicating how machine politics and vote-buying sway elections, especially among the poorest segments of the population—precisely those who receive the benefits of the PT’s “inversion of priorities” and should be most grateful or interested.51 Popular Participation Fully aware of these problems, and believing that social/political activism begets political consciousness or empowerment (which, in turn, constructs


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authentic democracy by diminishing the formerly oligopolistic power of political and economic elites), the PT’s agenda for local governance long emphasized the importance of encouraging empowerment and citizen activism by opening up new channels of political participation.52 The reasons for doing so should, by now, be simple to understand. PT leaders and activists were convinced that democratic governments in Brazil would still be capitalist and clientelistic; meaning that a PT government’s autonomy to carry out egalitarian reforms would be limited by the State’s ultimate financial dependence upon revenues generated by capitalist enterprises and employment, by the social and political power of wellentrenched economic and political groups (including those within the State bureaucracy itself ), and by the ability of such groups to construct and finance a conservative political opposition.53 Electoral mandates would never be enough. A PT administration would have to construct new forms of ongoing organized and mobilized popular support if it hoped to be able to implement any of its proposed reforms. Given the power of an elitedominated opposition, that popular support would have to be widespread, not restricted to the PT’s core constituency of organized labor, progressive Catholics, and Leftist intellectuals. Clearly, empowering Brazil’s numerically superior, but organizationally challenged nonelites would have to be a necessary and integral component of any successful progressive reform. The ultimate goal of popular participation was therefore clear. But how to carry it out? Early PT administrations set up Municipal Councils and Popular Councils (Conselhos Municipais and Conselhos Populares) focused on specific themes—education, public health, public housing, etc.—in hopes that by meeting together in familiar settings (e.g. neighborhood meeting halls or local school buildings) and expressing opinions on issues they themselves deemed important, participants could channel those opinions directly into the formal decision-making processes of the Administration and the City Council.54 Some of the more radical factions within the party saw these councils as ideal locations for popular consciousness-raising and for the coordination and mobilization of disparate antisystem (i.e. anticapitalist and antidemocratic) political currents. A growing majority within the party, however, saw them as suited to the new “heterodox” party project of citizen empowerment via popular participation—a project proposal, so to speak, that would eventually become the hegemonic ideological and strategic position within the party.55 While popular councils held a privileged position on both sides of the PT’s ideological debates, arguments in their favor also included a strong pragmatic component. By incorporating such forums into formal decision-making

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processes, PT administrators of all stripes hoped that average citizens would become more involved in local politics, thereby helping the administrations to challenge the traditional dominance of paternalistic elites, clientelistic political machines, and other elite-dominated practices and institutions. Other strategic goals included the following: ●

●

●

●

providing governmental access to the PT’s core constituency of union and social movement activists; creating alternative channels of communication (so as not to rely on the predictably anti-PT local media or expensive government propaganda campaigns);56 creating ostensibly nonpartisan networks of popular support and mobilization (so as not to rely on the typically small number of supporters active in party politics and organized civil society); directly exposing apolitical or non-PT Brazilians to the PT’s “mode of governance” in the hopes of winning them over for electoral and mobilizational purposes.

It is impossible to say which of these logics—ideological or strategic— predominated in the adoption of popular participation programs by the leadership of early PT administrations. For some, strategy paved the way to ideology.57 Former Secretary of Extraordinary Affairs in the 1989–1992 PT administration of São Paulo, Ladislau Dowbor, exemplifies this trajectory in the following statement: What we saw initially as basically a springboard to “real” power higher up proved to be an essential environment for rebuilding citizenship . . . . Suddenly, people realize that the public space belongs to them and not necessarily to professional politicians. This certainly does not resolve national and global issues, but in the long run it certainly will change the way politics is perceived at any level. Through local administrations, I have no doubt that we are contributing very seriously to a more general change in political culture.58 For others, in a process I earlier called “institutional learning,” initial orthodox justifications were softened as mobilization and party-building took a back seat to the need to build citizen support for administration policies in the give-and-take bargaining inherent in democratic governance and public administration.59 Committed early on to the construction of participatory Councils, the immediate challenge was to make them truly popular and not just a place for


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State administrators to dictate to a silent group of passive listeners, or for fellow petistas and their organized allies to argue among themselves. An even bigger challenge, however, was to insure that the Councils not be seen as mere instruments of party recruitment and propaganda (something that some within the party openly desired). Thus, there was a basic contradiction built into the PT’s very idea of participatory councils. On the one hand, citizens’ empowerment was assumed by many in the party to mean PT-style political and ideological consciousness and even party identification. On the other hand, openly partisan messages and indoctrination would quickly delegitimate the whole process before a population tired and disillusioned with party politics, and an opposition just waiting to expose the “underlying agenda” of the PT’s “Trojan Horse” commitment to Participatory Democracy. The Participatory Budget One effort to resolve this apparent contradiction emerged in 1989 in the city of Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, then governed by the PT under the leadership of Olívio Oliveira Dutra (1989–1992): the Participatory Budget (Orçamento Participativo: OP). Porto Alegre’s PT argued that their OP democratized local democracy by disempowering traditional entrenched political elites and empowering nonelites. The means: giving ordinary citizens access to the most important decision-making process at the municipal level—spending the city’s money. The Brazilian political scientist Ricardo Tavares describes the way Porto Alegre’s OP functioned in its early years: Popular assemblies in 16 city zones bring together 10,000 people and 600 grassroots organizations to debate and vote on municipal expenditure priorities. From a general budget of approximately $465 million, about 31% is divided up in an open, public process involving large numbers of people and interests. As a result of this process, the city’s residents decided the city should concentrate its resources on legalizing land titles, providing water and sewage to poor communities (almost 100% of households now have clean drinking water), transportation, and environmental clean-up.60 The success of Porto Alegre’s OP in terms of growing levels of citizen participation and a clearly popular redistributive outcome of the entire process (capped by the PT’s reelection in 1992 and 1996, and by Dutra’s election to the governorship of Rio Grande do Sul in 1998), generated great interest

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within the party in studying and duplicating the strategy.61 Porto Alegre’s PT seemed to have discovered a means of balancing pragmatic demands that voters perceive government programs to be in their own vital interests, with ideological concerns for promoting citizens’ empowerment and building the foundations of a new post–Cold War socialist hegemony.62 The OP quickly became a cornerstone of PT administration in virtually every PT-run city in the late-1980s and 1990s (although party leaders are quick to point out that it is only one of many “new public spaces” that the party constructs for the purposes of promoting greater popular participation).63 And while fundamentally reformist in nature, the OP could easily fit into the Left’s traditional discourse of radical, even revolutionary, change. The following words from a speech by Patrus Ananias, former PT mayor of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, are a case in point: The OP constitutes a political, administrative and cultural revolution. It’s a political revolution because it constructs popular democracy leading to greater solidarity, concern for the common good and a redistributive outcome. It’s an administrative revolution because it directly confronts corruption by bringing in the people to oversee the State—they move from being mere spectators to being actors. And it’s a cultural revolution because by increasing the spaces of active citizenship, it changes the mentality of people, giving them greater political and social consciousness. It starts with you being concerned about the street in front of your house. Then you’re talking about your neighborhood, your region, your city, your state, and finally your entire country.64 Rather than immerse ourselves in the quite large and growing literature on Porto Alegre’s OP, chapter five allows me to return to my own discoveries of the PT’s practices of popular participation in the state of Minas Gerais in the mid-to-late 1990s. Let me make clear, however, that what I observed in Minas Gerais should be seen as an illustrative example—a case study—of what was taking place at that same time in PT-administered municipalities throughout Brazil. Indeed, similar experiments have been implemented in such distinct places throughout the world as Japan, Jamaica, Canada, Uruguay, Bolivia, and South Africa, to name but a few.65 The following chapter, then, is a detailed description of how the OP functioned in the medium-sized industrial town of Betim in the state of Minas Gerais.

CHAPTER 5


T

he medium-sized city of Betim (roughly 300,000 inhabitants in 1998) is, in many ways, a microcosm of Brazil as a whole.1 Similar to most of the country’s experience of urbanization since the 1950s, Betim literally mushroomed from its rural small town origins when industry began to locate there in the early-1970s.2 By the 1990s, the city had continued to grow by some 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants per year. Located about 25 miles from the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, and Brazil’s third largest city, Betim has shared in the fortunes and the misfortunes of Belo Horizonte’s (BH) larger metropolitan area.3 Both Betim and BH were notable in the 1980s and 1990s for their relatively vibrant economies,but also for their alarming social problems rooted, since the 1950s, in a sustained rapid influx of poor rural immigrants and a series of income-concentrating economic development models initiated by the federal government. The results mirrored those of the nation: high but unstable levels of economic growth and wealth creation, and an extremely unequal distribution of that wealth. Also similar to the rest of Brazil, patron–client relations had long dominated politics and social relations in Minas Gerais.4 Accordingly, public and social services in Betim were scarce where they were not entirely absent. Writing in the first year of the new PT administration (1993), Otílie Macedo Pinheiro, Technical Advisor to Betim’s Secretariat of Planning and Coordination, wrote the following description of Betim at that time: Betim is a municipality situated in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte. It is marked by strong contrasts.

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One the one hand, it collects the second highest amount of tax revenue in the state of Minas Gerais, it has a modern and consolidated industrial park, and has strong potential for growth and adaptation to new economic and technological conditions. On the other hand, it is the municipality with the highest statewide indexes of favelização [shanty town living conditions], it has a high rate of unemployment, and the greater portion of its 200,000 inhabitants lack the training to occupy the jobs created within the city. The current administration entered office finding only 30% of households with access to sewers, only 40% of the roads were paved, there was not a single hospital bed in the public sector, and seven entire neighborhoods had neither running water nor electricity. In other words, Betim is a municipality rich in revenues, but with a population that is poor and totally lacking in public services.5 And while Brazil’s Constitution of 1988 provided an unprecedented decentralization of resources to states and municipalities, the first Cardoso administration (1995–1998) and the allied state government of Eduardo Azeredo instituted a series of recentralizing fiscal reforms beginning in 1996 that hit municipalities the hardest (especially those run by opposition parties, which were deliberately shut out of compensatory “side payments” in the form of various and assorted federal and state government initiatives).6 In this context of poorly distributed wealth, longstanding clientelism, inadequate infrastructure and (later) diminishing resources from the federal and state governments, the citizens of Betim elected Maria do Carmo Lara Perpétuo (1993–1996) and Jésus Lima (1997–2000), both of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), to govern their town.7 While the story of how Maria do Carmo and Jésus literally changed the face of Betim is both interesting and inspiring,8 in what follows, I will focus primarily on their efforts to design and implement Betim’s Orçamento Participativo (OP). In subsequent chapters, I will select out and expand upon several of the most important claims and criticisms of those in favor and against the OP. These claims and criticisms will form the foundation for a subsequent critical analysis of the PT’s version of the Participatory Democratic model based on case studies of both Betim and BH. Betim’s OP in Action On July 22, 1995, I observed 129 residents of the working-class neighborhood of Bairro Betim Industrial meeting together to discuss, in effect, what the city government could and should do for them and for the city as a

The OP in Betim, Minas Gerais

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whole. For weeks preceding this particular meeting, the residents of Bairro Betim Industrial had been informed of the meeting by way of handbills distributed by city workers, carros de som (cars with loudspeakers mounted on top) circulating through the streets of the neighborhood, and by word of mouth among the residents themselves. Throughout June and July of 1995, 99 such meetings were held all over Betim in an effort to include all of the city’s 128 neighborhoods.9 1995 was, in fact, the third year in which the citizens of Betim were meeting in neighborhoods throughout the city to vote for the upcoming year’s spending priorities. Opening the meeting in Bairro Betim Industrial, the head of the local Regional Administration and chief organizer of these meetings throughout his region, Airton Augusto, explained the concept behind the city’s OP.10 The basic idea was simple: the administration wanted neighborhood residents to meet together with members of the OP’s organizing team in order to openly discuss and democratically select a list of priorities for public works and social spending in their own neighborhood, in the region of the city in which their neighborhood was a part, and in the city as a whole. Residents were encouraged to “nominate” specific spending priorities at all three levels and to participate in the subsequent debates about which should constitute the top three priorities for each level. Following the debates, they would vote by a show of hands—each person could vote for three priorities at the neighborhood level, three at the regional level, and three at the citywide level. The final tally would determine their collective sense of the government’s top three spending priorities for each level. Their final task would be to elect neighborhood representatives from among themselves—one delegate for each ten residents present at the meeting—to attend the next month’s Regional Budgetary Assembly where regional spending priorities would be discussed and voted upon. These representatives would then elect 500 delegates from among themselves to form a Municipal Budgetary Congress for discussion and a final vote on citywide priorities. Airton then explained the OP’s origins. Maria do Carmo had been elected mayor as a candidate of the PT in 1992. Throughout the campaign, she had promised that the OP would be a centerpiece of her administration: an “ethical proposal” rooted in the PT’s ideology and “mode of governance” which explicitly elevated popular participation to a guiding principle.11 Airton ended his talk with a rundown of past OP results and the extent to which “popular demands” had been met by the administration since coming to power: a municipal hospital, three emergency health care centers, eight elementary schools, fourteen daycare centers, eight public dental care centers, and a center of popular culture.

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Following Airton’s introduction, Gilberto Lisboa, president and founding member of the local neighborhood association, described the history of the neighborhood’s struggle to acquire such basic public services as bus service and paved thoroughfares. He praised the OP for making that struggle that much easier. Gilberto, also a member of the PT, finished by stressing the power of neighborhood unity, and the need for continued solidarity (defined by him as the responsibility on the part of “those who have” to understand that others “who don’t have” deserve help in order to catch up). During the two-hour meeting, all who wanted to speak and offer suggestions were allowed to do so. Nevertheless, this was clearly a case of “guided” popular participation, as Gilberto essentially ran the show. Votes were taken, but not without Gilberto’s frequent interjections of, “I think . . . is most important for us,” or “That concern is best taken up in a different manner.” While this sort of intervention has formed grounds for criticizing the process as window-dressing for PT manipulation (a critique I will discuss in greater detail in chapter seven), confusion on the part of a great many participants was a constant throughout this meeting as well as others I observed in Betim and elsewhere. This confusion often took the form of individuals stubbornly pushing personal interests and demands, or repeatedly returning to a point from which the discussion had already moved on until other participants would get disgusted, tune out, or actually leave the meeting. Confronted with this, Gilberto’s “guiding” of the process is understandable albeit, perhaps, lamentable in terms of the underlying didactic purpose of such meetings (i.e. “empowerment” via participation). At the end of the meeting, the voting results were as follows: ●

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neighborhood priorities: (1) pave selected streets (2) build a neighborhood health post (3) augment the sewer system; regional priorities: (1) augment the sewer system (2) build a cultural center (3) pave selected thoroughfares; citywide priorities: (1) outfit the newly constructed hospital (2) build a bus terminal (3) finish construction of a major traffic artery through town.

At the end of the meeting, thirteen residents of Bairro Betim Industrial were elected as delegates for the upcoming Regional Budgetary Assembly. The previous year in Bairro Betim Industrial, only thirty people had shown up to the neighborhood meeting. As a result, the neighborhood sent only three delegates to the Regional Budgetary Assembly.12 While all of this was going on, administration officials used a somewhat complicated formula to determine the amount of budgetary resources each


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Administrative Region would receive. From the 1995 estimated municipal revenues for 1996 of R$130 million (roughly US$144 million at the time), they deducted such fixed costs as public servants’ wages, interest payments on past debt, and ongoing administrative operations. The administration determined that the remaining R$21 million available for new investments (16.15 percent of total revenues) was the effective budget of the OP for 1996.13 Based on regional population figures (higher population meant more “points”) and an assessment of infrastructure needs (lack of public services meant more “points”), the administration assigned a percentage of this total “new investments” budget to each region and a percentage to the city as a whole. In the subsequent Regional Assemblies and Municipal Congress, delegates could only approve about half of the priorities handed up from the neighborhood meetings. In the weeks leading up to the Assemblies, elected OP delegates were offered a training course focusing on instruction in the basics of public administration and budgeting. Just prior to the Assemblies, delegates traveled together in a string of city buses to each of the priority sites to hear local residents and delegates speak out on behalf of their specific project (an event called the “Caravana do OP” or The OP Caravan). Negotiations among delegates of mutual support were often intense (“We will vote for your neighborhood’s priorities, if you vote for ours”). Following debates and show-of-hands voting in each of the Regional Budgetary Assemblies and in the Municipal Budgetary Congress, the final results were presented as part of the administration’s 1996 budget to Betim’s city council for debate and a final vote. With only three of the council’s twenty-one members, the PT had struggled bitterly with the chamber from day one of Maria do Carmo’s administration.14 Most council members had shown themselves to represent precisely the sort of clientelistic and paternalistic practices that the PT wished to eradicate: extravagant salaries (e.g. the salary of the council president was almost twice that of the mayor), nepotism, vote buying, and clientelistic distribution of public goods and services to supporters, rather than to all eligible citizens.15 While they could not openly admit it, these council members resented the fact that their names were no longer tied to significant public works projects “offered up” by the administration. They could no longer claim these projects as their “gifts” to the citizens in return for the latter’s continued or future support at the polls. The administration was deliberately changing the long-standing rules of the game—deliberately usurping a significant source of council members’ power and prestige. Most members of the council were not happy about the change.

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Council members proposed exactly 345 amendments to the Administration’s first OP-generated budget, the great majority of which represented efforts to channel OP funds toward their own pet projects. Throughout the council’s deliberations, some 200 delegates from the Regional OP Assemblies and the Municipal OP Congress lobbied alongside administration officials to keep the OP exactly as it had been presented. They repeatedly argued to the council that the OP expressed the direct wishes of the population; to act against those wishes was to risk public condemnation and difficulties in reelection. In the end, only thirty-one amendments were sustained, and the OP for 1994, thus amended, received unanimous approval from the council. In order to better institutionalize this necessary popular pressure on behalf of the mayor’s OP-assisted budget proposal before the city council, mayor Maria do Carmo created the Conselho Municipal do Orçamento Participativo (CMOP) consisting of representatives elected from the Municipal Budgetary Congress. The CMOP subsequently met once a month throughout the year, not only to support the administration’s budget proposal before the city council, but also to monitor the administration’s implementation of OP-generated budget priorities. Relations between Mayor Maria do Carmo and the city council remained conflictual throughout her tenure.16 They reached a particularly low point in late 1994 when the council launched an official inquiry into charges of financial malfeasance against her administration, charges that eventually included an attempt to impeach the mayor herself (all charges were later dropped as groundless). Widely perceived as a retaliation against her efforts to restrict pay increases for council members and to limit budget outlays for the council as a whole, the situation was resolved when negotiations resulted in more modest increases than those originally proposed by the council. In a context of rising municipal revenues (a significant side benefit of diminishing levels of inflation in the mid-1990s and the health of Betim’s industrial park), the substantial perks of council membership were both affordable and formidable, including council members’ monthly salaries of R$4,500 (over US$4,000), R$750 bonus for each of up to two “extraordinary” council meetings per month, the right of each member to hire up to seventeen fulltime “assistants” (forty for the council president) and retention of 5 percent of the city budget to spend as they please.17 Rising revenues and a public approval rating that reached 98 percent in the last year of her mandate also enabled mayor Maria do Carmo to hold onto her discretionary control of over 40 percent of the city’s budget. Although most of this had to be spent on operational costs of the municipality, this did not shield the mayor from council members’ criticisms that she, herself, was using the money for clientelistic and self-promoting purposes.18


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Relations between the city council and the administration reached their most explosive proportions in 1997, however, following the election of Maria do Carmo’s vice mayor, Jésus Lima. In the middle of his first year in office, on August 29, 1997, Lima was shot five times at close range in a public meeting. Miraculously, he survived. The police quickly caught the gunman, and identified the former president of Betim’s city council, José do Nascimento Elias, as the “intellectual author” of the assassination attempt.19 Lima had barely recovered from his wounds when he found himself locked in an intense, albeit familiar, political struggle with the opposition block of city council members over his OP-inspired 1998 budget proposal. In a context of fiscal retrenchment due to federal and state policies that the administration claimed reduced the city’s revenues in 1997 by R$36 to 40 million (equivalent to 24–27 percent of the 1998 budget), Lima mandated that that year’s OP could not consider new expenditures but only prioritize the completion of those already under construction or left undone from previous OPs. Unhappy with Lima’s decision, CMOP delegates entered into the fray by demanding a 42 percent reduction of resources to the city council, from R$13 million in 1997 to 7.5 million in 1998.20 The council responded by rejecting the entire budget proposal and drafting an alternative, increasing its own resources to R$14 million, paid for with draconian cuts to social spending programs and to the city’s basic operating expenses, and with the reduction of the mayor’s discretionary spending from 40 percent down to zero. Both sides sent the issue to court, during which time the city actually had two competing budgets of questionable legality. The struggle was so vitriolic that even the national media reported the story, focusing primarily on council members’ salaries, open nepotism, extravagant self-promotion, and other expensive perks. Meanwhile, several federal Senators publically cited the example of Betim’s city council as they proposed a Constitutional amendment limiting the amount of resources that could be passed on to municipal legislators.21 Negotiations between Lima and the city council, including the active participation of CMOP councilors, eventually arrived at a solution of R$10.9 million to the council and discretionary freedom for the mayor over 15 percent of the total budget. Over Lima’s veto, the council also voted in a new perk: each member would receive R$15,000 annually to distribute to philanthropic organizations (broadly defined) of their choice, including those over which they themselves presided.22 When I next visited Betim in September of 1998, the 1999 OP was in full swing; but participation was markedly down.23 Once again, the idea of building new public works projects had to be abandoned due, in part, to the continued fiscal crunch, in part to the unforeseen costs of maintaining previously constructed OP projects (e.g. the municipal hospital, a 24-hour

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first aid center, much expanded sewer, and running water systems, etc.), but also due to Mayor Lima’s decision to invest heavily in a particularly largescale item prioritized in previous OP budgets but never constructed: a part major traffic artery, part flood control, part beautification project that entailed dredging the polluted river that flowed through town, channeling it in concrete, laying down two lanes of asfalt on each side, and constructing a “green zone” park around the entire project. Administration officials knew that participation in the OP would suffer and that delegates would use a lot of their time criticizing the administration. Mayor Lima, however, had become increasingly disappointed in the OP because he felt that the previous year’s delegates had used the OP primarily as a forum to criticize the administration while discounting the overwhelming fiscal problems confronting the city. After months of discussions with CMOP councilors, the administration decided to go ahead that year with an “educational” OP, one that would discuss the origins of the city’s financial problems (federal and state policies), highlight the nature of the city’s spending over the last several years, and introduce OP delegates to the idea of expanding and diversifying the OP in the future. By holding neighborhood meetings for several contiguous neighborhoods at once, the number of that year’s meetings was reduced from 1995’s ninetynine to just sixty-six meetings. Only 2,614 citizens participated in those meetings, electing 495 delegates for the regional OP forums and the Municipal OP Congress.24 Because of declining participation, each delegate now represented five participants at neighborhood meetings, and regional delegates were now automatically municipal delegates as well. Since no new public works projects were being voted on at that year’s Municipal OP Forum, Mayor Lima’s and Betim’s OP coordinators were surprised that over 500 delegates and citizens showed up for the event on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. The following year, in an effort to reinvigorate participation in Betim’s OP 2000, the administration diversified the range and scope of coverage of the OP, organizing six public Plenary Sessions for interested OP delegates and other citizens: Culture and Sports, Urban Development, Social and Economic Development, Health, Public Administration, and Education.25 Diversification meant that interested citizens and elected delegates could move beyond discussing and deciding upon that part of the budget exclusively dedicated to public works. They would now be able to discuss and decide upon spending priorities for the entire city budget. In the words of one member of the administration’s organizing body for the OP: “It’s a question of raising social and political consciousness. Up to now, people only see the hole in the street and work to get it fixed through the OP. Now they


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see things on a much larger scale. . . . People can discuss all public policies and the trade-offs involved in choosing them, not just public works projects.”26 Each subject-specific Plenary Session would begin with a general discussion of municipal finances (revenues and expenses, broken down by department and type of income or operating expense). Relevant departmental heads would then present their department’s specific financial report, followed by a presentation of ongoing programs and projects and their proposal for the next fiscal year. Participants would then break down into groups to discuss the quality of existing services, and to indicate suggested reforms. These discussions and suggestions would be recorded and included in the general discussion of the budget in the Municipal OP Congress, thereby helping OP delegates to decide on where budgetary resources for the entire city administration would best be used. Betim’s OP experience is broadly representative of the universe of cases of PT-administered OP programs. The administration calls a series of neighborhood meetings throughout the city to discuss the next fiscal year’s budget, particularly the spending priorities for public works projects. Each meeting begins with officials presenting a rundown of the city’s fiscal situation followed by a description of what the OP is (part of the administration’s more general commitment to “popular participation” and “transparent” decisionmaking), the “official line” of why the OP exists (citizens’ empowerment and democratic accountability), and what is expected of participants in the OP. Participating residents at these meetings nominate a list of hoped-for public works projects for their neighborhood, for the region of the city that encompasses their neighborhood, and for the city as a whole. During the presentation of these project proposals, residents are allowed to publically voice their preferences for one or more projects. A final vote establishes a list of projects, prioritized by the number of votes each receives. Finally, residents nominate and vote on a group of OP delegates (usually one for each ten residents attending the neighborhood meeting) who will participate in the final prioritization, again by way of majority voting, at subsequent regional and/or municipal OP Assemblies. Before that final vote, administration officials prepare detailed feasibility studies and cost estimates for each project emerging as a priority from the neighborhood meetings. Armed with this information, and with the experience of having personally visited each project site in an “OP Caravan,” OP delegates are free to negotiate and network among themselves in the days leading up to the final vote. Results are then incorporated into the administration’s budget proposal presented to the city council. OP delegates, or an elected subset of them, accompany the process of negotiations with the city council, defending the administration’s proposal from

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amendments that might redirect resources toward the priorities of individual council members. Naturally, this entire process creates great pressure on city council members (on the whole, entirely unused to so much public involvement in such matters) to either go along with or even to participate in the OP process, or to develop legitimate arguments as to why such collaboration is not possible or desirable. Most of Betim’s city council members chose the second option. The resulting arguments made in favor of and against the OP are representative of those I have encountered, either personally or in the literature, regarding OP experiences in other PT-administered cities in Brazil.27 The following is a list of the most important polemical claims and criticisms in terms of our discussion of Participatory Democracy. Here, I will present them only as arguments. In the next two chapters, however, I will expand and elaborate on each of them in an effort to shine some light upon the relevant debates and, hopefully, to draw some conclusions about the version of the Participatory Democratic model that the PT has put into practice.

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Principal pro-OP Claims Pro-OP Claim #1: The OP is fundamentally popular participation (participants are primarily nonelites). Pro-OP Claim #2: The OP is an instrument of empowerment (through participation, the previously excluded become socially conscious and politically active). Pro-OP Claim #3: The OP constitutes another layer of political representation (participants represent the broader interests of their neighborhoods, their organizations, and of people “like them”). Principal anti-OP Criticisms: Anti-OP Criticism #1: The OP is unnecessarily antagonistic to the legislative body (e.g. city council) and to existing representative organizations in civil society. Anti-OP Criticism #2: The great majority of citizens never participate in the OP, and among those few that do, the subsequent drop-off in their participation is evidence that so-called popular participation is actually not popular at all.28 Anti-OP Criticism #3: The OP is merely a disguised form of party activism and recruitment for the PT (“partisanization”). Anti-OP Criticism #4: Most “common” people don’t know how, and can’t know how, to participate in such complicated and important political processes as budget-making (nonelites are incapable of serious political decision-making).

CHAPTER 6

Examining the Claims of Proponents of the Participatory Budget

O

ver the years, I have been impressed at the number of Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) leaders and activists who describe popular participation (more often than not, exemplified with a reference to the Orçamento Participativo (OP) in terms of the well-known Christian parable: “You can give a poor man a fish today and he will be hungry tomorrow, or you can teach him to fish and he will never be hungry again.” As discussed in chapters three and four, popular participation is said to engender empowerment: as the poor and otherwise excluded/disengaged majority take part in processes of decision-making and policy implementation that improve their lives and that of their communities, they are able to see themselves as agents in their own self-improvement and not mere supplicants of generally inadequate and ultimately demobilizing “gifts from on high.”1 They are able to see themselves, in other words, as bearers of human and political rights. For an individual’s empowerment to be effective, however, PT leaders are quick to point out that empowerment has both an individual and a collective dimension. The transformation of the individual as summarized earlier cannot bear fruit without the necessary collective dimension of political engagement. Empowerment therefore explicitly assumes an acceptance of the responsibility of active democratic citizenship: since one has acquired the consciousness to act, one is obligated to use that consciousness in the continuing struggle against economic inequality, political authoritarianism, paternalism, and other forms of oppression. This is all the more necessary in a political context of electoral democracy where a “popular democratic” party (e.g. the PT) may occupy positions of executive and

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legislative power only to be turned out at the next election by those determined to return to the demobilizing and disempowering traditions and practices that have characterized Brazilian politics for most of its history. Empowered citizens, in this latter scenario, are something of an insurance policy against a total rollback of progressive reforms instituted under PT leadership.2 But to what extent is this responsibility to become, in effect, a political activist actually embraced by those exposed to these new participatory public spaces? That’s a question that kept coming back to me as I delved into the histories of Brazil’s PT and the OP in Minas Gerais and elsewhere.3 Was it possible to verify these claims of OP-induced popular participation and empowerment? If so, we could potentially go a long way toward embracing the Participatory Democratic model as a practical alternative to neoliberalism, neopopulism, and do-nothing conservativism. If not, well, we need to know if we’re barking up the wrong tree. I visited Minas Gerais for the third time in late 1998 for a period of seven months, determined to empirically test the claims of OP supporters (as well as the anti-OP criticisms discussed in chapter seven). I chose to study two OP processes that were in full swing that year: the aforementioned case of Betim, and that of the nearby state capital, Belo Horizonte (BH).4 Some of my questions about popular participation and empowerment were amenable to statistical analysis, so I designed and distributed questionnaires to Betim’s 495 OP delegates at their 1998 Municipal OP Congress, and to BH 1,950 OP delegates in each of their nine Regional OP Forums (see annex one).5 In Betim, 222 delegates (44.85 percent) filled out and returned the questionnaires. In BH, 1,068 (54.77 percent) did the same. To complement the quantitative analysis, I interviewed numerous OP administrators, elected officials, leaders, and members of neighborhood associations, as well as individual OP delegates. Using these data as the basis of analysis, let us now take a much closer look at the three principal claims made by OP proponents introduced in the conclusion of chapter five. ●

Pro-OP Claim #1: The OP is fundamentally popular participation (participants are primarily nonelites).

As in all PT-administered cities and states, Betim’s and BH’s administrators and political leaders claim that the OP is an instance of “popular participation.” In other words, it is primarily intended as a means for previously excluded, ignored, and/or underserved nonelites to have access to, and to become more active participants in, democratic politics. While all citizens are welcome to participate, OP administrators expect the more wealthy and

Proponents of the Participatory Budget

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comfortable to have less interest—which is not a problem, because these latter groups are assumed to already have ready access to the political system and to other means of economic and social advancement. In the words of Pitagoras dos Santos, Advisor to the Northern Regional Administration in BH: The more wealthy and middle class . . . often ignore instruments of popular participation and go directly to the “formal institutions” and elected officials. . . . Those in the poorer neighborhoods are more active in the OP and in social movements in general. Their problems are more starkly present in their neighborhoods and are more associated with public goods like running water, sewers, and the like.6 That’s more or less the “official line.” But do OP delegates really come primarily from the nonelite ranks of society? In addition to testing the claims of OP proponents, this question is all the more important because a number of participatory programs implemented elsewhere—in the United States, for example—have been noted for their tendency to attract a disproportionate number of relatively well-to-do and more-educated participants.7 The claims of predominantly popular or nonelite participation in the OP are clearly borne out in the cases of Betim and BH. Figures 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 present the basic characteristics of the respondents to my questionnaire in both cities: sex, level of education and employment.8 Figure 6.1 shows that women constituted 44.2 percent of BH’s delegates, and 39.6 percent of Betim’s. While men constituted the majority in both cases, the proportions are by no means wildly skewed. In addition, it’s important to note that women are far more underrepresented in Brazil’s formal political institutions. Of Betim’s 21 City Council members in 1997, for example, two (9.5 percent) were women; of BH’s 37 Council members in 1998, 6 (16.2 percent) were women; of the 77 state deputies in the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais elected in 1998, 5 (6.5 percent) were women.9 The popular or nonelite character of OP participants in both BH and Betim are also visible in terms of OP delegates’ levels of education. Figure 6.2 shows that 69 percent of BH’s delegates, and 81.1 percent of Betim’s, had less than a high school education. This popular or nonelite profile is even further reinforced by data regarding delegates’ employment status. Figure 6.3 shows that salaried workers, housewives, the retired, and the unemployed constituted 59.9 percent of BH’s delegates, and 64 percent of Betim’s.

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70.00

% of All Respondents

60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 Male

Female

n/a Betim (222 Resps)

BH (1,068 Resps)

Figure 6.1 Sex of Delegates: BH and Betim, 1998.

60.00

% of Respondents

50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00

BH (1,068 Resps)

a. n.

C Pri om m pl ary et H e ig In h S co c m ho pl o H ete l ig h C S om ch pl oo et l e U In ni co ve m rs pl ity et e U C niv om er pl sity et e

e co Prim m a pl ry et e In

Se

m

i-l

Ill

ite

ite

ra t

ra te

0.00

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 6.2 Education of Delegates: BH and Betim, 1998.

The data contained in figures 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 clearly support the claim of the OP’s popular or nonelite composition in the cities of BH and Betim. Given Brazil’s elitist political regime (itself a reflection of the country’s elitist political culture and social structures), these characteristics of active OP delegates in Betim and BH are quite remarkable. One thing they show us is that a significant number of nonelite Brazilians are willing to involve themselves


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18.00 16.00 % of Respondents

14.00 12.00 10.00 8.00 6.00 4.00 2.00

BH (1,068 Resps)

n. a.

O th er &

pl oy ed

ife U

ne m

ed

H

ou se w

et ir R

ne ss Bu si

Se P rv ubl an ic ts La bo r :C &S La bo r :I nd .

Li bl .

Pr of l.

0.00

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 6.3 Employment of Delegates: BH and Betim, 1998.

in participatory processes of local-level governance. While many nonelites are disengaged from the political world, some at least are willing to buck that trend if given the opportunity to do so. As its proponents claim, the OP appears to provide such an opportunity. Rebecca Abers reaches the same basic conclusion of predominantly nonelite participation in her case study of Porto Alegre’s OP, but her data point out an important detail: that “the ‘very poor’ living in squatter settlements and shanty towns were less well represented than the ‘not-so-poor’ poor living in impoverished, but somewhat better-off, working-class neighborhoods.”10 My own data on BH and Betim don’t allow me to comment comparatively on this observation. However, Abers’ conclusion that the poorest-of-the-poor participate less is consistent with some of my qualitative data obtained from interviews with OP administrators and activists in BH and Betim. The following comment from BH OP delegate, neighborhood activist and long-time PT activist, Rogério Pereira de Araujo, is exemplary in this regard: Maybe Brazilians—I would not say 100%, but the great majority—live their lives prisoners to their stomachs. They may need a lot more. But only after their stomachs are full can you talk to them of other things. Until that’s done, they’re worried about their day-to-day survival: rent to pay, children to feed with milk, a nagging wife—even worse when the

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woman has to do all of these things herself. It’s hard to call such people to participate.11 Therefore, for lamentable albeit entirely understandable reasons, not all nonelites appear to be equally represented in OP-style participatory democratic institutions. When survival itself is in question, participation is either an unaffordable luxury or a minor distraction. ●

Pro-OP Claim #2: The OP is an instrument of empowerment (through participation, the previously excluded become socially conscious and politically active).

The following story, from an interview with Olira de Souza Viera (housewife, OP delegate, and founding member of a neighborhood-level Nongovernment Organization (NGO), the Commission of Social Welfare of Jardim Alterosa in Betim), is a perfect illustration of the claim made by proponents of the OP and Participatory Democracy that providing opportunities for political participation empowers previously apolitical nonelites, turning them into active participants in the broader political process: When I came here, I was a person practically asleep because I didn’t participate in anything. I only came to live here in this neighborhood. I don’t know why this place was so needy. But it was and still is. Then, suddenly, I woke up and started to get involved in the movements. I started in the OP on my own accord. I moved here from Belo Horizonte with my children, and there was nothing here: no place to go shopping, nothing. My kids wanted to go back to Belo Horizonte, and it was a constant struggle to keep them here. So I said, “I’m going to participate because a new mayor is coming into office now—and I hadn’t even voted for her, I was still voting in Belo Horizonte at the time—she seems very good, and I’m going to participate to make this place better.” So I did, and I’m still active today. I participate with all my heart in all the OP meetings. I fight, I cry— you know, it really hurts when it comes to the time where all the city council members vote against our budgets. It’s sad because you fight long and hard and it hurts. Days and nights away from your home fighting for a budget, wanting something for your region and, all of a sudden, twentytwo or twenty-one Council members go there and vote against it. It’s everything that the community—the region—wants, and all of a sudden, a few lazy asses with pockets full of money go there and vote against our work. I’ve cried many times because of this. And after I started to get involved in the OP, I started to have the courage to participate in other


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activities. I started to participate in the Pastoral de Criança of the Catholic Church. And I learned a lot in these things. You learn and you pass along your learning to other people you meet along the way. . . . I also work with people with high blood pressure, with diabetics. . . . I never stop participating in the Church itself. So now, thanks to God, I’m awake, working for the community, and I intend to keep on working. And fighting too! I fight. I provoke. I go to the city council chambers and provoke and fight. Even though it may not be the time to do it, I do it anyway because what they do hurts me, you understand?12 Dona Olira’s story contains all the elements of a case study of OP-inspired empowerment: a previous history of no involvement in politics or collective action, an initial experience of participation in the OP turning into continued participation, and subsequent “spillover” participation into other arenas of collective action. More anecdotal evidence from Betim and BH supports this story of OP-inspired empowerment: three of Betim’s city council members in 1998 had begun their political careers as OP delegates, OP administrators spent a good deal of their time educating and training delegates to “see the bigger picture” (e.g. to know the city budget in its entirety and not just focus on individual public works projects in their own neighborhoods),13 and other delegates spoke to me about the OP in such terms as “The OP gave me the opportunity to do something more than just live my own life”14 and “Delegates are learning democracy by doing democracy.”15 But are these stories of OP-inspired empowerment truly typical ones? Are they representative of the majority, or a significant minority, of other OP delegates’ personal political histories? Or are they exceptions to a more general rule—for example, of delegates participating only once in the OP then, “untouched” by the experience, withdrawing back into their apolitical private lives and micro-communities (i.e. no empowerment); or, on the opposite extreme, of delegates with past histories of active participation in party politics and/or in organized civil society merely continuing their activism in the OP (i.e. previous empowerment being “carried over” into the OP)?16 These may be the most important questions that this book asks, for nonelite empowerment lies at the root of the Participatory Democratic model as it is normally understood and of the process definition of democracy. Referring to his own studies as well as those of political theorists Carole Pateman and Robert Dahl, David Held speaks directly to the importance of

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the question of empowerment via participatory institutional design: Evidence from studies of innovations in democratic control of the workplace, while by no means unambiguous in all respects, highlights, according to Pateman, that “a positive correlation between apathy and low feelings of political efficacy and low socio-economic status,” typically found in most liberal democracies, can be broken by making democracy count in people’s everyday life, i.e. by extending the sphere of democratic control to those key institutions in which most people live out their lives. If people know opportunities exist for effective participation in decision-making, they are likely to believe participation is worthwhile, likely to participate actively and likely, in addition, to hold that collective decisions should be binding. On the other hand, if people are systematically marginalized and/or poorly represented, they are likely to believe that only rarely will their views and preferences be taken seriously, weighted equally with those of others or assessed in a process that is fair or just. Thus, they are likely to find few good reasons for participating in, and regarding as authoritative, the decision-making processes which affect their lives. On a continuum from effective to limited participation, modern liberal democracies lie, for many working-class, female and non-white citizens, strictly at the latter end.17 In my efforts to operationalize and measure the concept of empowerment as stimulated by participation in the OP process, I asked OP delegates in Betim and BH to indicate their participation in “civil society” and “political society” both at the time of the survey (September 1998) and prior to their election as OP delegates. While causation cannot be proven, a significant increase in participation would indicate a correlation between participants’ experience as OP delegates, and a subsequent or concomitant spillover participation into other social and political organizations (i.e. empowerment). Such a correlation would at least suggest a causal relationship between OP involvement and empowerment. Similarly, a significant decline in the number of delegates indicating no participation in organized civil society, and/or a decline in those declaring “no interest” in party politics, would suggest a movement from political passivity to activism.18 Table 6.1 illustrates the participation of BH’s and Betim’s OP delegates in civil society.19 Many BH delegates participated, both prior to their OP experience and at the time of the survey, in neighborhood organizations (52.2 and 64.5 percent), in religious groups (40 and 40.1 percent) and, to a more limited degree, in philanthropic and charity organizations (12.4 and

Table 6.1 Civil Society Participation. Neighborhood Organizations

Labor Unions

504 (52.17%) 623 (64.49%) 23.60%

98 (10.14%) 84 (8.70%) 14.30%

Betim Pre-OP 90 (48.39%) Time of Survey 113 (60.75%) % Change 25.60% n 186 (% of total)

28 (15.05%) 15 (8.06%) 46.40%

BH Pre-OP Time of Survey % Change

Religious Organizations

Cultural Entities

386 (39.96%) 97 (10.04%) 387 (40.06%) 103 (10.66%) 0.30% 6.20%

Philanthropic & Charity

Municipal Councils

Other

None

120 (12.42%) 95 (9.83%) 101 (10.46%) 190 (19.67%) 133 (13.77%) 119 (12.32%) 108 (6.93%) 118 (12.22%) 25.30% 37.90% 6.90% 10.80%

n 966 (% of total) 75 (40.32%) 72 (38.71%) 4.00%

20 (10.75%) 23 (12.37%) 15.00%

19 (10.22%) 21 (11.29%) 10.50%

14 (7.53%) 19 (10.22%) 35 (18.82%) 32 (17.20%) 19 (10.22%) 17 (9.14%) 51.40% 128.60% 0.00%

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13.8 percent). Indices of “none” (i.e. no participation in organized civil society) among BH delegates stood at 19.7 percent prior to their OP involvement and 12.2 percent at the time of the survey. The direction of change in BH delegates’ levels of participation in civil society fits the hypothesis in almost all categories, the exception being labor union activities. Significant increases of 25.3 percent in other participatory Municipal Councils (in the areas of health, education, culture, etc.) and 23.6 percent in neighborhood associations; and a decrease of 37.9 percent in the “none” category represent changes that are all hypothesis-confirming.20 The data for Betim also show that a large percentage of delegates participated, both prior to their OP experience and at the time of the survey, in neighborhood organizations (48.4 and 60.8 percent) and in religious groups (40.3 and 38.7 percent). Smaller but still significant rates of participation are shown in philanthropic/charity organizations (10.2 and 11.3 percent) and in Municipal Councils (7.5 and 17.2 percent). Indices of “none” among Betim’s delegates (18.8 and 9.1 percent) are slightly lower compared with BH. As in BH, Betim’s data for the direction of change in levels of participation fit the hypothesis in most, but not all, categories. Most notable are significant increases of 25.6 percent in neighborhood associations, and 128.6 percent in Municipal Councils. Similarly, delegates claiming no participation in civil society organizations fell 51.4 percent. A significant drop (46.4 percent) in union participation among Betim’s delegates and among those in BH likely reflect a nationwide decline in union membership in the 1980s and 1990s resulting from economic crises and adjustment problems that plagued Brazil from the late 1970s.21 The basic thrust of the data from table 6.1, however, supports the hypothesized spillover relationship of the empowerment thesis between OP participation and greater participation in organized civil society. Most of this spillover occurred in neighborhood organizations and other local government-sponsored participatory processes. The astute reader will have recognized, however, that the majority of delegates in both cases were already active in civil society before becoming OP delegates (80.3 percent in BH and 81.2 percent in Betim). In other words, relatively few delegates (roughly 20 percent in both cases) were disengaged from civil society prior to their involvement in the OP. These data challenge claims made by proponents of the OP and the empowerment thesis that participatory processes like the OP address the problems of civic disengagement. Indeed, it would appear that the OP amounts to a great deal of “preaching to the choir,” that is to the already empowered, and comparatively very little actual empowerment.


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This hypothesis-challenging conclusion is bolstered by the fact that the majority of delegates who were inactive in civil society prior to their involvement in the OP were first-time participants in the OP: 82.3 percent in BH and 73.3 percent in Betim. Only 17.7 percent in BH and 26.7 percent in Betim had become “veterans” (i.e. stayed on to participate for two or more years). Assuming that longer participation in the OP means more exposure to democratic learning-by-doing (and assuming that the 1998 group of delegates is representative of those from other years), this association indicates that disproportionately fewer pre-OP nonactivist delegates actually exposed themselves to such longer term political learning.22 Those most in need of empowerment, in other words, were the least likely to pursue it. Despite the relatively small number of delegates who were inactive in civil society prior to their involvement in the OP, and in spite of their tendency not to remain active in the OP beyond the first year, might not their involvement in the OP still generate higher levels of participation in at least some arenas of organized civil society (as seen in the general population)? In other words, can we still observe empowerment, defined as a spillover from the OP into civil society activism—in this case, first-time activism? Table 6.2 reformulates the data from table 6.1 by controlling for previous civil society activism. The results give only weak support to the empowerment thesis.23 First, slightly more than half (53.7 percent) of BH delegates who were inactive in civil society before they participated in the OP remained inactive. For Betim, however, only 40 percent remained inactive while 60 percent became active. In both cases, there were two significant increases in participation: 62 BH delegates (32.6 percent of those previously inactive in civil society) and 15 Betim delegates (42.9 percent) became active in neighborhood organizations upon joining the OP, while 14 BH delegates (7.4 percent) and 3 Betim delegates (8.6 percent) became active in religious organizations. In sum, the data show that the lion’s share of the spillover effect from OP participation to participation in organized civil society took place among individuals previously active in civil society. This is the same group that was also the most likely to remain participating in the OP beyond the first year. And while roughly half of the BH delegates who were inactive in civil society prior to their involvement in the OP remained inactive in civil society despite their OP activism, it is important to recognize that almost half did become active. At the same time, a majority (three-out-of-five) of previously inactive Betim delegates also became civil society activists. So while the data show that the OP generally did not attract a great many previously

Table 6.2 Civil Society Participation x Pre-OP Civil Society Activism. BH

Neighborhood Organizations Active

Pre-OP Time of Survey

504 (64.9%) 561 (72.3%)

Inactive 0 62 (32.6%)

Philanthropic & Charity Active Pre-OP Time of survey Betim

Neighborhood Organizations Active


Inactive

120 (15.5%) 0 131 (16.9%) 2 (1.1%) n 966 (% is of Active or Inactive)

90 (59.6%) 98 (64.9%)

Inactive 0 15 (42.9%)

Philanthropic & Charity Active Pre-OP Time of Survey

Inactive

19 (12.6%) 0 19 (12.6%) 2 (5.7%) n 186 (% is of Active or Inactive)

Labor Unions Active 98 (12.6%) 83 (10.7%)

Inactive 0 1 (0.5%)

Religious Organizations Active

Inactive

386 (49.7%) 373 (48.1%)

Municipal Councils

0 14 (7.4%)

Cultural Entities Active

Inactive

97 (12.5%) 101 (13.0%)

Other

0 2 (1.1%)

None

Active

Inactive

Active

Inactive

Active

Inactive

95 (12.2%) 118 (15.2%)

0 1 (0.5%)

101 (13.0%) 100 (12.9%)

0 8 (4.2%)

0 16 (2.1%)

190 (100%) 102 (53.7%)

Labor Unions

Religious Organizations

Active

Inactive

28 (18.5%) 14 (9.3%)

0 1 (2.9%)

Active 75 (49.7%) 69 (45.7%)

Municipal Councils

Cultural Entities

Inactive

Active

0 3 (8.6%)

20 (13.2%) 23 (15.2%)

Other

Active

Inactive

Active

14 (9.3%) 30 (19.9%)

0 2 (5.7%)

19 (12.6%) 17 (11.3%)

Inactive 0 0

None Inactive

Active

0 2 (5.7%)

0 3 (2.0%)

Inactive 35 (100%) 14 (40.0%)


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disengaged citizens, this conclusion is qualified in both cases (more so in Betim) by significant increases in participation, primarily in neighborhood associations, among the previously disengaged. What about party politics? Is participation in the OP associated with an increase in delegates’ participation in political society?24 Table 6.3 presents the data for both BH and Betim. BH delegates show relatively low pre-OP and time-of-survey indices in party membership (18.9 and 23.5 percent, respectively), party militancy (9.2 and 10.2 percent percent) and candidate militancy (5.9 and 8.6 percent), and only moderate indices of party sympathy (25.8 and 27.9 percent). These are combined with relatively high indices of disinterested voting (38.8 and 34.5 percent) and even a few isolated cases of disinterested nonvoting (3.8 and 2.9 percent).25 Despite these data, the direction of change in all categories indicates support for the empowerment thesis. A 24 percent increase in party membership, 11 percent in party militancy, 44.7 percent in candidate militancy, 8.3 percent in party sympathy and a 15.1 percent increase in interested non-partisanship all indicate increases in political participation or, in the case of the latter two, increased political consciousness in the arena of political society. These results are reflected in the 11.1 percent decrease in Disinterested Voting and the 23.3 percent decrease in disinterested nonvoting among BH delegates. Compared with BH, Betim’s data indicate a higher degree of activism and greater increases in participation/consciousness in political society 39.3 percent of its delegates were members of political parties at the time of the survey, up 36.2 percent from a pre-OP rate of 28.8 percent. Party militancy increased 52 percent, from 15.3 to 23.3 percent. Candidate militancy showed a 26.7 percent increase, from 9.2 to 11.7 percent. Sympathy for one or another political party and interested nonpartisanship remained steady at their pre-OP rates of 47.9 and 11 percent, respectively. These results are reflected in the decline of 36.1 percent in disinterested voters (22.1 to 14.1 percent), and in the fact that none of Betim’s delegates claimed to be disinterested in party politics to the point of never voting. Clearly, the data supports the hypothesized relationship of the empowerment thesis between OP participation and greater participation in political society.26 Once again, however, we need to ask whether our observations so far are the result, not of OP-induced political learning and empowerment, but rather of increased political activism on the part of those already active, in this case, in the arena of party politics. Slightly more than half of the delegates in BH (57.4 percent) and an overwhelming 77.9 percent of Betim’s

Table 6.3 Political Society Participation. Member

Party Militant

Candidate Militant

Party Sympathizer

BH Pre-OP 150 (18.9%) Time of Survey 186 (23.5%) % Change 24.0% n 792 (% of total)

73 (9.2%) 81 (10.2%) 11.0%

47 (5.9%) 68 (8.6%) 44.7%

204 (25.8%) 221 (27.9%) 8.3%

119 (15%) 137 (17.3%) 15.1%

307 (38.8%) 273 (34.5%) 11.1%

Betim Pre-OP Time of Survey % Change n 163 (% of total)

25 (15.3%) 38 (23.3%) 52.0%

15 (9.2%) 19 (11.7%) 26.7%

78 (47.9%) 78 (47.9%) 0.0%

18 (11%) 18 (11%) 0.0%

36 (22.1%) 23 (14.1%) 36.1%

47 (28.8%) 64 (39.3%) 36.2%

Interested Nonpartisan

Disinterested Voter

Disinterested Nonvoter 30 (3.8%) 23 (2.9%) 23.3%

0 0 0.0%


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delegates were active in political society prior to their OP experience.27 As with the data on civil society, the prevalence of previously active participants challenges the claim of the empowerment thesis that participatory processes like the OP address the problems of civic disengagement. In the case of Betim, few delegates were disengaged from political society prior to becoming involved in the OP. BH, however, with its 337 delegates previously inactive in political society, does provide a more suitable test for the empowerment thesis: did they become empowered with their OP participation? Before we disaggregate these data based on previous activism in party politics, we should ask whether the same association between veteran delegates and previous activism that we saw with respect to civil society activism also attains in the arena of political society. It does. The majority of delegates who were inactive in political society prior to their involvement in the OP (71.9 percent in BH and 79.4 percent in Betim) were first-time participants in the OP. Only 28.1 percent in BH and 20.6 percent in Betim were “veteran” participants. So pre-OP political society activists are not only more likely than nonactivists to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in the OP, but they are also more likely to stay participating beyond the first year. In recognizing the same pattern we saw for civil society participation, we reach the same conclusion: those most in need of empowerment— the politically disengaged—are the least likely to pursue it in governmentsponsored participatory processes like the OP. Now, in spite of their relatively smaller numbers, and despite their tendency not to remain active in the OP beyond the first year, might not the OP involvement of delegates previously inactive in political society still generate higher levels of political consciousness and participation in political society (as observed for the general population)? In other words, can we still observe empowerment for this group? Table 6.4 reformulates the data from table 6.3 by controlling for previous political society activism. In BH, 72.4 percent of the 337 delegates previously inactive in political society still considered themselves disinterested voters at the time of the survey, while 5.9 percent placed themselves in the disinterested nonvoter category (total: 78.3 percent). In Betim, 58.3 percent of the 36 previously inactive delegates continued to call themselves disinterested voters (there were no disinterested nonvoting OP delegates in Betim). More promising numbers in both cases can be seen in the “mild” activism category of party sympathy (11.3 percent in BH, up 217 percent from only 3.6 percent; and 38.9 percent in Betim, up 180 percent from 13.9 percent) and in the 9.2 percent of BH’s delegates who came to identify themselves as interested nonpartisans. This means that

Table 6.4 Political Society Participation x Pre-OP Political Society Activism. BH

Member Active


Party Militant

Inactive

150 (33%) 175 (38.5%)

0 11 (3.3%)

Interested Nonpartisan Active Pre-OP Time of Survey

Inactive

Member Active 47 (37%) 63 (49.6%)

Active

Inactive 0 2 (0.6%)

Disinterested Voter Active

Inactive 307 (91.1%) 244 (72.4%)

Party Militant

Inactive 0 1 (2.8%)

Interested Nonpartisan


73 (16%) 79 (17.4%)

119 (26.2%) 0 0 106 (23.3%) 31 (9.2%) 29 (6.4%) n 792 (% of Active or Inactive delegates)

Betim


Active

Inactive

Active 25 (19.7%) 37 (29.1%)

Inactive 0 1 (2.8%)

Disinterested Voter Active

Inactive

18 (14.2%) 0 0 36 (100%) 16 (12.6%) 2 (5.6%) 2 (1.6%) 21 (58.3%) n 163 (% of Active or Inactive delegates)

Candidate Militant Active 47 (10.3%) 56 (12.3%)

Inactive 0 12 (3.6%)

Party Sympathizer Active 192 (42.2%) 183 (40.2%)

Inactive 12 (3.6%) 38 (11.3%)

Disinterested Nonvoter Active 0 3 (0.7%)

Inactive 30 (8.9%) 20 (5.9%)

Candidate Militant Active 15 (11.8%) 17 (13.4%)

Party Sympathizer

Inactive

Active

0 2 (5.6%)

73 (57.5%) 64 (50.4%)

Disinterested Nonvoter Active

Inactive

0 0

0 0

Inactive 5 (13.9%) 14 (38.9%)


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roughly one in five previously inactive BH delegates became more active in party politics, while the corresponding number in Betim was roughly double that at two out of five. In general, however, table 6.4 supports the results seen for civil society: the lion’s share of the hypothesized spillover effect from participation in the OP to participation in organized political society seems to have come primarily from individuals previously active in political society. This is the same group that is also the most likely to remain participating in the OP beyond the first year. At the same time, between 60 and 80 percent of the delegates who were inactive in political society prior to their involvement in the OP remained inactive in political society despite their OP activism. They are also the most likely not to participate in the OP beyond a single year. Once again, the data show only weak support for the argument of OP-inspired empowerment of previously disengaged citizens. The empowerment thesis implies that new arenas of popular participation such as the OP can engage historically excluded, ignored, and/or underserved nonelite sectors of the population thereby encouraging greater participation and pluralism in other arenas of democratic politics. That the OP in BH and Betim did not tend to attract or engage many previously disengaged citizens is clearly a challenge to this thesis.28 Instead, most OP delegates were already engaged civil and/or political society activists. These same pre-OP activists also accounted for a disproportionate share of the spillover effects of new participation in civil and political society, and they tended to participate longer in the OP, thereby gaining disproportionately from the democratic learning assumed to accrue to veteran participants. While these results challenge the empowerment thesis, they should not be interpreted as delegitimating the Participatory Democratic model. Popular participation is not exclusively about empowerment—it’s also about citizens’ oversight of government and the political class (accountability), and the pluralization of democratic participation and representation (i.e. active participants in a democracy should not all be wealthy men from similar socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds). Finally, the fact that previously active delegates tended to become even more active during their OP experience should not be dismissed just because it does not conform precisely to the claims (and hopes) of the empowerment thesis. Even a passing knowledge of the literature on democratization and social movements suggests that sustaining popular political activism (e.g. citizen politics) is an important challenge to countries moving from a period of democratic transition to one of consolidation.29 The following citation refers to the Brazilian women’s

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movement, but it could apply to other social movements as well: . . . the restoration of Brazilian democracy removed some of the motivation for unity among disparate wings of the women’s movement and presented them with new challenges. As middle-class women activists became more involved with political parties in the new democratic order, they tended to loose their contacts with community groups representing the urban poor. Indeed, in many Latin American nations the restoration of democracy had the ironic effect of demobilizing women.30 Brazilian political scientists, Sergio Azeredo and Leonardo Avritzer, make the general case that “neither those social movements built upon demands for public services and rights, nor the civic associations constructed during the last phase of the authoritarian period, were to be included in the specific organizational structures of the State that emerged from the process of [Brazil’s] redemocratization. On the contrary, what one saw was an expansion of the influence of clientelistic structures . . . and a growth of all of the vices proper to that form of relationship between State and society.”31 In this context of diminishing space for grassroots political activism in new democracies, the OP provides an important space for sustaining existing nonelite grassroots activism (or “social capital,” recalling the discussion of Putnam’s work from chapters two and three). Participation in the OP, in other words, could keep community-level activists from either trickling up (or being co-opted) into more “distant” and/or clientelistic arenas of party politics and public administration, or of “exiting” into political disillusionment, apathy, purely personal spaces and/or apolitical micro-communities. Constituting a meeting ground for territorially and thematically isolated popular sector activists, the OP could also be seen as providing them an opportunity to build and maintain horizontal solidarities and networks—to provide the heretofore missing bridge between citizens politics and the official world of party politics. Finally, and no less importantly, the OP offers existing activists an opportunity to learn how to compete and negotiate democratically for scarce public resources (who says existing political activists don’t need democratic schooling?).32 In the words of one OP and former Comforças delegate and longtime neighborhood activist from the neighborhood of Vila Santa Maria in BH: “The OP . . . allows us to identify the activists of other communities and to make contact with them. And the same for them, to make contact with us . . . All of this is done through the OP.”33 Regarding the democratic schooling of OP delegates, my own


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conclusions are supported by Azeredo and Avritzer’s analysis of the 1994 OPs of both BH and Betim: . . . it seems clear that the Participatory Budget is innovative not only in its incorporation of broader segments of the population in the process of elaborating the budget. It is also, and principally, innovative in bringing part of the political culture of social interaction and of negotiation to forums where such practices were entirely absent up to that point.34 Neither does the OP constitute a case of some form of “participatory elitism” where the previously active are unfairly privileged vis-à-vis the disengaged.35 First, context is key. We are talking about previously active nonelites acting within a demonstrably elitist political system showing clear signs of even further elitization (i.e. the “democratic stagnation and decay” discussed in chapters one and two). We are not talking here about relatively wealthy and educated civic boosters and socialites crowding out the voices of the truly needy. Second, as I will argue in the next section of this chapter (along with proponents of the OP), promoting spaces for continued nonelite activism—and a modicum of empowerment of the previously inactive— contributes to a healthy “pluralization” or diversification of democratic representation. Even if participatory mechanisms of public administration and decision-making like the OP are not able to put an end to civic disengagement, establishing new arenas and instruments of nonelite activism can make it harder for antidemocratic elites to continue to undermine and debase existing traditional or official democratic institutions and processes. And in conjunction with an electorally viable political party dedicated to promoting and furthering nonelite interests (e.g. the PT, with its platform of “inverting priorities” and promoting popular participation), such participatory mechanisms can promote new democratic advances both in terms of enhanced representation and in terms of substantive gains in material well-being and political rights for nonelites, in general. Over the long run, this may even begin to have an impact on the problem of civic disengagement, as those who have “exited” from politics because of alienation and disillusionment with contemporary elitist democracy and/or for reasons of extreme poverty or discrimination, decide that it may be worth their while to reengage in a democracy more clearly “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” In short, Participatory Democracy needs to be seen not as an end in itself (i.e. as an alternative to representative democracy), but as a means for reforming and advancing systems of representative democracy that find themselves in a state of stagnation and decay.

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To sum up this section of the chapter, the cases of BH and Betim suggest that, contrary to its proponents’ claims, the OP is a less-than-effective tool for engaging and empowering the disengaged. While no doubt a troubling finding for proponents of participatory democracy, it is by no means a damning one. In both cases, the OP appears to have been instrumental in maintaining and, in some cases, actually increasing existing supplies of social capital by keeping previously engaged nonelite activists participating in democratic politics—in civil society and in political society—at the municipal and grassroots levels. Democratic institutions are, therefore, peopled by a more diverse or demographically representative, as well as a better informed, socially conscious, and “democratically schooled” set of political activists than might otherwise be the case. ●

Pro-OP Claim #3: The OP constitutes another layer of political representation (participants represent the broader interests of their neighborhoods and regions, their organizations, and of people “like them”).

This claim can be broken down into three separate parts. First, the institutional design of the OP forces delegates to think and act in the collective interests of their neighborhood, region, and city. Delegates are elected to represent their communities, and they must negotiate with other elected delegates to pass a limited number of OP priority projects. Second, the OP gives its delegates a means to revitalize and renovate existing, oftentimes less-than-democratic, neighborhood organizations. Third, the “transparency” of the budget-making process under the OP injects greater accountability (therefore, representation) into the entire public administration. When I interviewed Gilberto Lisboa, president of the neighborhood association of Bairro Betim Industrial, a year after the neighborhood OP meeting in Betim described in chapter five, he talked about how elections to become OP delegates had, in some cases, created the need among aspirants to campaign and negotiate among themselves: There have been active disputes over the elections for OP delegates in a majority of Betim’s neighborhoods and regions. For example, in the Northern region there were three distinct slates of candidates. There were several slates in the Icaivari region too. Here, on the other hand, we had only a single slate in the last two elections. Prior to the elections, we called all the groups together to negotiate so we wouldn’t divide our neighborhood. The negotiations weren’t easy. Some said “If your candidate wins, we’ll launch our own slate.” But we still ended up with a single slate.36


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Lisboa and others explain how these OP negotiations and campaigns teach participants that talking about “my” candidacy or project gets them nowhere; that victory can only come when speaking in collective terms of “our” slate or project and then acting accordingly. Delegates, in other words, are said to necessarily become representatives of collective interests (i.e. they learn to tie their individual interests to those of the larger community in which they live: Tocqueville’s “self interest properly understood”). If they won’t or can’t do so, they will fail for lack of the necessary support. The following illustration of the same idea comes from Rogério Pereira de Araújo, a then-unemployed third-time OP delegate from Bairro Nossa Señora dos Passos, BH: The first time we participated in the OP, through the efforts of a very capable companheiro, Leonel, along with Carlinhos and Ginesio, we were able to bring 200 people to the OP meeting. This was in 1996. Due to a lack of experience and because we didn’t know how the thing worked . . . we had a right to twenty delegates, but we only elected two along with two back-ups: me, Dona Luzia, Carlinhos, and Dona Elza— all were community representatives and are active today in the Health Council and in the new neighborhood association. So we participated and were, let’s say, destroyed, because the OP is a dispute among groups (uma disputa de grupos): there’s a certain amount of money for projects, and you have to organize your delegates and then go to the [regional] forum where those groups with the most people voting in a bloc have more political weight. We arrived with our two delegates, and came back with nothing. Due to my contacts in the labor union movement, I had more capacity to deal with people. Dona Elza, for lack of experience, didn’t even know how to negotiate. She and the other two ended up in the hands of our friends from the neighboring favela, Padre Lopes. They won’t say that, but that’s exactly what happened. They formed a group and managed to pass a project for Padre Lopes, a Health Post if I’m not mistaken. Padre Lopez had had a previous experience in organizing; every OP, they end up getting at least one thing passed. They’re a lot more organized than we are.37 Learning to become better organized can generate positive results, in the short term, in the form of passing priority projects for one’s neighborhood and, in the long term, in the form of building a core of unified representatives in the neighborhood for any number of social and political purposes. That’s certainly what happened in Rogério’s neighborhood of Nossa Senhora dos Passos in BH where OP delegates eventually joined together to form

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a new neighborhood association (more on that experience below). Brazilian Sociologists, Mercês Somarriba and Otavio Dulci, examining the results of the BH third OP, concluded that this was not unusual amongst OP delegates with whom they spoke: “The experience constituted for them a lesson in political leadership, one that they evaluated very positively. They believe that the OP, in those three years, has been a learning experience, teaching to them and the population a new way of dealing with the problems of each community, changing as well their way of thinking about possible ways of solving such problems.”38 My field research in the neighborhood of Bairro Santa Maria, also in BH, gives us yet another example of OP-inspired education and training in neighborhood-level leadership and representation: Now in terms of the organization of the OP at the neighborhood level, this depends on each community’s interest, and on each group’s understanding of the OP idea. Here in Santa Maria we have a large number of groups involved in community affairs—in the local health center, the church, the daycare center—and each one ends up being an agent for passing on information about the OP to the rest of the people who live here. What are we going to approve? What’s the priority of the community? How are we going to build on this idea to pass our OP obra, being that the other neighborhoods within the micro region also have priorities and want obras from the same OP budget? What is a budget?’ And from there, the community that organizes itself and elects its delegates, they’re the ones that have the power of voice, the power to make decisions. That’s the logic. You can take a community that is weak and indicate one obra as their priority, but unfortunately there’s not money for everybody. So this is what we have to learn; we have to go through this learning process. We are constructing a strength of unity, a unified strength of various groups, to try to get the strength of votes inside the OP. . . . How do we do that? We do it with a lot of struggle, a lot of discussion; for example, this year, our high school here was a fundamental factor in spreading the word. And we who are activists, have to be alert to that: even if people don’t participate in groups, they could still be interested in certain topics that we activists are working for. Because we are asking for obras that are important for the whole community, and we can see that in the OP meetings. So we get close to such people and tell them that you’re going to be our delegate for our campaign [for the specific obra]. So this is how it works. Sr. João has responsibility for his sector, Dona. Antoninha and I have responsibility for health care, which we know about. And in the


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case of Sandra, we came to her street and had a meeting there as part of a campaign to raise consciousness about why it’s important for people to participate in the meetings, and why participation is important to obtain the obra, and all of that. So we really follow up with these people, and they’re invited many times to the meetings. . . . Nothing better than to have someone from their own street tell them how we’re dealing about their community’s needs and problems.39 OP delegates’ organization of neighborhoods for the purposes of supporting neighborhood projects in the OP voting process was not unusual. According to Monica Maria de Jesús Carvalho, a five-year veteran OP administrator for the Northeastern region of BH, her Regional Administration office used to organize all OP-related neighborhood meetings. By the sixth year, however, “neighborhood OP delegates meet on their own, to mobilize voting blocs around specific proposed obras. This is a positive development. It means they are becoming self-sufficient. They only call us when they need technical information or something of the sort.”40 The following citation from field notes taken during a regional OP assembly in the Barreira region of BH illustrates how the design of the OP together with admonitions of OP administrators encourage OP delegates to think beyond their own needs and those of their own neighborhood to include those of the region as a whole: “A big part of [OP administrator] Luís Henrique’s job is convincing delegates that they’re more than representatives of their neighborhood. They’re representatives of their entire region. As such, they need to think about and vote on more than just ‘their’ obra. They get fourteen votes to choose among twenty-two to twenty-five possibilities. They need to choose with a sense of solidarity and responsibility.”41 When OP delegates travel as a group to visit the projects in their region that they will soon be voting on, many are visiting neighborhoods they’ve never seen before. They know that roughly half of those projects will not receive funding. They have the choice of casting their votes according to their conscience (which projects deserve their support based on their own perception of need) or according to the logic of tit-for-tat negotiations constantly put forth by proponents of any number of the projects (“I’ll vote for your’s if you vote for mine”). These are the same difficult choices that face any democratic representative. And while neighborhood priorities are likely to remain prominent in the minds of most OP delegates, they can’t help but be affected in some way by these processes of learning about the larger region in which their neighborhood is situated and by the numerous face-to-face meetings and negotiations with other OP delegates. Such meetings and negotiations can

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help forge horizontal bonds of solidarity across otherwise isolated neighborhoods with similar needs and interests. Constructing and articulating collective interests and representing those interests in OP forums as neighborhood-level and even regional-level political leaders, OP delegates often find themselves treading on the turf of already existing supposedly representative neighborhood associations. I say “supposedly representative” because Brazil’s neighborhood associations are notorious for being the neighborhood-level extensions of clientelist political machines, directed and controlled from above by political bosses and from within by a neighborhood boss or a small group of loyalists, and usually active only in periods preceding elections.42 Once again, Geraldo Lisboa of Bairro Betim Industrial in Betim offers us an illustrative example: “We’ve had a neighborhood association in Bairro Betim Industrial since 1982. It basically functioned to distribute tickets for free milk, free food baskets, that sort of thing. It was openly tied to a particular city council member who was clearly the ‘owner of the association.’ During the first four years, there was never a public meeting and its officers were never elected.”43 That neighborhood-level collective action and clientelism do not necessarily go together, however, is emphasized, for example, in the work of Robert Gay on Rio de Janeiro favela organizations, and of Rebecca Abers on the OP-induced renovation of neighborhood organizations in Porto Alegre.44 By introducing real means of neighborhood-level representation (i.e. with annual elections for delegates and open, democratically run meetings) and producing real results in the form of needed public works projects, the OP is said to directly challenge the false representation of traditional clientelistic associations. Adonis Pereira, Regional Administrator for the Northern Region of BH, described how the OP had stimulated democratic changes in many of his region’s neighborhood associations: “The OP has changed the way neighborhood associations perceive their role. . . . People participate in the OP to benefit the entire community and they work to get the neighborhood association to do the same. Many exist that are still of the traditional type. But many more have been renovated, with new active members and a new leadership.”45 In repeated visits to neighborhoods in BH and Betim that had actively participated in the OP, I observed such processes of renovation and contestation between mobilized OP delegates and long-time leaders of the more traditional neighborhood associations. We need to remember that although previously inactive OP delegates in BH and Betim tended to remain inactive outside of their all-too-brief foray into participatory decision-making, that was much less the case when it came to participating in neighborhood associations. The implication here—echoing a similar conclusion by Abers from


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her analysis of the Porto Alegre case—is that well-designed institutional innovations providing meaningful opportunities for politically active nonelites to participate at the level of the neighborhoods in which they live can be effective in transforming former instruments of neighborhood-level clientelism and citizen demobilization into instruments of grassroots participation and representation.46 The following are several examples from my field research in BH: Adelia Mendes—Bairro Nossa Senhora dos Passos, Belo Horizonte: Water and sidewalks were brought into the neighborhood under the Administration of Mauricio Campos [during the 1964–1985 dictatorship], but only in our street [the central “artery” of the neighborhood]. Another mayor, Sérgio Ferrara, finished the sidewalks, but purely in exchange for votes. . . . The neighborhood association existed and still exists, with official documentation and everything. However, their leadership is not interested in the OP. It doesn’t participate in anything. That association only exists in one part of the Vila, and we’re excluded because we don’t live there. Once they even got a lot of money to do things in their part of the Vila. What did they do? They did things for their own use and benefit. A lot of their people built new houses, bought houses in other neighborhoods, that sort of thing. They used the money for themselves. We had no part of that. Our intention is to fight for the interests of the entire Vila, not for ourselves. So what do we do? Everyone knows about the other association, including the city, which now goes directly to Rogério [“veteran” OP delegate quoted earlier]. Why? Because the others don’t show up for anything. Why would they work with a bankrupt association? Many, many years ago, that association had a school, an office building, land, and everything. All of that is gone. And they don’t care anymore because they know that the money won’t be coming through them. Because in the OP, the money doesn’t go through individuals. This is what I found to be very interesting about the OP. We delegates hear about and go visit the various proposed projects, then we vote and the city constructs the prioritized projects while we watch to make sure it’s done correctly. No one person distributes the money because if they did, it would disappear, like it did it the case of the old association. Our plan now is to take over the old association by calling for an election for a new leadership, which is allowed under the association’s statutes. . . . There are only eight of us. I know that we’ll need more, but this group is very unified and works well together. All of us are active OP

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delegates. We meet and discuss things, but not in any regularized fashion outside of the OP. Currently, however, several of us are enrolled in a class at the Regional Administration learning to be “Gestores Comunitários” [Community Activists]. We’re learning a lot, like how to deal with the community, how to speak in front of large groups, how to understand the city budget and how public works projects move through their implementation phases. . . . We’re new at this, but we are learning. 47 ● Djalma and José Estacio da Silva—Bairro Tupi Alto Mirante, Belo Horizonte: We don’t have a neighborhood association of our own, not yet anyway. There’s a guy here with an association in another part of the neighborhood. He’s been the president forever. He does nothing. In fact, he’s worthless.48 I became active in the OP in order to try to better this neighborhood. A neighboring bairro had been improved through the OP: a sewer system, asphalt, a new bus line. I saw this. Djalma and Geraldo were already active in the OP. They had a neighborhood meeting three or four years ago and said that the neighboring bairro had been improved through the OP, and that we needed to get together and make it work for us too. Eventually, the bus came here too due to an OP project that paved the main streets of the neighborhood. At that point, I decided to participate. Djalma and Geraldo . . . called me in the beginning of 1998. . . . Several of us decided to go as a group and check the thing out. Could we believe in it, or was it just politics? Many said it was more politics than results. . . . We looked for the most interested, but many decided not to go. . . . The mobilization was due primarily to Djalma and Geraldo and, before that, to José Antonio. Djalma went house to house, Geraldo got a bus to take people to the meeting—which is very important because for every ten people that show up, you get to elect a delegate to the Regional Assembly. We got 100 people to come to that meeting. . . . These 100 people remain in contact with us. They tell us what they want for the neighborhood, that sort of thing. We’re the ones who actually participate the most. But they always ask us: “Did our priorities get approved?”, “When does construction begin?” . . . They’re always asking, “When is the next meeting?”49 ● Maria José Pereira Ramos and Adeja Anira dos Santos Rodrigues— Vila São Francisco, Belo Horizonte: The old neighborhood association is dead. But a network of contacts still exists. Once the association participated, but not anymore. They won


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an obra in the first OP, then sat back and complained that the Regional Administration wasn’t implementing the obra. No one followed up.50 I think the Association doesn’t work anymore because it doesn’t have the participation of the residents. No one helps. . . . For example, there’s supposed to be an election every four years. [The president] invited everyone to participate, but nobody believes he has any power. But he elected himself again. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but because nobody showed up to vote. . . . He’s illiterate, but he’s a good person with good sense. But he’s also got a bad side. He talks like this: “I’m the president of the neighborhood association, and if it’s not me making the decision, then nothing has been decided.” Pretty nasty, huh? Now, people show him letters and things, and he doesn’t know what they mean. He keeps the letters, says he’ll do something about them, then does nothing because he doesn’t know what they say. He knows how to talk, how to play a good host, and that’s about it. But everybody runs to him with complaints and demands. Even if a toilet stops up, they run to him. But what good is that? He may try to help out, but he’s only one person. And he has a full-time job. A neighborhood association has to be a group of residents participating. It’s not the president’s role to solve everything personally. He, himself, agrees with that. He says he doesn’t have time to solve all the problems of the favela; he’s got to solve his own problems first. Our concern is to prepare residents so that they can assume that group role.51 The association is already devalued in the eyes of residents. To bring it back up would require a lot of work. People know Alderico is president, but not much else. And the association is very divided among the group that supposedly supports Alderico. They fight amongst themselves all the time over little things. . . . I’m participating in the OP because I saw that things weren’t going forward. Someone stopped in the middle of the road. So I’m going to keep going until the end. No one’s going to trip me up. . . . Somebody’s got to do something. I believe that if I, and if she, and others want to do something, and we have enough free time to follow up, I think we can get the obras that we want. There’s a 100% chance that we can get them. What that means for our Vila is that either we remove those people living in dangerous areas, or we fix the place up. And as long as I don’t see that happening, I’m going to keep working to make it happen.52 At the last OP meeting, I was convinced that our obra wouldn’t pass. There weren’t very many people from the Vila there. But we negotiated and it did pass. And when we came back home, people looked at us differently: with a certain amount of respect. Some that participated earlier

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without getting what they wanted—including the president of the old neighborhood association—say that it’s all a waste of time, a stupidity (“babaquice”). They simply stopped going to the meetings. But we OP delegates also had support from the local newsletter and from the local priest. That generated more respect for us too. But now we have to show them that the obra will actually be completed. That’s what people are waiting to see. The president of the neighborhood association seems to be ambiguous about our success. On the one hand, he’s happy to see that the obra passed. But he’s also worried about losing influence.53 In addition to OP delegates themselves, on-the-ground administrators of the OP were the most likely to voice the argument that the OP enhances democratic representation by challenging the traditional clientelistic structures normally present at the neighborhood level. These were the administrators who regularly attended the neighborhood and regional meetings, and who saw the struggles actually taking place. In both BH and Betim, many of them voiced a complaint that top administration officials and party leaders seemed not to recognize the importance of this outcome of the OP and, therefore, did not sufficiently support OP delegates in their neighborhoodlevel struggles against clientelism. As mentioned in chapter five, for example, according to one of his closest aides, Betim’s Mayor Lima did not recognize the impact that OP delegates were having in transforming or, at least, challenging many of Betim’s older neighborhood associations (many openly created and supported by individual city council members to solidify their redutos eleitorais) until I presented the results of my survey to his cabinet at the close of Betim’s sixth OP process. In Belo Horizonte, OP administrator, Luís Henrique, made a comparable observation: “The Administration has not carried out its role in following up OP meetings and processes with a concentrated effort to turn delegates into representatives of neighborhood associations and organizations. The Comforças representatives should be the targets of such action, but it’s not done. It’s our biggest challenge. But the [OP] team is just too small.”54 Thus, we may have a paradox: while many OP delegates and administrators close to the day-to-day operations of the OP process recognize a new OP-induced vibrancy in neighborhood-level politics (a “pluralization” of political activism), top administration and party officials seem strangely unaware that this new vibrancy represents precisely the sort of civic engagement the OP is supposed to generate. Taking place at the neighborhood level, one might hypothesize that such activism operates below the proverbial radar screens of political leaders more concerned with “important” political dynamics at the municipal, state, and national levels.


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In the end, however, even where ignored by top administration and party officials, the evidence seems strong that the OP enhances political representation by opening up neighborhood-level spaces to pluralistic contestation and participation. The third and final way in which the OP is said to enhance political representation comes about through the “transparency” of the OP process itself. Putting information about city finances and operations directly in the hands of citizens makes the formal institutions of public administration and political representation more accountable, responsible, and therefore, more representative.55 Edinaldo Daniel, coordinator of the Association of Residents of Nova Bade, Vila Inconfidência, and Almarante in Betim, tells the following illustrative story: In the past, our neighborhood was ignored by the mayor’s office. When they did come here, they would always say the same thing: “There’s no money”. And there was no way to know if there was money or not. Now things are much more transparent and people can know. Like we now know about the amount of money that city council members control, and it’s shameful. They can’t play that game with us anymore and have it go unnoticed. Information is power.56 Indeed, the active role played by Betim’s and BH CMOPs—and the Comforças groups in each of BH’s nine regional administrations—and by regular OP delegates in the fierce struggles between the administration and the city council (as described in chapter four) constitutes the strongest illustration of the OP functioning as a means of injecting greater accountability into local government. According to Otílie Macedo Pinheiro, Technical Advisor to Betim’s Secretariat of Planning and Coordination, the accountability-inducing and corruption-reducing transparency of the OP was the main reason why the UN’s Habitat II Conference in 1996 chose the OPs of Porto Alegre and Betim as among the world’s most exemplary models of public administration.57 Conclusion We can now sum up the findings of this investigation into the major claims of the OP’s proponents as illustrated by our two case studies. First, the OPs in Betim and BH are clear examples of “popular participation,” just as their proponents claim. Women are much better represented among active OP delegates, for example, compared to more formal representative political

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institutions. Similarly, the clear majority of OP delegates in both cities had less than a high school education; and they were either salaried workers, housewives, retired, or unemployed. These characteristics of active OP delegates in Betim and BH are quite remarkable in light of Brazil’s elitist political regime, political culture, and social structures. They show us that, while many nonelite Brazilians are disengaged from the political world, a significant number are willing to involve themselves in participatory processes of local-level governance if given the opportunity to do so. Second, the OPs in Betim and BH do not provide much support for proponents’ claims that such participatory processes engage and empower large numbers of previously disengaged or alienated citizens (the “empowerment thesis”). It turns out that most OP delegates were already engaged in civil and/or political society activists. These same pre-OP activists also accounted for a disproportionate share of the spillover effects of new participation in civil and political society; and they tended to participate longer in the OP, thereby gaining disproportionately from the democratic learning assumed to accrue to veteran participants. While it may not have been a great tool for empowering the disengaged (at least not in these two cases), the OP was arguably quite useful in maintaining and, in some cases, actually increasing existing supplies of social capital by keeping previously engaged activists participating in democratic politics—in civil society and in political society—at the municipal and grassroots levels. Finally, in assessing the general claim that the OP enhances local-level democratic representation, we find three specific arguments to substantiate that claim. First, the open election of OP delegates and their subsequent need to negotiate among themselves for collective benefits constitute an entirely new layer of democratic representation and activity. Second, OP delegates directly challenge the antidemocratic clientelistic distribution of public services and goods traditionally associated with neighborhood associations and other local-level organizations. Third, the OP’s open distribution of information about the finances and operations of municipal government promotes greater accountability, responsibility, and ultimately, better representation within the executive and legislative branches of local government. In sum, OP-induced political participation does substantially appeal to and include nonelite citizens. And while OP processes do not appear to empower many of the politically disengaged and alienated, they do appear to offer substantive opportunities to existing nonelite activists to continue their political participation beyond the heady days of democratic transition into the more mundane and otherwise increasingly elitist and distant game of democratic consolidation. The overall result: the “pluralization of democratic activism” and, therefore, the “democratization of democracy.”

CHAPTER 7

Examining the Claims of Critics of the Participatory Budget

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hapter five introduced us to some of the OP’s most fervent critics: opposition members of Betim’s city council. It would be easy to dismiss much of what they had to say on the subject as mere partisan diatribes on the part of traditional clientelistic politicians out to discredit an innovative democratic process that challenges their here-to-fore unquestioned capacity to administer public goods as if they were their own private property (i.e. the very definition of patrimonialism). However, since we took the claims of Orçamento Participativo (OP) proponents seriously in chapter six and subjected them to critical analysis, it behooves us to do the same with the arguments of the OP’s critics. In this chapter, then, I will present four major critiques of the OP that emerged again and again in conversations with opponents of the process in both Belo Horizonte (BH) and Betim. I will then present the counter arguments of OP proponents, generally administrators and officials affiliated with the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores). Finally, for each debate, I will make use of my own observations, the data from my quantitative and qualitative analyses of the OPs of BH and Betim, and relevant data from comparable cases (e.g. Porto Alegre) to hazard some conclusions about the conflicting claims. ●

Anti-OP Criticism #1: The OP is unnecessarily antagonistic to the legislative body (e.g. city council) and to existing representative organizations in civil society.

City council members in Betim describe their function primarily as one of representing the citizenry and monitoring the activities of the administration.1

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Those who oppose the OP oftentimes see it as reproducing, and therefore unnecessarily impinging upon, these very functions. Similarly, they argue, popular participation already exists in the many neighborhood associations dotted throughout the city. At a minimum, they ask, why put in place something that already exists and functions well? Betim city council member, Paulo Mundim, exemplifies this argument: . . . yes, we must have popular participation. But it should be done with the existing established representatives of communities—the neighborhood associations—with city council members present at all stages. The majority of council members have regions in the city where their electoral support is very strong (redutos eleitorais). They should be recognized as the proper representative of these areas. . . . As a council member, I am in constant contact with neighborhood leaders, businessmen, liberal professionals and even with common citizens who aren’t interested in politics but who sometimes want to express their opinions.2 Anti-OP council members argue that even worse than this unnecessary duplication of functions is the fact that the council members themselves and their constitutionally founded offices are constantly denigrated and discredited by OP administrators before the population. Obviously, they do not see themselves as the enemy. On the contrary, they are the constitutionally endowed, democratically elected legislative representatives of the municipality and its citizens. Having attended a large number of OP meetings in Betim, BH, and elsewhere, I can attest to the fact that city council members are regularly singled out by OP administrators and other administration officials, less by name than by office, as some of the worst abusers of the formal instruments of democracy for personal political and economic gain. My experience, especially in Betim (see chapter five), as well as volumes of case studies of clientelism in Brazil and Latin America, demonstrate that city council members (members of legislative bodies in general) deserve to be singled out, because they have regularly used their offices in ways that abuse the public trust.3 The same is true, as we discussed in chapter six, of many of the neighborhood associations preexisting the OP: most represent the political interests of their “sponsors” (patrões) on the city council or, at best, of the leaders of the associations themselves, far more than the residents of the neighborhoods in which they are located. In other words, most of the existing institutions do not “function well,” at least not with respect to representing the citizenry (neither, for that matter, do they do a very good job in efficiently and effectively administering the public good).

Critics of the Participatory Budget

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Proponents of the OP make no apologies for the fact that the OP directly challenges the ability of city council members and traditional neighborhood associations to be the exclusive “representatives” of specific neighborhoods and regions. They argue that city council members and their hand-picked or self-selected neighborhood “leaders” have traditionally constructed clientelistic political machines through the targeted distribution of rewards (e.g. public works projects, jobs in the public administration, etc.) in return for electoral support, and punishments (e.g. no public works projects, loss of jobs, etc.) in retaliation for electoral opposition or weak electoral support. These machines have served to disempower and to demobilize the popular sectors over the years as the latter find their avenues of legitimate representation always subordinate to the interests of one or another temporarily dominant elitist political machine and subject to the punishments of the losing machine.4 At best, clientelistic intra-elite competition provides limited access to what should be universally accessible public goods and services as “rewards” for extending support to one machine against another. At worst, the rewards are only promised at election time but are never actually delivered. At any rate, when residents of a neighborhood feel beholden to a given politician for the rewards he or she bestows upon them, collectively or individually, they are less likely to hold that politician accountable for such things as ethical behavior in office (“She may be a thief, but at least she shares some of the spoils with me”), and they are less likely to collectively mobilize on behalf of anything, including an opposition candidate, that the politician doesn’t approve of. (“We really need paved streets in our neighborhood, but council member X says I better not push for it or I may lose the other things he says he’s going to give me.”) Thus, as argued in chapter six, the OP is explicitly constructed to be an extra instrument to impose accountability on both the city council and traditional neighborhood associations, and even on the administration itself. In effect, the OP acts as an extra check and balance on these more established institutions.5 In a context of rampant clientelism, to call such an extra check and balance “unnecessary” is to stand in favor of the essentially inegalitarian and antidemocratic status quo described throughout this book. Whatever political conflict that may ensue with established institutions should be seen as the result of enhanced opportunities for nonelite organization and representation. Collectivities of nonelite citizens organizing outside of, and against, long-existing elitist institutions should be seen as healthy for the process of democracy (and only hurtful for those who stand to lose their traditional clientelistic privileges, or for the “ungovernability” theories of their academic apologists).

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But is this extra check and balance constitutional? Does it, as some of its detractors argue, illegally usurp the political-administrative function constitutionally reserved for the formal legislative body, in this case, the city council.6 First and foremost, the use of citizens’ councils to both participate in and to monitor the administration of government programs was firmly established in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution.7 We have also seen that OP processes take place within the deliberative and implementation phases of the Executive’s budgetary process (i.e. during preparation of the Executive’s draft of the annual budget submitted to the Legislature, and in overseeing the actual implementation of approved projects). This puts it fully within the powers of the Executive to organize and administer. It is, in other words, a choice of the Executive whether to construct and implement his/her administration’s budget proposal using instruments of popular participation such as the OP, or whether to construct and implement it haphazardly, behind “closed doors” in “smoke-filled rooms” and/or from the formulas of technically trained experts.8 City council members are free to object to specifics or to the entirety of the Administration’s OP-induced budget proposals and subsequent implementation processes; this right has not been, and cannot be, taken away from them by the OP. They do so, however, at the risk of alienating and angering constituents who have been active in the construction of the Administration’s budget proposal or, if not active participants, may still see substantial benefits for themselves and their communities in the proposal. Ultimately, council members’ decisions to contest the administration OP-induced budget is a political decision, not a legal or constitutional one. Such a decision must always involve a political cost/benefit calculus that takes into consideration such factors as the number of PT or PT-allied council members in the Council itself, the degree and intensity of organization and mobilization of OP delegates during the process of the Council’s deliberation of the budget, and the relative capacities of the Administration and the Council to present their side of the story to the larger electorate (the latter having a great deal to do with the attitudes of local media vis-à-vis the Administration). Again, none of this contradicts the logic or the rules of democracy. ●

Anti-OP Criticism #2: The great majority of citizens never participate in the OP, and among those few that do, the subsequent drop-off in their participation is evidence that so-called popular participation is actually not all that popular at all

The first component of this critique—that few people really participate in the OP—is represented by the following complaint from Romulo Veneroso,


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another of Betim’s opposition city council members: “In my neighborhood, we have about 4,000 residents. Yet we were ‘represented’ by only twenty delegates in this year’s OP [1996].”9 Assuming that Veneroso’s figures are correct, the 20 delegates in his neighborhood represented 200 participants at the neighborhood meeting, or 5 percent of the neighborhood’s total population. When officially registered rates of citywide OP participation are set alongside the size of their respective cities’ total population, Veneroso’s observation for his neighborhood is broadly true for both Betim and BH. Even the relatively high number of 20,000 participants in Betim’s third OP (1995) amounted to only 7–8 percent of the city’s total population at that time. The 38,508 participants in the fourth year of BH’s OP (1997) amounted to only 1.8 percent of the city’s total population of 2,100,000. And the 10,735 participants in the fifth year of OP discussions (1993) in the much celebrated case of Porto Alegre represented less than 1 percent (0.77) of the city’s 1,400,000 residents.10 These percentages represent far less, some detractors have pointed out, than the percentage of citizens who vote in elections (especially in Brazil, where voting is mandatory). And these figures clearly overstate the numbers of what we might call “effective participants” due to multiple counting of some individuals’ participation (e.g. those attending several neighborhood meetings and subsequent regional and municipal assemblies) and to counting as participants those citizens who merely show up once to a neighborhood meeting, including those who may leave early, and never “participate” again. To avoid this latter problem (but not the problem of multiple counting), administrators of BH’s OP prefer to use the number of citizens actually present and voting at each year’s neighborhood meetings where initial priorities are set and delegates are elected (i.e. after the initial introductions and discussions). Figure 7.1 shows the resulting numbers of “effective participation” in BH’s OPs from 1994 to 2001–2002.11 The numbers—representing rates of participation ranging from 0.3 percent (1994) to 1.49 percent (2001–2002) of the city’s total population—would only seem to further justify the critics’ accusations of minimal (though not necessarily declining) participation. Pointing out these low rates of participation, and an alleged over representation of petista activists (to be examined later), the OP’s critics argue that rather than exemplifying a practical model of Participatory Democracy, the OP exemplifies the PT’s wasteful and unsuccessful “Utopianism” or, even worse, its partisan propagandizing masquerading as ideology.12 Proponents of the OP respond to these criticisms in three ways. First, the PT and most OP proponents with whom I have spoken argue that political participation is not for everyone and, therefore, not everyone can be expected

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1999–2000 2001–2002

Figure 7.1 BH: Effective Participation in OP. Population Base: 2,100,000.

to participate in OP-style participatory processes. In the words of the late Celso Daniel, twice-mayor for the PT of Santo André in the state of São Paulo: You can manage to reach a certain portion of those who are disposed to mobilize themselves to discuss something of the public interest. Not everyone of those that you reach through these processes of decision making are disposed to participate. The important thing, however, is that they [PT administrations] legitimate this type of process, and that they keep open a space so that new persons and new social sectors can be added on.13 Indeed, most OP administrators and PT leaders with whom I have spoken over the years seemed to understand very well what social scientists like Robert Dahl have long understood about political participation: “At the focus of most men’s [and women’s] lives are primary activities involving food, sex, love, family, work, play, shelter, comfort, friendship, social esteem, and the like. Activities like these—not politics—are the primary concerns of most men and women.”14 This is all the more true in a country like Brazil, with so many of its population deeply mired in a numbing poverty that requires all of their time just to survive, political activism may be an unaffordable luxury. Far from holding some kind of pie-in-the-sky Utopian vision of pure Participatory Democracy, proponents and administrators of the OP point


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out that the OP and similar instruments of popular participation provide citizens who want to and can participate with a wider range of possibilities of actually doing so—and doing so in decision-making processes that they, themselves, have decided matter to them. In other words, even if you can’t reach everybody, you can reach some who might not be reached otherwise.15 OP proponents also argue that once initial participants discover the opportunity to be a positive one, others are likely to follow. Participation may start out small, but can be expected to increase as the process is perceived by more and more people to be worth their while. In the words of Sr. Dalba D. dos Santos, veteran OP delegate and community activist in the neighborhood of Vila Santa Maria, BH: “At first, one comes, then two, then four, then you’ve got 80 people in the meeting room. They come and they’re saying, ‘This is going to be a total waste of time’. But they’re there, and they stay until the end. One group stays skeptical, while another begins to participate more actively.”16 To a certain extent, this is just common sense (or, perhaps, “rational choice”). In numerous conversations with OP delegates in Betim and BH, the initial impetus for the participation of those who were not ideologically attracted to the OP (i.e. those who were not died-in-thewool petistas) was their determination that real gains could be obtained for their communities and/or for themselves through their participation as delegates. I will return to this point later when I discuss the decline, then the rebound, in OP participation. For now, I want to reemphasize the argument that the PT seems to understand that OP-like processes of popular participation cannot attract huge rates of mass-scale participation. They can, however, attract a small but significant number of citizens who want to, or who someday may want to, actively and efficaciously invest their social capital in their democracy at the local level. The second response to the criticism of “minuscule” participation in the OP flows directly from these latter arguments: the fact that a relative few citizens heed the call to participate does not negate the fact that more of them are participating—and participating efficaciously—than would otherwise be the case. Referring to the figures cited above regarding the number of OP participants in Betim, BH, and Porto Alegre relative to their total populations, the percentages certainly appear quite small. When seen another way, however, they indicate 20,000, 38,508, and 10,738 citizens, respectively, who embraced the opportunity—even if only fleetingly in some instances—to participate in matters of direct concern to them and to their community in a way previously unavailable to them, and still unavailable to the vast majority of citizens in Brazil and throughout the world.

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In fact, given that the number of politically aware and active citizens in modern democracies is always quite small (recalling Robert Dahl’s argument),17 the number of OP activists should not be compared to the total number of citizens but to the total number of political activists. While we may not know this latter figure, we do know that the numbers would be significantly smaller (and, as we have seen in the discussion about civic disengagement, they have been getting even smaller in many contemporary democracies). Looked at in this light, the number of OP participants might not appear to be so “minuscule” after all. At this point, let me remind the reader that we are touching upon an extremely important argument in defense of the OP against its critics: the OP was never intended to replace representative democracy, but to reform it, first, by expanding upon and, second, by diversifying democratic political representation itself. On this latter point, let’s recall the arguments of chapter six regarding the overwhelmingly nonelite or “popular” character of OP participants and their capacity within the OP to effectively represent a more diverse citizenry than is currently represented under formal political institutions. By adding greater diversity to the ranks of the politically active, at least at the local level, the OP pluralizes—or democratizes—democracy by extending democratic representation into areas of society whose inhabitants have traditionally been either ignored, actively excluded, or touched only by the disempowering reaches of clientelism.18 To the extent, for example, that OP delegates are seen by many of their neighbors as defending and promoting the collective interests of the neighborhood (and we saw some evidence to this effect in chapter six), those neighbors may come to feel—and actually be—more effectively represented in the political process. Add to this the fact that many OP participants are members of existing organizations in civil and political society. As such, they represent the interests of those organizations and their members within the OP and, therefore, within the municipal administration. Wieland Silberschneider, Director of Belo Horizonte’s Planning Secretariat (the body responsible for the city’s OP administration), makes this very argument. Openly acknowledging “the relatively scant participation in quantitative terms,” he nevertheless argues that “the active and stable adhesion of organizations and leaders that tacitly or explicitly represent the interests of diverse segments of the population, mobilizes the society in a positive direction, confirming in a different way the democratic credentials of the participatory process.”19 In other words, the admittedly small numbers of OP participants, measured in global terms, include representatives of a much greater number of nonelite organizations, neighborhoods, and even otherwise apolitical micro-communities.


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In sum, then, in response to the criticism of relatively low numbers of participants in the OP, proponents argue that those numbers translate into a qualitatively significant increase in the democratic participation and representation of nonelites even if the quantitative measurement of that increase is not immediately impressive. Participation in the OP is “qualitatively” important because it signifies a diversification, or pluralization, of democratic representation itself. Let us now turn to the second component of the criticism that OP-style “popular participation” is, in a word, unpopular: that declining participation in the OP indicates that many who initially participated in the OP subsequently dropped out, allegedly because they discovered that it doesn’t work and/or that it’s merely a facade for political-ideological indoctrination. When I was doing my field work in Betim and BH in 1998, the problem of declining participation in the OP was a very real one, recognized by critics and supporters alike. As seen in figure 7.1, participation levels in BH began to level off or decline significantly following the third OP of 1996 (they later recovered—a fact that I will discuss here). Similar declines in participation occurred in cases of PT-administered OPs studied by Rebecca Abers, including that of Porto Alegre.20 In all cases, the two main reasons given for these declines were, first, some people’s dissatisfaction and frustration at what they perceived to be unnecessarily long delays between when a given public works project was voted on as an OP priority and when it was actually completed; and, second, others’ satisfaction with the passing and construction of “their” obra giving them the sense that they no longer needed to participate. I immediately saw the perception of unnecessarily long delays in the construction of OP-approved construction projects in the fact that the most common comment in my survey of OP delegates in Betim and BH in late 1998 was some form of a complaint about how long it took the administration to complete OP-approved obras. Similarly, in Abers’ study of Porto Alegre’s OP: In case after case, according to administration informants, the promise to attend to the demands collected followed by the implementation of only a fraction of them led to a dramatic drop in grassroots support for the administrations. This decline in support negatively affected future attempts at implementing participatory programs . . . a large portion of potential participants had lost faith in the capacity of the government to respond to their demands.21 Some critics pointed to these delays as an illustration of the inherent impracticality of the OP itself; that it just “doesn’t work.” Betim city council

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member, Regina Lucia Rezende, for example argued the following: “In theory, the OP is a good idea. In practice, it simply doesn’t work. The biggest problem is that the majority of projects that are voted on as priority obras are either not completed or they take forever to complete.”22 Given the OP’s place as a centerpiece of the PT’s “mode of governing,” the alleged impracticality of the OP allowed some critics to bring up the familiar charge of the PT’s “Utopianism”; in this case, implying that the delays represented the party’s incapacity to effectively administer a real-world city or state, “let alone the entire nation.” In such arguments, the “real world” is, of course, the world of clientelism and patronage politics (precisely that which the PT wishes to challenge, not accommodate). For example, Dona Suelí, OP and Comforças delegate and president of the neighborhood association of Bairro Maríse in the Northern region of BH, pointed out that most people in her neighborhood automatically saw delays in construction of OP projects as being “political”; by which, she explained: “What moves this country, my friend, are exchanges of favors.”23 The implication was clear: if projects aren’t being completed on time or at all, the fault lies in insufficient political interest on the part of the administration—not lack of resources or technical delays—and the OP, for all its public fanfare, is “revealed” as little more than a time-wasting distraction from the “real world” of patronage politics. In a slightly more partisan version of the same argument, others explained that the delays and inability to finish projects merely unmasked “the fact” that the OP was more about the PT’s partisan image-making than about translating that image into effective public administration: the PT knows that the OP sounds impressive even if it’s “obviously” impractical. What this meant to Betim city council member, Paulo Mundim, was that then-mayor Maria do Carmo only included a relatively small percentage of the city budget within the OP (about 17 percent in 1995), then told people there wasn’t enough money to finish all the projects on time; yet she retained discretionary control over some 40 percent of the budget and used it repeatedly for projects never even discussed in the OP process.24 People are not stupid, said Mundim; they realize that “the OP is more propaganda than reality.” In both versions of this argument, OP participants are assumed to “discover” that the OP is more about selling the PT than about getting things done. That’s why they drop out, perhaps even more disillusioned with politics than when they began their participation in the OP. Assuming for the moment that declining participation in the OP really was explained by the administration’s inability (real or merely perceived) to finish OP priorities in


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a reasonable time frame, how do proponents of the OP respond to these criticisms? First, they argue that the problem of delays is primarily one of perception rather than fact. A standard argument, for example, is that the PT and OP administrators have tended to oversell the OP in the heady first year or two of entering into office. I heard OP administrator, Luís Henrique, argue this point, for example, in a 1998 meeting with fifty-three Comforças delegates in the Northern region of BH.25 He spoke openly of the PT administration’s naivete in the first years of the OP in thinking they would be able to implement one year’s priority projects (171 in the first year) before the next year’s priorities were voted on (adding 166 additional projects). Worse still, he argued, this naivete had created high expectations and hopes among BH’s population and, particularly, among OP delegates. These high expectations were destined to be frustrated . . . and to be taken advantage of by opponents. He explained that the mayor’s office had had to learn the hard way just how inefficient the process of civil construction in BH was, how difficult it was to control an administrative apparatus filled with public servants more loyal to previous incumbents (and future claimants) than to the current administration, and how difficult it was to pay for all government operations when the ailing economy and federal and state economic policies were draining the municipal government’s coffers of the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars annually.26 Nevertheless, Luís Henrique assured the delegates that “A prioritized OP project is sacred to the administration of Belo Horizonte” and that the vast majority of OP-prioritized obras had either already been completed or were in the process of construction. He explained, however, that some delays were inevitable and had nothing to do with administrative inefficiencies or financial problems. There were, for example, five or six priority obras from the first OP that were still unfinished due to either legal problems or the technical infeasibility of the project (BH was then in the midst of its sixth OP). Luís Henrique finished his talk to the delegates by telling them that the administration realized that the Northern region, being the farthest from the downtown, was the region most in need of basic infrastructure; but that in six years, the equivalent of 130 million dollars in OP funds had been spent in the region, one-third of it on basic infrastructure for the region’s favelas. The OP was working, he argued, and delegates needed to understand the delays as lamentable but inevitable. Even more important, they needed to pass that information on to fellow residents in their neighborhoods because, that too, was part of their responsibility as OP delegates. When Luís Henrique opened the floor for discussion, delegates immediately began asking about the progress (or lack thereof ) of specific projects in

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their own neighborhoods. There was very little comment on his explanation of the administration’s administrative and economic problems or on how they might effectively communicate this information to their neighbors. Within minutes, many people were speaking at once, interrupting each other, and shouting to be heard above the rest. Some repeatedly came back to the same question they had asked earlier, perhaps hoping that, this time, the answer from Luís Henrique or one of the other representatives of the administration and regional administration on hand for the meeting would be more to their liking.27 I was reminded of Dona Suelí’s comment earlier in the day: that in the eyes of most Brazilians, technical talk is, at root, just a means to cover up and fool people (enrolação and engano); that, in fact, everything is in one way or another a political power play (um jogo de poder).28 In an earlier conversation with then-vice mayor of Betim, Jésus Lima, he explained to me that generations of clientelistic politics had created an enduring political culture wherein people focused on local government purely as the source of politically derived obras and other “favors.”29 As a result of this vision of the nature of local politics, he explained, many had come to see their participation in the OP as the means of showing the requisite support for the administration “in exchange” for their preferred obra. Many participants of this type subsequently became disenchanted with the OP when they discovered that it did not fit into this traditional pattern of clientelistic exchange. Lima also argued that some dropped out as the next election approached because they didn’t want their participation to be seen as support for the PT and then be “punished” by the next administration if the PT were to lose. Finally, Lima suggested that many others dropped out when they did actually receive their obras. I heard observations such as these from many subsequent interviewees over the years. The participation of such delegates is thereby revealed to be purely instrumental in nature. For such participants, there has been little if any empowerment. For them, the OP is just another arena of clientelistic exchange: they give their political support in the form of participating in the administration’s OP (not their OP) in exchange for government-distributed obras. If one’s obras don’t come, why show support? By the same token, if one’s obra is passed or completed, the political exchange is complete. Clients feel free to withdraw their support (i.e. participation in the OP), to return to their private spaces and apolitical micro-communities, and to wait for the next offer from above. The nearby town of João Monlevade, Minas Gerais, administered by the PT from 1989 to 1992, offered a perfect illustration of the challenges of confronting this deep-seated clientelistic culture with the OP and other OP-like


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participatory processes. As in Betim and BH, João Monlevade’s OP process resulted in a significant distribution of attention and resources to the town’s poorest and most neglected neighborhoods. Yet, it was precisely in those neighborhoods where the party lost by the biggest margins in its bid for reelection. In the outlying shanty town neighborhood of Novo Cruzeiro, for example, OP-directed resources constructed an elementary school and a fully staffed and supplied local health post, paved roads, added street lighting, water and sewer systems, and municipal bus service. Several-hundred local residents participated in annual OP meetings with administration officials, oftentimes including the mayor. Yet, when the 1992 elections arrived, only 31.6 percent of the neighborhood’s voters voted for the PT, while 68.4 percent voted for the conservative opposition candidate, an old-time politician who had twice been mayor with the pro-military party during the dictatorship.30 One Novo Cruzeiro resident and former OP neighborhood representative explained the PT’s loss in the following terms: [Administration officials] should not have said that the OP priorities would be done by “time X”. The people wait, “time X” passes, and they start to get demoralized: “They said they would do this, but the money’s not there.” In fact, eventually, the money came and they did get things done. But people had to wait. They felt that the government should have attended them personally and much sooner. This was the case even for PT supporters. This is what made Laércio [the PT’s candidate] lose. Bio [the victorious candidate] always attends people individually. He’ll also give stuff to people in his party and avoid known PT supporters. The PT attended people generally, without discrimination. It didn’t matter if you were not a PT member or supporter. Bio, no. Things only go to his supporters. Also there was the campaign of Dona Zarifa [Bio’s wife] distributing baskets of food, powdered milk (and our water’s not even fit for drinking!), and old cooking oil. She has 1,500 god children all over the city. She distributes soup every Thursday, but PT supporters don’t get any.31 Betim’s Lima and others with whom I spoke had come to understand that battling such a deep-seated culture of clientelism was an effort that would take many years, perhaps decades or generations. In 1996, as candidate for mayor, he clearly felt that the effort was worth the hoped-for end results. As mayor, two-and-a-half years later, however, he wasn’t so sure. Locked in a public battle with a hostile majority in the city council and their supporters among the city’s economic and social elites, feeling the effects of diminishing

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revenues, and facing an election only eighteen months away, Lima felt that the OP had turned into a public arena for a relative handful of opponents, and even members of his own party, to criticize his administration’s “inefficiency.”32 Some members of his party publically argued that when delegates push the administration to complete the delayed projects, they are practicing precisely the sort of critical citizenship that the OP had been devised to foster, as long as they do so with the understanding that the administration is openly discussing those delays in the context of the very real economic and political problems of the city.33 The problem, Lima came to feel, was that this “understanding” was chronically lacking; all that was left was the politically damaging criticism. And while the OP may be able to change delegates’ understanding in the long run, Lima had a very real short-run concern: getting himself and his party reelected in upcoming elections. Like so many other PT administrators, Lima was caught in the struggle between two competing political logics: the logic of his party’s ideology (popular participation, empowerment, administrative transparency, etc.), and the logic of electoral politics (including the construction of popular public works projects and demonstrated administrative efficiency).34 Ideology is fundamental to the very identity of the PT as a progressive party of the Left; it functions as the ideational glue for holding together its many different factions and currents. The party must have a “transformative project” that envisions an eventual transformation of the status quo into a more socially just (i.e. egalitarian) future, or it will lose the allegiance of many of its most expressive leaders and active membership. Thus, one of the PT’s council members in Betim could praise OP delegates for their critical attitude vis-à-vis mayor Lima’s administration, at the same time praising the success of the party’s project. On the other hand, electoral logic is fundamental to the survival of the party in the actual conditions of contemporary Brazilian democratic politics. Criticizing the administration can easily translate into self-defeating infighting and fewer votes in the next election, and ultimately, to the elimination of the party’s project-in-practice. Ultimately, Betim’s mayor Lima attempted a compromise between the two competing logics. As we saw in chapter five, in both 1997 and 1998, he had reduced the scope of the OP to one of finishing as-yet unfinished neighborhood and regional projects from previous OPs. Meanwhile, he invested in a huge “showcase” citywide public works project, one that had been prioritized in disjointed parts in OP budgets of the past, but never envisioned or implemented in an integrated manner. He negotiated with the city council for a more limited increase in their budget than they requested, but much more than the Conselho Municipal do Orçamento Participativo


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(CMOP) delegates had wanted, and accepted a reduced amount of discretionary spending capacity for his own office. All of these actions can be interpreted as a bow on Lima’s part to what he felt to be the necessity of electoral logic (and of the practical need for negotiating compromises to avoid policy gridlock). In the requisite compensatory bow to ideology, he promised that the next year’s OP would include an entirely new series of themespecific plenary sessions (plenárias temáticas) to discuss and weigh in on all aspects of the municipal administration, not just public works. In a nutshell, the idea was to increase the coverage and scope of popular participation in the municipal administration (“diversification”), thereby increasing the number of people potentially interested in participating; in the words of one administrator in Betim, “to discuss the entire city rather than just public works projects.”35 At the same time, in hopes of reaching those with few or no direct ties to the city (and also pleasing leaders and members of grassroots organizations within the PT), Lima spoke of organizing all of Betim’s 4,000 or so city blocks and having regional administration officials call periodic block-by-block meetings to discuss specific themes of local-level interest such as health care services, school facilities, public security, etc.36 Nearby BH confronted the problem of stagnant OP participation (OP 1997) then declining participation (OP 1998) in a significantly different manner. As in Betim under mayor Maria do Carmo, the PT administration of Patrus Ananias had initially allowed only a relatively small percentage of the municipal budget to be discussed under the OP (essentially divided into nine regional OPs and loosely coordinated by mayor’s office). Meanwhile, the mayor’s office retained a sizeable fund for public works projects of its own determination. The logic of this initial compromise was explained to me by Luíz Soares Dulci, then-Chief of Staff of BH: Many people don’t participate when called upon to do so. When they do get involved, they’re dealing with a lot of complex information, and things go pretty slow. It was the first time something like this was being done in Belo Horizonte, and the people needed to learn about the technical issues. They needed time to learn. Having learned from prior experiences of PT-administered OPs in other cities, we have tried to avoid the problem of popular participation conflicting with administrative efficiency. What we’re trying to do is to project an image of competence. So, for example, maintenance costs for the city, small works, services, etc.—these are not subordinated to the OP process. Also big citywide public works projects are up to the administration to decide. We discussed all of this in the first OP: the city has

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accumulated a quantity of backed-up projects. These are obvious to everyone. To submit them to the OP would be mere formalism. [. . .] Here we won on a platform which included specific projects identified during the campaign. These have to be attended to. All of this was well-received in the OPs.37 Decisions in 1995 to create and fund an entirely separate OP for public housing (OP Habitação), and then to stabilize funding for the two OPs in 1996, bucked up against the city’s harsh economic realities of 1997. Beset by a national context of economic recession and by the federal and state governments’ reduction of resources to “wealthy” municipalities, the Célio de Castro administration felt compelled to drastically cut funding for the OP 1998 by 41 percent compared to the previous year (from R$26,948,339 to R$15,974,186); as a result, only 68 projects were able to be prioritized, down 32 percent from the previous year’s 100 prioritized projects.38 Meanwhile, effective participation in the OP 1998 dropped to just 11,871 down 34 percent from the previous year’s 17,937 participants. Unlike the “retrenchment” that occurred in Betim’s OP at this time, however, Castro found a way to bring funding for BH’s OP back to its previous levels; and by making the process biennial rather than annual, delegates for the two-year OP 1999–2000 found themselves deciding on R$60,208,600 worth of project spending (ultimately translating into 124 prioritized projects).39 Despite some complicated and partially disempowering technical changes in the OP process that year (1998),40 effective participation in the OP 1999–2000 rebounded by 38 percent to 16,325. Two years later, with the budget allocation of the OP 2001–2002 up 16 percent to R$69,917,000 (ultimately translating into 133 prioritized projects), effective participation rose by an impressive 92 percent to 31,369. In Betim, by contrast, “retrenchment” of the OP budget precluded the prioritization of new projects, and effective participation continued to fall.41 In the end, these results should not be all that surprising. When and where the OP budget increased, the likelihood that individual delegate’s priority projects might be approved also increased. Accordingly, participation became more “rational” and rebounded accordingly. The implication of this comparison between Betim and BH is clear: participation in the OP is directly related to the efficacy of that participation.42 Declining participation occurs not because the OP is inherently impractical, or because participants “discover” that it is a mere facade for partisan propagandizing (as critics charged), but because declining OP resources translate into reduced possibilities of delegates passing their desired obras. Increasing the


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resources increases the efficacy of participation, and that increases actual participation. The third and final response by proponents of the OP to the critique that OP participation is “minuscule” and/or declining (and, therefore, that the OP is fundamentally flawed) is a recognition that many OP delegates/ activists eventually grow tired of participating, but that the process itself provides a means for replacements to be recruited. Examples of OP delegates leaving the OP because they are “tired” are not difficult to find. Neither are they difficult to understand. In the words of BH OP delegate for Vila São Francisco, Adeja Anira dos Santos Rodrigues: “People think, ‘You go there and you vote.’ But the thing is more involved than that. You have to go to meetings all week long, Sunday, vacations. Delegates have to think about that.”43 OP administrators and PT activists have even invented their own word for this idea of participating in meeting after meeting, day after day, week after week: reunismo (directly translated as “meetingism”). It can be very tiring even to the most dedicated political activist. Former four-time OP delegate in Bairro Jardim Santa Cruz in Betim, Eliane Alves de Oliveira, is an example: The OP is like a social movement, alongside that of the church and the local community day care center [of which, she was the Director]. I was everywhere, wherever they called me to be. I was participating. In the past, we were mobilizing thirty or forty people to go to the government. But there came a time, when there were only ten of us. So many meetings! I was putting my family aside. So I said, “Now it’s over. I need space too.” It’s time for others to take over. I could be together with Iracema [a neighbor and active OP delegate]. But then I’d have to take a day to go to meetings far away. Then it’s two or three days to be working with the church. Then in the day care center, there are always several meetings. . . . It’s a lot of things to be participating in. So I’m not getting involved these days. I didn’t participate in the OP this year.44 In discussing her withdrawal from the OP, however, Dona Eliane touches upon an important argument for the future of the OP (one that OP proponents are quick to point out): “It’s time for others to take over.” As long as participation is seen as worthwhile, as long as it is perceived to provide positive results—not only in terms of OP obras constructed but also in terms of giving an efficacious political voice to those who want it—a significant number of new participants can be expected to step up to the plate. Remember, for example, from chapter six that 49.6 percent of Betim’s 1998

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OP delegates, and 54.5 percent of BH’s, were first-time participants. While most do not stay past the first year, it’s also true that some do. And they eventually take their place among the ranks of “veteran” OP participants. The fact that the OP can and does become a means for OP administrators and current local-level OP activists to recruit new activists—to “pass on the torch” as it were—constitutes yet another argument for proponents of the OP. Because, in the words of Dalba D. dos Santos, OP delegate and neighborhood activist from Vila Santa Maria in Belo Horizonte, “leaders are always called in by other leaders.”45 Without the OP, the only “leaders” doing the calling would be those acting within the same traditional clientelistic institutions that have largely brought Brazilian democracy to the low point where it is today. Finally, it’s important to point out that while some older activists do eventually become tired of their participation in the OP and elsewhere, other older activists seem never to get tired at all. They almost literally live to be involved in community affairs. The neighbor whom Dona Eliane spoke of, Iracema de Fátima Costa Souza, is an example: A few days ago, my husband turned to me and said, “Forget about those meetings with that group over there. You should be tired of those meetings. Because other people aren’t participating anymore. They send invitations, the Regional Administration sends out invitations and not even the neighborhood delegates go anymore.” That’s what he said. . . . But I got involved in all this not for myself. I think it was for Betim. I think we have to fight, even after we’ve received everything we need, we have to fight for the others. And I want to keep going, at least for another two years of the OP. God willing, I’m going to keep going for at least the next two years. I think it’s a responsibility; it’s like a commitment that we have. I committed myself to following up on all of this, and I’m doing what I can to fulfill that commitment.46 Dona Eliane’s and Dona Iracema’s neighbor, three-time OP delegate and three-time president of their neighborhood association of Jardim Santa Cruz, José Alfonso da Silva, offered a similar sentiment: There’s always an excuse for others not to participate. So what happens? You work by yourself. I work by myself! It’s constant work. I have to set aside my house, my work. I don’t go halfway. I may get there alone, but I’ll get there. If someone wants to accompany me, they can. Whatever meeting they call me to, I’m one of the first to arrive.47


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In sum, declining participation in the OP in 1997 and 1998 signaled a real problem for OP administrators. Rightly or wrongly, feeling that OP-inspired projects tended to take much longer to finish than necessary, many city residents and OP delegates dropped out of the process in frustration. This perception of unnecessary delays was fueled by criticisms from opposition politicians and their supporters. OP administrators countered that the delays were not explained by the inherent unworkability of the OP, or administrative incompetence, or insufficient political interest, but by an understandable albeit lamentable combination of unrealistic initial expectations, natural administrative/bureaucratic difficulties, externally imposed economic belt-tightening and a deep-seated clientelistic political culture (the latter further contributing to declining participation by driving delegates to drop out as soon as “their” obra was passed). The “problem of misperception” among delegates and the general public presented OP administrators with a difficult dilemma: continue with the ideologically rooted logic that inspired the OP in the first place, or focus more on the electoral logic of upcoming political campaigns. Betim’s Mayor Lima responded to this dilemma by downplaying ideology in favor of what he hoped would be a more electorally favorable “image of competence” (or what Lima’s critics within the PT called a reversion to obrismo or large-scale pork barrel spending). In BH, by contrast, Mayor Célio de Castro only slightly relaxed the ideology by changing the voting rules to give greater weight to administratively derived technical/ political considerations, but then actually increased the OP’s funding. Both cities subsequently “diversified” their OPs by opening more areas of the city budget to substantive public discussion and participation. Therefore, rather than respond to the challenges of disengagement, clientelism, and participant fatigue by retreating from their commitment to Participatory Democracy, OP administrators in both cities reaffirmed that commitment by opening up new arenas of popular participation (“diversification”) in order to attract a broader range of potential participants and to keep existing participants active. But because BH’s diversification included more funding of its new OP processes, participation rebounded. Conversely, because Betim’s diversification did not include enhanced funding, participation levels continued to decline. The ultimate key to explaining fluctuations of participation in the OP, therefore, was the amount of resources dedicated to the process. People participate when and where it’s worth their while to do so . . . which could be said for democracy in any of its incarnations. ●

Anti-OP Criticism #3: The OP is merely a disguised form of party activism and recruitment for the PT (“partisanization”).

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A third type of criticism of the OP comes from those who dismiss it as disguised party propaganda and recruitment for the PT and its Leftist allies. We have already seen some of this “partisanization” critique in this chapter in previous comments by OP detractors—that the OP is merely a disguised effort to impose PT ideology or partisanship on many of its unwitting participants. In the following quote from Betim city council member, Paulo Mundim, we find a related argument, that the PT-led administration illegally (or, at least, unethically) uses the OP as a means to exclusively showcase its own candidates and allies: I condemn the fact that the administrative apparatus of the city is used in favor of their candidates, without giving space for other candidates. There’s a law against that sort of thing, but they’ve managed to get around it. She [then-mayor, Maria do Carmo] acts just like all those politicians that they condemn. The Left in power is the same as the Right.48 A third related “partisanization” criticism is that most full-time participants in the OP (e.g. delegates) are petistas and their allies on the Left. As such, the OP should be seen as a thinly disguised partisan front in which the PT and its allies use public institutions and personnel to distribute public funds for obras in their actual or hoped-for redutos eleitorais. These are serious criticisms. Given the generalized low level of interest and trust in party politics in Brazil (i.e. a big part of the problem of civic disengagement and Elitist Democracy), if the OP were to turn out to be “contaminated” by partisan politics, that might serve to dissuade continued or engaged participation in the OP and/or, even worse, to further alienate potential nonelite activists and citizens from democracy itself. It could, in other words, make the problems of civic disengagement and Elitist Democracy even worse. So how do these criticisms stand up to close analysis? The first component of the critique, that the OP is merely a disguised effort to impart PT ideology on its unwitting participants, is unfair at best and, at worst, constitutes a deliberate twisting of the facts. Proponents of the OP make no effort whatsoever to disguise the fact that they are trying to create a new way of thinking about and practicing democratic politics. Participants in the OP are told from day one that the basic idea behind the OP is their own empowerment, and that empowerment means changing the way they perceive their role in the game of politics from dependent actedupons (massa de manobra) to autonomous political actors. In a Sunday morning regional OP meeting of the downtown region of Betim, for example,


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Chief of Staff, José Osvaldo Perpétuo, told delegates that raising their social and political consciousness (conscientização) was a fundamental goal of Betim’s OP process, and that he was happy with the results so far: “Today the people of Betim aren’t the same as they once were. They know what a municipal budget is, and they know they have a right to participate in the process of its formulation. This can’t be taken away from them even if the government changes.”49 But while the goal of empowerment or conscientização was never hidden from OP delegates (and while this goal constituted a fundamental component of the PT’s ideological and programmatic development, as seen in chapter four), rarely if ever did I hear OP administrators refer to the OP as a “PT program.” I was actually surprised by this lack of explicit association between the OP and the party, and felt at the time that party leaders were losing out on an excellent opportunity to communicate the party’s program to a broader public.50 After all, at the national level of the party and in international academic and development circles, the OP had become something of a symbol of the PT’s new way of doing politics (a moda petista de governar). In BH, however, the local party organization apparently did not place that much importance on getting involved in the OP, at least not as a party strategy.51 OP administrator, Luís Henrique, told me in no uncertain terms that “the OP is not a PT project, or even a project of the Left. It’s a new mode of treating the public good with popular participation in order to generate responsibility and accountability. [. . .] You can even see OP-like processes in Recife, governed by the PFL, and in Aracajú and Juiz de Fora, both governed by the PMDB.”52 And in Betim, administration officials had been specifically instructed not to make associations between the OP and the PT during OP meetings and official conversations for fear of politicizing the process and turning off actual and potential OP delegates (and playing into the hands of the OP’s critics).53 In sum, based on my observations in Betim and BH (and confirming Abers’ observations of the Porto Alegre case),54 the OP clearly and unabashedly represents an attempt to “ideologize” its participants; it does not, however, for fear of delegitimizing the OP before potential and actual OP participants, attempt to “partisanize” this ideology by associating it exclusively with the PT.55 The counterargument could easily be made that explicit partisanization of the OP’s ideology is unnecessary since virtually everyone in Brazil knows that the OP is synonymous with the PT’s “mode of governance.” This argument would be hard to refute. There may be a handful of OP processes administered by non-PT administrations. But these are the exceptions. Even the OP in BH during the 1997–2000 administration of Célio de Castro (of the

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Leftist Partido Socialista Brasilciro—PSB) was administered almost entirely by PT activists and administrators from the previous PT administration of Patrus Ananias. The rule, then, is that the OP is a “PT thing.” PT administrators and politicians hope that its successful implementation will show voters that the PT governs in a completely different way compared to Brazil’s traditional political class. Once again, however, administrators recognize that the OP cannot in practice be perceived to function in a partisan manner, even as it represents a partisan ideology. Thus the explicit efforts to “departisanize” the OP, particularly by designing the process to function in a nonpartisan and democratic manner in which neither the administration nor the party can impose their own preferences on OP delegates (we will return to this argument later). The second component of the “partisanization” critique—that the PT-led administration illegally and/or unethically used the OP as a means to showcase its own candidates and allies—is, once again, unfair and a misrepresentation of the truth. Three of the opposition city council members in Betim with whom I spoke in 1996 had been invited to participate in the OP and had either chosen not to, or had dropped out fairly quickly. Later they became such fierce critics of the OP that they couldn’t have possibly been well-received by OP delegates; in other words, they excluded themselves from participation. A fourth opposition member of the city council, Geraldo Trinidad, was an active participant in those OP meetings that took place in neighborhoods considered to be his redutos eleitorais. In one such meeting in the region of Icaivari which I attended in 1996, he took the opportunity to parade the local soccer team in front of the delegates, all decked out in their brand new uniforms which he had bought for them.56 Trinidad praised the OP, associating his name with the beneficial projects it had brought to the neighborhood. But he was no supporter of the administration or the PT, and he made that clear to delegates as well. Nonetheless, according to administration officials, because Trinidad wanted to participate, he was welcome to participate as well as to speak to the assembled delegates as one of their legitimate political representatives. Finally, of the three city council members in Betim who had begun their political careers as OP delegates, only one was a member of the PT.57 And although the local PT party was not happy with that fact, it does help to illustrate the openness of the OP to all political parties and currents. In the case of BH, several city council members indirectly participated in the OP by openly using their local-level political machines to mobilize participation in the hope of winning obras that could then be linked to their own names (others allegedly used the opportunity to disrupt meetings and


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criticize the administration, although I never found concrete evidence to support this allegation). Such indirect participation was clearly an advance compared to the time in 1995 when supporters of another BH city council member had tried to appropriate a soon-to-be-inaugurated OP project as the work of their patrón by putting up a large banner thanking him for “his” obra. OP delegates and neighborhood leaders tore down the banner and publically burned it on the day of the official inauguration.58 Since then, relations between both the PT-led and the PSB-led administrations, on the one hand, and BH’s city council, on the other, have been far less contentious than those in Betim. In sum, my observations in Betim and BH led me to conclude that the direct and indirect participation of non-PT politicians in the OP process negate the criticism that the PT uses the OP as a means to exclusively showcase its own candidates and allies. If any cases of exclusion did, in fact, exist, they were far more likely to be the self-exclusion of those who, for whatever reason, rejected the OP and therefore chose not to present themselves before its delegates. Let us now examine the third and final component of the critique of the OP’s “partisanization:” that since most full-time participants in the OP (e.g. delegates) are allegedly petistas and their allies on the Left, the OP should be seen as a thinly disguised partisan front in which the PT and its allies use public institutions and personnel to distribute public funds for obras in their actual or hoped-for redutos eleitorais. Let’s begin by analyzing the second part of the critique. Democratic politics in the trenches, so to speak, is about getting elected and, once elected, about staying elected. This is the essence of the aforementioned “electoral logic.” No politician or political party can completely ignore it and still hope to gain or retain office. Therefore, all politicians in some fashion or another design and target State-provided programs and public policies in an attempt to retain the support of their electors, and to win new ones. To criticize that is disingenuous at best and hypocritical at worst. However, if the critique comes from those who necessarily do the same thing, but who do so using clientelistic techniques that demonstrably demobilize and disempower nonelite members of a highly unequal society (such as Brazil), then the critique needs to be seen as a deliberate and cynical attempt to undermine a potentially emancipatory political project by smearing it with the image of the very political tradition it is designed to abolish. Such a critique ignores the fact that the institutional design of the OP process more-or-less forces delegates to be active participants, not passive recipients. They vote on the projects that will and will not be constructed. Prior to

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voting, they participate in oftentimes heated debates on the pros and cons of each project, and they regularly negotiate (sometimes even fight) among themselves. The administration cannot simply “distribute public funds” in this process because it is the delegates who ultimately decide what projects will be constructed as well as where they will be constructed. Having said that, it is important to recognize that the hand of the administration, and even that of the PT, are by no means invisible in the OP process. Recall, for example, the “guided participation” of the OP neighborhood meeting in Bairro Betim Industrial (chapter five) where the president of the local neighborhood association, an active member of the PT (and a future member of the administration) conducted much of the meeting. All OP administrators in Betim and BH were either petistas or members of smaller Leftist parties allied with the PT. Again, this is to be expected: any government fills its top administrative positions with loyal supporters. In addition, a number of PT administrators told me that the OP serves a useful purpose in providing them with an arena to inform a vital public of community leaders and opinion makers of the administration’s goals and accomplishments in office. This is important, they say, given the almost universal opposition of the mass media to PT administrations, as well as the party’s programmatic disdain for spending public resources on paid media campaigns (a common practice in Brazil, not only to “sell” the administration, but to “buy” the media). If information is power, then the administrations are certainly making “political” use of the OP. However, I have to say that I never saw any cases where OP administrators deliberately manipulated OP negotiations or OP delegates’ voting results in order to benefit their redutos eleitorais. On the contrary, recalling my earlier argument, I saw great care taken to insure that the process would not be delegitimized by such overt “partisanization.” More often, I saw rules implanted that insured the opposite of partisanization: a fairer process of democratic negotiation and decision-making among OP delegates. The following example, from Rogério Pereira de Araujo, OP delegate and neighborhood activist in Bairro Nossa Senhora dos Passos in BH, is a case in point: During the OP, one urbanization proposal was to be evenly divided between Vila Pedreira [an adjoining neighborhood] and us, one million Reais each. But there were twenty-four proposals, and we could approve only fourteen. We had to give up something. We visited each project and saw the needs of each one. The problem is that Vila Pedreira is extremely organized—they have their own little neighborhood newspaper and everything—and they’re not accustomed to compromise. When it comes


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to the time of making a decision, they vote only for their own proposals, even if they promised otherwise in negotiations with other neighborhoods. This becomes clear only after the final vote, and after others have faithfully supported them with their votes. This year, however, the administration organized things differently at the Regional Forum. We were divided up into five different groups, and Pedreira couldn’t coordinate their actions. They still got their number one proposal passed because they continued to vote exclusively for their own proposals. And they reneged on a negotiated agreement with Santa Maria neighborhood too. But now we’re onto them. In our negotiations with other neighborhoods, we decided to divide up our proposal, keeping only 600,000 for our Vila and 700,000 for Pedreira. The rest we passed on to proposals benefitting Santa Maria. And we were faithful to these negotiations. Pedreira voted only for their priorities. They could care less about the rest of us. But the combination of votes from the participants in our negotiations meant more resources going to where they were really needed: to Santa Maria, which got three of its proposals passed. And we got two of our’s passed: a neighborhood health post and a reduced part of the urbanization project to open up some of our narrowest and most dangerous streets.59 Even the aforementioned controversial change in the voting rules for BH’s OP 1999–2000 were defended by OP administrators in terms of providing greater fairness to the process—providing a helping hand to needy but less-organized neighborhoods. Now let’s turn to the first part of the “partisanization” critique which states that most OP delegates are petistas or their Leftist allies. In their analysis of the third OP in BH in 1994, Somarriba and Dulci refuted such arguments with their finding that most OP participants were not members of the PT or any other political party.60 They concluded that the great majority of OP delegates were, in fact, “apolitical.” My own findings from my survey of the sixth OPs in BH and Betim must be interpreted as substantially qualifying this argument.61 First, it is true that most OP participants were not members of the PT or any other party: only 23.5 percent of BH’s delegates, and only 39.3 percent of Betim’s, were members of a political party. However, by including lesser degrees of participation and interest in party politics other than the most extreme expression of party membership, and by looking at their evolution over time, we see a story of a more politically engaged set of delegates than Somarriba and Dulci’s data suggest. Recalling my own data presented in chapter six, we can see just how

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problematic Somarriba and Dulci’s argument is: ●

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BH delegates show relatively low pre-OP and time-of-survey indices in party membership (18.9 and 23.5 percent, respectively), party militancy (9.2 and 10.2 percent) and candidate militancy (5.9 and 8.6 percent), and moderate indices of party sympathy (25.8 and 27.9 percent) and interested non-partisanship (15 and 17.3 percent). These are combined with relatively high indices of disinterested voting (38.8 and 34.5 percent) and even a few isolated cases of disinterested non-voting (3.8 and 2.9 percent). Betim delegates, on the other hand, show relatively high pre-OP and time-of-survey indices in party membership (28.8 and 39.3 percent, respectively), party militancy (15.3 and 23.3 percent), and party sympathy (47.9 percent in both periods), and moderate indices of candidate militancy (9.2 and 11.7 percent) and interested non-partisanship (11 percent in both periods). These results are reflected in the moderate indices of disinterested voters (22.1 and 14.1 percent), and in the fact that none of Betim’s delegates claimed to be disinterested in party politics to the point of never voting. Slightly more than half of the delegates in BH (57.4 percent) and an overwhelming 77.9 percent of Betim’s delegates were active in political society prior to their OP experience. Roughly one in five previously inactive BH delegates became more active in party politics subsequent to their participation in the OP, while the corresponding number in Betim was roughly two out of five.

Clearly, OP delegates in Betim and BH were much more involved in party politics than Somarriba and Dulci, and other OP defenders, have suggested. But was this engagement in party politics exclusively or primarily within the PT? Figures 7.2 and 7.3 show the different parties of the delegates who claimed party membership and “sympathy” (keeping in mind that not all delegates volunteered this information). Figure 7.2 shows that among the minority of OP delegates who indicated party membership, 43 percent in BH and an overwhelming 89 percent in Betim were members of the PT. No other political party came close in either case. Figure 7.3 shows that of those delegates who indicated that they sympathized with one party more than any other, 67 percent of BH’s delegates and 88 percent of Betim’s delegates indicated that they sympathized with the PT.62 Again, in neither case did any other party come close. These data on party identification provide a certain amount of support for the OP’s critics by pointing to a possible


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90.00

% of Respondents

80.00 70.00 60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00

PF PF

L PM N O th er s

PP S

BH (197)

S

PT B PS D B PT N PS C

PL

PS B PD T PS D PM D B

PT PC dB

0.00

Betim (78)

Figure 7.2 Parties of Declared Members (%) (1998).

90.00

% of Respondents

80.00 70.00 60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00

BH (256)

L

C

N th er s O

PM

PP

PS

D B PT N

PT B

PS

B

PL

PM D

T

B

PS D

PD

PS

PT PC dB

0.00

Betim (92)

Figure 7.3 Parties of Declared “Sympathizers” (1998).

“partisanization” among a significant minority of OP delegates. Critics’ arguments about an “overwhelming presence” of petistas within the OP process may be overblown. But their concern about the party’s undue influence cannot be entirely discounted.

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Once again, however, we need to consider the argument that the design of the OP process itself (i.e. open information, debates, negotiations, voting) deliberately impedes the administration from “distributing benefits” to its supporters as it sees fit. Sensitivity to the criticism of politicization serves the same purpose. I also pointed out earlier that the local parties in BH and Betim did not adopt the OP as an arena of party recruitment, partly for fear of politicizing the OP and partly because they had determined that it was a dry well. It would seem, therefore, that the reason one finds so many petistas involved in the OP is because they have individually determined that it is worth their while to participate. Many of those involved come with a life history of participation in various social movements and in the progressive wing of the Catholic Church that preached and practiced grassroots social/political activism during the dictatorship and the first years of the democratic transition. It makes sense that those who strongly believe in the efficacy and importance of non-clientelistic grassroots organizing would be the ones most likely to take advantage of an instrument of public administration that places a high premium on autonomous grassroots organization and participation. It hardly seems surprising that these are the same individuals that identify with the PT and the Left: the only political force that values non-clientelistic grassroots politics. Put the two together and you get a party project that naturally provides a means for these individuals to remain active on behalf of their communities and organizations; and one that provides them with another incentive (community obras) they can use to convince neighbors and colleagues that it is also worth their while to become more organized and mobilized outside the traditional channels of clientelism. So there is some truth in the “politicization” critique in that there does exist a natural affinity between the PT-created OP, on the one hand, and the ideals and beliefs of PT activists and sympathizers, on the other. It would be hard to conceive of this relationship in any other way. Of course, those who share the same ideology as party leaders are going to: one, identify with the party and, two, identify with the party’s ideology-induced flagship program. Having said that, however, it is still true that the perceived “contamination” of the OP by partisan politics could serve to dissuade continued or engaged participation in the OP and/or, even worse, to turn off potential nonelite activists and citizens. If people perceive the OP to be nothing but a “PT thing,” then they will likely avoid it in the same way that they tend to avoid anything and everything having to do with party politics. There would appear to be some of this perception present in the cases of Betim and BH, as a number of written comments on the surveys specifically decried such partisan intrusion. Still, this number of comments was quite small and


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nowhere near the number of those who decried the delays in constructing OP-approved obras. As we will see in the next section, all delegates—not just petista delegates—also tended to give the OP administrators high marks for their work. This would be an unlikely outcome if the partisanization critique were widespread among them. ●

Anti-OP Criticism #4: Most “common” people don’t know how, and can’t know how, to participate in important political discussions and decisions (nonelites are incapable of serious political decision-making) and are, therefore, subject to manipulation by OP administrators.

The fourth and final criticism of the OP that I will discuss stems from charges that the whole OP process is chaotic and inefficient (uma bagunça), with too many disorganized and/or conflict-laden meetings. This criticism is a variant of the aforementioned “ungovernability” or “overload” thesis expressed by conservative democratic theorists in which modern mass democracies are criticized for allowing too much “undisciplined” participation, especially in the realm of civil society, ultimately leading to a breakdown in governability.63 Even among OP participants, one hears complaints about long and boring meetings, with too much time devoted to longwinded bureaucrats, seemingly pointless speeches by show off delegates, and other delegates’ relentless public pursuit of personal interests (e.g. “You haven’t paved my street yet!”).64 Similarly, the resulting projects are often criticized by the technically trained for not being rationally integrated into an overall plan for the future. Finally, as we have seen, partisan critics often echo the criticisms of many OP delegates themselves by pointing out the “unnecessarily long time” it takes for OP-generated projects to be completed. In a word, the process is criticized for being too conflictual and inefficient to be worth the effort. A companion criticism—rarely expressed in public however—is that OP delegates, coming as they do from the ranks of average Brazilian citizens, are too uneducated, inexperienced, and/or self-centered to participate effectively in something as important as deciding upon the priorities of even a small portion of a city’s budget. According to an extreme version of this view, delegates often end up being manipulated by administration officials who then legitimate the predetermined outcome by calling it “the voice of popular participation.” These criticisms come together in the following quote from our, by now, familiar OP critic, Betim city council member, Paulo Mundim: The mayor brings a ready-made package of proposals to the population. OP delegates don’t understand the nature or origins of these proposals,

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and they don’t realize that they are being manipulated. [. . .] The population should participate, but in a more technical mode, not involving politics. For example, let’s go to a neighborhood and ask them what they want, then let’s discuss with them if we can actually do what they ask for. All of this should be done independently of other neighborhoods in the vicinity. As it stands today, we have neighborhoods fighting each other over OP resources, and that’s not the right way of doing things.65

OP supporters counter these criticisms by stating that “politics” among multiple neighborhoods’ participants—necessarily entailing noisy and “messy” disagreements but also entailing negotiated settlements and compromises—is precisely the kind of popular participation that leads to greater levels of empowerment, community consciousness, and democratic learning.66 Democratic politics is necessarily full of rule-bound conflict, debates, negotiations, compromise, winning, losing, and the like— again, precisely the sort of thing found in the OP. As discussed in chapter six, the OP is presented by its proponents as an important school of democracy for those unaccustomed to being autonomous and empowered citizens.67 OP proponents are correct in arguing that the myth of efficiency so often associated with “modern” autocratic and technocratic leadership styles is debunked on a daily basis in Brazil and elsewhere in the world as the news media reveal scandal upon scandal rooted in the lack of democratic accountability and procedural “transparency” in government. Administrative efficiency requires respect for basic laws and other rules of the game. In an elitist political world with very little accountability, a great deal of impunity and an obvious disregard for the needs of the majority, the concept of administrative efficiency has historically served as nothing but a smoke screen for keeping the public out of public administration. OP proponents argue that it’s time for a new concept of democratic efficiency. Indeed, they argue, the best way to “reform the State” (a concept constantly on the lips of neoliberals as well as many within the mainstream development community) is not to dismantle the State, thereby unleashing a flurry of self-seeking and rent-seeking behavior, but to democratize the State by setting up participatory instruments of nonelite empowerment and public accountability.68 This, they argue, is exactly what the OP and other OPlike participatory processes do. Indeed, in the case of Porto Alegre, Abers illustrates how “the participatory budget increased governability” by establishing a single process with unified rules and criteria through which all of


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the Administration’s spending proposals and decisions had to pass: “These conclusions counter the expectations of many analysts who suggest that governments seeking to prove their administrative competence can rarely ‘afford’ to allow important decisions to be made through slow and inefficient participatory forums. In Porto Alegre, the government used participatory policy to increase its control over the governing process.”69 Not that the OP in practice is a Utopia of democratic public administration. Problems certainly exist, and even the most devoted OP supporters admit the worst of these: OP delegates from some neighborhoods who cut mutual support deals with other neighborhoods then back out on their promises at the last minute, other delegates purportedly in the employment of opposition city council members who purposely try to disrupt meetings and delegitimate the process, and neighborhood association leaders who pursue personal objectives in the name of community. Acknowledging such problems as evidence of the staying power of traditional practices and mentalities, however, OP proponents argue that the only long-term solution is civic education and citizen empowerment, “pluralizing” or diversifying democratic activism, and bringing important decision-making processes out into the public eye precisely through such participatory institutions and processes as the OP. But these participatory processes can only work their magic—not the “magic of the marketplace,” but the magic of democracy—if participants are willing and capable of taking their duties within them seriously and carrying them out accordingly. The critics are right to indicate this as a potentially problematic proposition. Can complicated information be condensed and otherwise made understandable to “common people”? In other words, are “common people” ready for the task of participatory democracy?70 OP administrators are convinced that most can (though not all), because they’ve seen it happen first hand. Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, Chief Administrator of BH’s OP, for example, argues that “capacitating” OP delegates, while difficult, is by no means impossible: Before they participate in the OP, people think that public funds are unlimited, and that the government can always do more if the funds are better utilized. [. . .] Those delegates who have participated in the Comforças and the CMOP have changed their ideas and they recognize the reality of the Administration’s empty coffers. Our technicians are able to pass on to these most active delegates complex information, methods and understanding of governmental and administrative processes. Of course, this can’t be done in one year. But in two or three years, it’s quite normal.71

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In the interests of capacitation, OP delegates in BH and Betim have been offered courses at Minas Gerais’ highly regarded school of public administration, the Fundação João Pinheiro. In addition, complex information and concepts are regularly simplified, summarized and distributed to OP delegates in the form of handouts and pamphlets, some in comic book format complete with cartoon characters and balloon-box dialog. OP administrators use popular language and expressions in their public meetings. Delegates who demonstrate an exceptional ability to understand the concepts and information, and to effectively communicate them to their fellow delegates, are encouraged to accept leadership roles in the OP process (e.g. in the CMOP and Comforças delegations). In fact, BH’s OP administrators were aware not only of the need to capacitate OP delegates, but of the equally pressing need to insure that such capacitation did not turn into co-optation and manipulation of the agenda of OP meetings and discussions. According to Wieland Silberschneider, Assistant Chief of Planning in BH, without capacitation, popular participation in the OP would certainly be a farce as delegates would be unaware of even the most basic knowledge necessary to inform their decisions; but even with capacitation, delegates are dependent upon the quality and objectivity of the instruction they receive.72 Silberschneider told me that he would have preferred that some neutral Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) provide the training that the administration of BH currently provided its OP delegates, but none had been found that was either capable or willing to carry out the task.73 Silberschneider hoped that CMOP delegates might someday build upon their current role as executors and overseers of OP construction projects and increasingly take on the task of capacitating future generations of OP delegates using their own on-the-job experience and knowledge. In the meantime, however, it was up to OP administrators themselves to exercise self-restraint in not allowing capacitation to become co-optation and manipulation: an imperfect, albeit unavoidable in the short-run, solution, according to Silberschneider (and one that we will take up again in chapter eight). What did the delegates themselves think about this capacitation process? Did they think their OP process was badly administered? Did they think they were being manipulated and/or given impossible-to-understand information? Did they think that their fellow delegates were acting responsibly? Data from my surveys in BH and Betim—summarized in figures 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6—suggest that the majority of delegates in these cases believed that their OPs were fairly well administered and that their fellow delegates acted quite responsibly. Figure 7.4 shows that 74.3 percent of Betim’s delegates


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judged the work of their city’s OP officials to be either “excellent” or “good,” while 59.6 percent of BH’s delegates felt the same about their OP officials. When asked to give their opinion on the administration’s explanation of delegates’ duties and responsibilities (figure 7.5), 62.6 percent of Betim’s delegates, and 65.6 percent of BH’s delegates, replied that the explanations were “very clear.” When asked to judge city officials’ presentations and explanations of the municipal budget and budgetary techniques (figure 7.6), 67.6 percent of Betim’s delegates answered that these explanations were “very clear,” while only 47.3 percent of BH’s delegates felt the same (representing the majority of answers, but not an absolute majority of delegates).74

% of Respondents

50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 Excellent

Good

OK

BH (1,068 Resps)

Bad

No Answer

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 7.4 Delegates Assess OP Administrators, 1998.

70.00

% of Respondents

60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00

Very Clear

Not Very Clear BH (1,068 Resps)

Not Done

No Answer

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 7.5 Delegates Assess Explanation of Duties, 1998.

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70.00

% of Respondents

60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00

Very Clear

Not Very Clear BH (1,068 Resps)

Not Done

No Answer

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 7.6 Delegates Assess Technical Training, 1998.

These supportive responses did not mean, however, that the two administrations were exempt from criticism. When delegates were asked for optional written commentary, the most oft-cited criticism—as discussed earlier—concerned the length of time it took for construction and improvement projects to be finished or, in some cases, to get started. Second in line was what many delegates felt to be the paucity of resources dedicated to the OP decision-making process. A more distant third place concerned criticisms of the intrusion of “politics” in the process, particularly the coalition-making (and breaking) behavior of some neighborhood delegations that traded ultimately false promises to vote for others’ projects in return for reciprocity. Figure 7.7 summarizes how Betim’s and BH’s delegates evaluated the seriousness of their colleagues’ participation in the OP. When asked to assess the seriousness and degree of interest exhibited by their fellow delegates, 68.5 percent of Betim’s delegates and 75.9 percent of those in BH stated that “All” or “Most” of their fellow delegates acted seriously and with interest. While references to “ill prepared,” “illiterate,” and “selfish” delegates can be found in written comments on a number of the questionnaires, these were far from the dominant opinion in either case. Overall, delegates believed that their colleagues’ participation in the OP was serious and thoughtful. Given that the OP is much more concerned with constructing political awareness and empowerment, rather than with the more standard concern with administrative efficiency, this set of responses is highly significant as it suggests a positive evaluation by delegates of their time spent in this “school of democracy.”75


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% of Respondents

50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 All

Many

Some

BH (1,068 Resps)

None

No Answer

Betim (222 Resps)

Figure 7.7 Delegates Assess Each Other, 1998.

In the end, it may be difficult to objectively argue one way or another on the question of whether or not OP delegates (in the majority, as we have seen, consisting of “common” or nonelite citizens) are capable of rationally taking part in, let alone fully understanding and rationally administering complicated administrative and political processes. Perhaps the answer must ultimately rest on the normative foundation of each one of us regarding the relative ability of “commoners” and “experts” to guide a given society. Is it that we don’t trust so-called human nature? If not, why should we trust the experts when they are just as human as the commoners? Is it that we don’t trust the commoners because they’re . . . common (the uneducated “unwashed masses,” as it were)? If not, then why support any kind of democracy at all? And might our own lack of trust belie our own class interests in protecting what we’ve got from those who have less and want more? Perhaps we don’t trust the uneducated. But given the, at least, potential power of numbers in the representative institutions currently existing, wouldn’t it be better to educate the uneducated in “schools of democracy” (not to mention decent public schools and preschools) rather than leave them unprepared for the temptations of demagogues, populists, and the purveyors of antipolitics and uncivil movements? I am reminded here of a justifiably famous quote from Thomas Jefferson: “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” As for the other question—whether or not OP administrators are effectively able to keep education or “capacitation” from becoming co-optation or manipulation—we have seen how OP administrators themselves were

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aware of the problem and tried to minimize it through an institutional design that would make such manipulation so delegitimizingly obvious as to be not worth the effort. That, in itself, offers some evidence of PT leaders’ and OP administrators’ honesty and commitment to an ideal that goes beyond mere partisan or power politics (an issue that we will take up again in chapter eight). In addition, Betim’s and BH’s OP delegates themselves— many of them politically conscious and active but by no means universally petista—appeared to feel, on the whole, that the processes were welladministered. Given the general atmosphere of skepticism and wariness about politics in Brazil, especially party politics, such a collective seal of approval offers one more piece of evidence against critics’ charges of the PT’s co-optation and manipulation of OP delegates. Conclusion We can now sum up the findings of this investigation into the major arguments made by the OP’s critics as illustrated by our two case studies. With respect to the first criticism, critics are right to argue that the OP is antagonistic to the legislative body (e.g. city council) and to existing representative organizations in civil society. They are wrong, however, to argue that such antagonism is either “unnecessary” or unconstitutional. It is true that city council members are regularly singled out by OP administrators and other administration officials as some of the worst abusers of the formal instruments of democracy for personal political and economic gain. That’s because city council members (members of legislative bodies in general) have historically been the carriers, so to speak, of Brazil’s clientelist traditions and practices. As such, they deserve to be singled out because they have regularly used their offices in ways that abuse the public trust. The same is true of many neighborhood associations preexisting the OP: they tend to represent the political interests of their sponsors on the city council or, at best, of the patronage-seeking leaders of the associations themselves, far more than the residents of the neighborhoods in which they are located. Together, city council members and neighborhood associations have constructed clientelistic political machines that have historically served to disempower and to demobilize the popular sectors as the latter find their avenues of legitimate representation always subordinate to the interests of one or another temporarily dominant elitist political machine and subject to the punishments of the losing machine. The OP acts as an instrument to impose accountability on both the city council and traditional neighborhood associations, and even on the administration itself. In effect, the OP acts as an extra check and


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balance on these more established institutions. Whatever political conflict that may ensue, should be seen as the result of enhanced opportunities for nonelite organization and representation. Collectivities of nonelite citizens organizing outside of, and against, long-existing elitist institutions should be seen as healthy for the process of democracy. The second criticism leveled against the OP turned on the allegedly minuscule and declining levels of participation in the process. Low and declining levels of participation in 1996 and 1997 “revealed” to critics the fundamental unpopularity and, therefore, the unrepresentativeness of OP processes and, ultimately, their wasteful Utopian and/or partisan nature. Measured relative to each city’s total population, participation levels in BH’s and Betim’s OPs were indeed low. But no one, let alone proponents of the OP in the late-1990s, expected participation levels to be very high in OP-like participatory processes, especially in a country like Brazil with such huge levels of poverty. The goal was to provide citizens—especially historically excluded and underrepresented nonelite citizens—who wanted to and could participate in public affairs (or who someday may have wanted to) with a wider range of possibilities of actually doing so, and of doing so in decisionmaking processes that they, themselves, had decided mattered to them. The OP and the numerous OP-like participatory processes also available in BH and Betim do exactly that: as forums of open and efficacious collective decision-making, they allow that most precious of democratic resources— social capital—to be put to productive use, further developed and even passed on to a small (but, arguably, not insignificant) number of those who might otherwise have never become politically active at all. In the final analysis, while participation rates may be small in global terms, the OP has allowed thousands of citizens, most of them nonelites, to more directly engage themselves in Brazil’s otherwise elitist democracy. In so doing, these citizens have diversified or pluralized political activism and public decisionmaking and, thereby, contributed (in an admittedly unmeasurable but nonetheless significant degree) to the democratization of Brazilian democracy itself. Criticisms of declining participation in the OP were ultimately shown to be premature, as were critics’ arguments purporting to explain those declines (e.g. the PT’s “inherent” incapacity to implement OP priorities in a reasonable time frame, delegates’ “discovery” that the OP was more about partisan propagandizing than either empowerment or public administration, the OP’s fatal incompatibility with clientelistic political culture, and the natural attrition of veteran participants who eventually get tired of participating). In fact, stagnant and declining rates of participation in the 1997 and 1998

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OPs of BH and Betim were shown to be due primarily to severely reduced OP revenues (therefore a reduction in the number of funded OP projects); these were rooted, in turn, in a deepening national recession and in a series of federal and state government policies aimed at reining in municipal fiscal autonomy. Thus, when BH’s OP received renewed funding in 1999/2000 and 2001/2002, participation rates increased accordingly. By the same token, when Betim’s OP budget was raided in favor of a large-scale public works project favored by the mayor, participation rates continued to fall. A third critique of the OP was its alleged “partisanization”—that it was essentially nothing more than “disguised party propaganda and recruitment” for the PT and its Leftist allies. The first component of this critique, that the OP is merely a disguised effort to impart PT ideology on its unwitting participants, is unfair at best and, at worst, constitutes a deliberate twisting of the facts. Proponents of the OP make no effort whatsoever to disguise the fact that they are trying to create a new way of thinking about and practicing democratic politics. But while the goal of empowerment or conscientização was never hidden from OP delegates, rarely if ever did I hear OP administrators refer to the OP as a “PT program.” OP administrators in BH and Betim recognized that the OP could not in practice be perceived to function in a partisan manner, even as it represents a partisan ideology. Thus, the explicit efforts to “departisanize” the OP, particularly by designing the process to function in a nonpartisan and democratic manner in which neither the administration nor the party can impose their own preferences on OP delegates. The second component of the “partisanization” critique—that the PT-led administration illegally uses the OP as a means to showcase its own candidates and allies—is also unfair and a misrepresentation of the truth. The direct and indirect participation of non-PT politicians in the OP process directly negates the criticism that the PT uses the OP as a means to exclusively showcase its own candidates and allies. If any cases of exclusion did, in fact, exist, they were far more likely to be the self-exclusion of those who, for whatever reason, rejected the OP and therefore chose not to present themselves before its delegates. The third component of the critique of the OP’s “partisanization” argued that most full-time participants in the OP were petistas and their allies on the Left thereby “revealing” that the OP is a thinly disguised partisan front in which the PT and its allies use public institutions and personnel to distribute public funds for obras to their supporters. I argued in response that all politicians in some fashion or another design and target State-provided programs and public policies in an attempt to retain the support of their


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electors, and to win new ones. To criticize that is disingenuous at best and hypocritical at worst. But this critique also ignores the fact that the institutional design of the OP process more-or-less forces delegates to be active voting and negotiating participants, not passive observers or recipients of elite-determined and distributed benefits. The administration cannot simply “distribute public funds” in this process because it is the delegates who ultimately decide what projects will be constructed as well as where they will be constructed. The data from BH and Betim also challenge the claim that most OP delegates are members of the PT and other Leftist parties. Over threequarters of BH’s delegates, and just less than two-thirds of Betim’s were not affiliated with any political party. However, if we examine lesser degrees of participation and interest in party politics other than the most extreme expression of party membership (e.g. party sympathy, candidate militancy, interested nonpartisanship), and by looking at their evolution over time, we do find evidence of a more politicized, even partisanized, set of delegates. And when we look at those delegates in both cases who did express party membership or sympathy, the PT is far and away the preferred party. The data suggest that while critics’ arguments about an “overwhelming presence” of petistas within the OP process may be overblown, their concern about the party’s undue influence cannot be entirely discounted. Once again, however, I argued the relevance of the institutional design of the OP process itself: open information, debates, negotiations and voting deliberately impede the administration from “distributing benefits” to its supporters as it sees fit. The party’s sensitivity to the criticism of politicization serves the same purpose. I also pointed out that the local parties in BH and Betim did not adopt the OP as an arena of party recruitment, partly for fear of politicizing the OP and partly because they had determined that it was a dry well. I concluded that the reason one finds so many petistas involved in the OP is because they have individually determined that it is worth their while to participate. It makes sense that those who strongly believe in the efficacy and importance of non-clientelistic grassroots organizing would be the ones most likely to take advantage of an instrument of public administration that places a high premium on autonomous grassroots organization and participation. It hardly seems surprising that these are the same individuals that identify with the PT and the Left: the only political force that values non-clientelistic grassroots politics. The fourth and final criticism of the OP charges that the whole OP process is too chaotic and conflictual (along the lines of academic “ungovernability” arguments), and that average Brazilian citizens are too uneducated, inexperienced, and/or self-centered to either participate

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effectively in important administrative processes such as setting the priorities of a city’s budget or to avoid being manipulated by administration officials. I argued, in effect, that one observer’s “chaotic conflict” is another’s “school of democracy” and system of public accountability. Democratic politics is inherently associated with rule-bound conflict, debates, negotiations, compromise, winning, and losing; and so is the OP. Meanwhile, the ideal (or myth) of efficiency so often equated by the OP’s critics with “modern” autocratic and technocratic leadership styles and administrative models is debunked on a daily basis as the news media in Brazil and many other places in the world reveal scandal upon scandal rooted precisely in the lack of democratic accountability and procedural “transparency” in government. But OP critics are right to indicate the potential, if not actual, gap between theory and practice: participatory processes can only work if participants are willing and capable of taking their duties with them seriously and carrying them out accordingly. In both BH and Betim, OP delegates received training (the most actively involved received extensive training) and easyto-understand information from OP administrators. Data from my survey of OP delegates indicated that the majority in these cases believed that their OPs were fairly well administered and that their fellow delegates acted quite responsibly, thus suggesting a positive evaluation of their time spent in this “school of democracy.” Given the general atmosphere of skepticism and wariness about party politics in Brazil, such a collective seal of approved offers further evidence against critics’ charges of partisanization and of the PT’s co-optation and manipulation of OP delegates.

CHAPTER 8

Administering the Participatory Budget—Ideology and Dedication

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p to now, my primary concerns in this book have been, first, to describe and analyze the Participatory Democratic model, both in theory and as put into practice in Brazil in the form of the Orçamento Participativo (OP) and; second, to inquire into the impact of such a model on the problems of Elitist Democracy (e.g. civic disengagement and the disconnect between “citizen politics” and official politics) by way of extracting lessons from case studies of the OP in practice. Most of the analysis has been focused on the issues of empowerment and the pluralization of democratic activism—that is, on the effects of popular participation on the participants themselves, and the effects of their participation on the larger political system as a whole. In this chapter, I want to address an equally important issue that became obvious to me during my field work, and in subsequent conversations with non-Brazilian local-level politicians, administrators, and academics. By now, it should be obvious that implementing a Participatory Budget requires an unusual degree of dedication, an enormous amount of hard work and an exemplary degree of honesty on the part of local administrators and elected officials. By no means can such dedication, hard work, and honesty be taken for granted. One Russian scholar, for example, visiting my university and attending a presentation of my fieldwork, declared that such qualities could never be expected from Russian politicians and public administrators.1 So why were these qualities present in my Brazilian case studies? What motivated the politicians and public administrators in Belo Horizonte (BH) and Betim studies to put in the long hours—evenings and weekends—that are

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necessary to make the OP function? What motivated them to ignore the siren songs of clientelism and corruption as they guided the OP process through its many phases? Looking to those who administered the OP processes in these two cases, can we determine if such motivations, generating such a level of commitment, are unique to the Workers’ Party (PT), or are they potentially available elsewhere . . . in the United States for example? Let me add that the answers to these questions may, in fact, shed some light on the motivations behind nonelite political activism in general. The implementors and administrators of the OP turn out, on the whole, to be political activists in their own right, with personal histories of working or having worked within political society (the great majority were members of the PT and, in the case of BH, of the Partido Socialista Brasileiro—PSB) and within organized civil society as well. Administering the OP, for so many of those in Betim and BH with whom I spoke over the years, was much more than just a job. It represented a continuation of their political activism, this time from within the halls of power rather than from without. These were not traditional politicians and entrenched bureaucrats being forced to think and act outside their standard operating procedures. That simple fact—that these were committed activist-administrators as opposed to merely technically trained bureaucrats—I would argue, is perhaps the key ingredient for making this, and possibly any other, participatory process succeed. Administrators must fully, if not passionately, believe in what they are doing. Recalling one of the arguments of chapter three—that Participatory Democracy is best generated “from above” (the “political society centered” model)—we need to inquire into how and why such passionate dedication comes about in the first place. A Brief Discussion of Motivations for Political Activism There are many motivations for political activism. In this book, I have been most interested in a specific type of political activism: the participation of nonelites in democratic politics. The overarching question that infuses the book is, “Can a more participatory institutional design foster greater participation, especially on the part of previously excluded or under-represented nonelites?” Most people believe that material interests drive political activism. Marx’s class consciousness, rational choice theorists’ “economic man,” and the wellknown idea that people “vote their pocketbook” are not all that different in terms of the implied explanation behind political action.2 Realists, on the other hand, believe that an innate desire for power and/or the status that comes with it is what drives political action ( Western Liberalism, with all its

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emphasis on constitutional/institutional checks and balances on concentrated political power, is fundamentally rooted in this belief ). Meanwhile, Political Culturalists argue that “values and attitudes” deeply rooted in history and cultural identity drive peoples’ political behavior in a largely unconscious manner. Finally, Idealists believe that ideology, theology, or philosophy consciously drive—or, at least, can drive—political action. I would argue that none of these universalistic assumptions hold true across the board. Some of us are driven by economic interest (indeed, in this materialistic day and age, most of us are likely to be so driven) just as some of us are driven by a desire for power over others and the status that such power invokes. But this by no means exhausts the range of “rational” behavior. Some of us may be driven by a largely unconscious political culture or a consciously chosen ideology, theology, or philosophy, perhaps even one that rejects materialistic and hegemonic motivations altogether. Most of us, however, seem to be driven in different directions by a sometimes bewildering mix of any number of motivations. Indeed, echoing a conclusion from Madison’s contributions to the Federalist Papers as well as Pluralists’ more recent analyses of “cross-cutting cleavages,” that “bewildering mix” of motivations may contain our salvation from the domination of any one motivating factor and its single-minded adherents.3 I believe, however, as set out in the first two chapters of this book, that materialistic and hegemonic motivations have been disparagingly prevalent in turn-of-the-century politics throughout the world, having grown in conjunction with Elitist Democracy itself. Indeed, I would argue that the very fact that such motivations are considered “common sense” is a glaring sign of contemporary democratic stagnation and decay. We in the United States and many other democracies find ourselves in this day and age in an unbalanced situation where material and hegemonic motivations for political activism have virtually overwhelmed all others. “Rationality” has increasingly become defined in common parlance, and among a distressingly large number of academic analysts, as self-interest, period. For example, the “magic of the marketplace” is perceived by many to be rooted in unfettered individual ambition (even greed) and the unquestionable sanctity of private property, rather than in the delicate framework of public laws, institutions, and policies (and their human public administrators!) that guarantee economic competition in the first place.4 Accordingly, “government” has become a dirty word, with little distinction made between democratic and authoritarian forms, and public service (e.g. being a government bureaucrat or politician) is commonly vilified and ridiculed. Free speech, to give another example, is said to include the unmitigated ability of the “haves” to fill the airwaves

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(their privately owned airwaves) with self-serving misinformation and “spin,” while any efforts on the part of a democratically elected government to present the viewpoints of the “have nots” or of progressives/intellectuals who are skeptical of elite motivations and designs (e.g. the Public Broadcast System in the United States) is labeled an “abuse of power,” a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, or condemned as demagoguery or starry-eyed idealism. Meanwhile, self-sacrifice and selfless commitment to an ideal other than those determined—by whom?—to be socially acceptable (e.g. philanthropy and patriotism) are seen as suspect. We ask, “What do they really want?” And we suspect (surprise?) either wealth or power or both. Maybe what these “do-gooders” really want is neither wealth nor power. Having inherited a degree of liberty and economic well being, maybe what they want now and in the future is “justice for all.” In fact, the ideal of social justice is as old, if not older, than that of individual liberty.5 It’s certainly older than the neoliberal or libertarian notion that nothing should stand in the way of individual ambition and greed (as if the only “rational” use of individual liberty is to amass private wealth). Neoliberals, libertarians, and rational choice theorists, if they could relax their ideological shackles for a moment, might take a lesson or two from history; they might discover that the heroes of capitalism and democracy are those individuals and groups who have striven to protect both capitalism and democracy from those who, under the ideological guise of the “magic of the marketplace” and “freedom for all,” would overwhelm the market and democracy with their monopolistic or oligarchical authoritarianism of concentrated wealth and power. The true heroes of capitalism and democracy, in other words, are the trust busters, the whistle blowers, the gad flies, the social reformers, the investigative journalists, the union organizers, the uncompromising intellectuals, the dedicated public servants . . . and, I would argue, most recently, the implementors and administrators of participatory mechanisms of decision-making. Most are not in it for the money or the power. Most are in it for their frankly uncommon dedication to the ideals of social justice and the practice of turning isolated, and/or alienated individuals into citizens. In a word, most are in it for democracy. I therefore believe—and I think that the empirical record demonstrates— that political cultures, ideologies, theologies, and/or philosophies that recognize the need to check material and hegemonic motivations are absolutely necessary if a given capitalist democracy is to avoid a crippling dynamic of concentration of wealth and power ending in the stagnant domination of the many “have nots” by the relatively few “haves” (the latter dynamic being intrinsic to, if not encouraged by, capitalist democracies). Institutional


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design is certainly important, even necessary, in staving off that ever-present dynamic (this book is, after all, fundamentally about the positive impact of innovative institutions designed to enhance political participation, especially of nonelite citizens). But even the best institutional design is likely to fail without a proper balance of diverse motivations for political activism on the part of those who would administer and people those institutions—a balance that is necessarily conjunctural and dynamic: too much materialism and/or hegemonism at any given point in time requires an offsetting set of cultural, civic, and/or religious values and ideals (and vice versa). Fortunately, such values and ideals do exist in the world today. In chapters three, four, and five, for example, we saw how the ideals of social justice and citizenship are central to both the general model of Participatory Democracy and to the specific empirical manifestation of that model adopted by the PT in Brazil. We saw how the PT defines itself as an “ideological party,” and how certain basic ideological tenets shine through the factional disagreements that seem inevitable in Left parties everywhere. Those tenets, alongside the party’s demonstrated ability to win elections, have maintained the PT’s sometimes precarious unity throughout its history of over two decades (and counting). One of those tenets is “popular participation”—which includes a belief in the empowerment thesis at the individual/citizen level of analysis and, at the institutional level of analysis, a belief in the necessity and the capacity of organized activist citizens to constitute an additional component to the traditional democratic system of institutional checks and balances. But just because the leadership of a party has adopted a certain ideological program or platform doesn’t mean that party members and sympathizers, especially those engaged in public administration, will necessarily adopt that program. This is especially problematic if the program goes against the grain of established political culture and practice. Obviously, the PT’s declared war against clientelism is a case in point. It’s one thing for party leaders to declare the war. It’s another thing altogether to find the foot soldiers willing to get down into the trenches and engage in the day-to-day, hand-to-hand combat. And so we return to the question: focusing on administrators of the OP in Betim and BH, “What makes them do what they do?” Administering the Participatory Budget in Betim and BH The experience of BH in the 1990s is illustrative of the first daunting problem in administering the OP: finding competent and committed OP

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administrators. Wieland Silberschneider, Assistant Chief of Planning in BH, recounts his first encounter with the problem: Here in Belo Horizonte . . . we looked for and asked other parties for co-participants, but no one responded. We need experience as a public policy professional, but our salary is medium-to-low, and there’s no promise for long-term continuity. [. . .] Within the city’s bureaucracy, we couldn’t find anyone interested. They see this as a party thing only. We ended up with ten people administering our OP. Two are from the Planning Secretariat, one is a PT militant who worked in the administration already, and the rest are invited in from outside on a contract basis.6 If the problem is daunting at the level of top administration officials, it’s even more so at lower levels. In the words of Mêrcia Adriana de Oliveira Cruz, Second Assistant to the Regional Administrator of the Northern Region of BH: “There’s a big difference between the Administration’s top officials and the lower tier of public servants. The latter don’t have any interest in the OP. [. . .] When we set up meetings—the Regional OP Forums, for example—we don’t have enough committed people to administer them.”7 In general, public service in Brazil does not pay very well, especially for highly educated and well-trained professionals. Significant job security and benefits, however, make this an unlikely explanation for the difficulties in staffing the OP administration, especially in the 1990s’ generalized context of growing unemployment and job insecurity in the private sector. Far more important is the well-known fact that OP administrators work extremely long and inconvenient hours, and must travel to numerous poor and sometimes dangerous neighborhoods where they are routinely subjected to everything from passionate pleas for assistance to angry diatribes against themselves and the administration. In addition, many career public servants see working with the OP as a dead-end career path, entirely dependent upon the PT or one of its allied parties remaining in power. OP administrators cite an even deeper-seated cultural problem: that public servants in Brazil don’t think of themselves as public servants. They argue, for example, that the typical technocratic mind set—“I’m the expert, I know what needs to be done; the public are my clients, they receive the benefits of my expertise”—is inimical to popular participation because it is built upon the image of the citizen as a passive recipient of benefits from on high. By the same token, the typical clientelistic mind set—“I got my job/promotion because of my wellplaced patrón; it’s only natural that if I serve anyone other than myself it would be my patrón and his/her fellow allies”—is equally inimical to popular participation, especially when that participation is intended to challenge and ultimately do away with clientelistic practices.


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Individually, each of these represents extremely difficult perceptions and mindsets to change. Together, they present an almost overwhelming challenge. In the words of Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, Chief Administrator of BH’s OP: The OP is an investment in the people. My challenge is to allow the OP to be an instrument to administer public resources, to open up and make available all necessary information and to make it possible that the Administration be responsible to the population’s demands. To make that happen, the Administration must force the bureaucracy to adopt these demands. That really means that the Administration has to bring its workers up to date and up to the task. The administrative machinery is not automatically ready for this type of planning—where both the goals and the means to achieve them are defined by the population, and if the Administration doesn’t carry them out, the population can justly complain and demand better results. This is a very big challenge.8 In slightly different language, the same point is argued by José Flavio Gomes, the Regional Administrator for BH’s Northeastern region: “The public sector employee hasn’t absorbed the idea that he’s a public servant and a citizen too. Traditionally, they have been called upon to distribute public goods. They were never called on to participate on the same level with average citizens. They need to be seen, and to see themselves, as part of the dynamic of popular participation as well.”9 The point here is that the average public sector employee cannot be relied upon, at least in the short term, to translate the OP project from the drawing board into public policy (in some cases, they can even be expected to resist such a radical transformation of bureaucratic behavior and standard operating procedures). Despite all these reasons why many, if not most, public employees don’t want to work with the OP, some obviously do chose to take the job. Why? Ideology turns out to be the crucial explanatory factor. Wieland Silberschneider, Assistant Chief of Planning in BH, states it very clearly: “for someone to come work for us, they need to have an ideological affinity with the project.”10 In other words, OP Administrators must believe in the OP to such an extent that their desire to work with the OP overrides material and long-term career interests. Where do such people come from (or more to the point, where does their “ideological affinity” with the OP come from)? My experience with OP administrators not only in Betim and BH, but in several other PT-administered cities as well, shows that the overwhelming majority of them come from a life history of participation in grassroots

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community movements and Left-wing political parties, typically the PT. Most began their political activism struggling against the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. And most are well aware that the commitment to “democratizing democracy” has become the new battle cry, as it were, for the post–Cold War (and some would say post-Marxist) Left.11 It’s crucial to point out here that the struggle against the military was ultimately successful: the military did withdraw from politics in the 1980s (even though, objectively, their withdrawal may not have been directly due to popular pressure from below).12 Similarly the struggle to democratize democracy has produced a number of victories (e.g. the electoral successes of the PT and, most importantly, its ability to put many of its programmatic concerns onto the public policy agenda and into actual practice); this is demonstrably true even as the overall picture of Brazilian democracy remains highly elitist.13 I mention and highlight these points because they represent ongoing examples of efficacious political activism. Without them, it would be hard to imagine anyone being able to sustain an ideological commitment to a policy agenda that rests on reforming existing rules of the political game even as political action is broadly constrained by those very rules. Therefore, I present the following examples of OP administrators whom I met during my field research not only as illustrations of the ideological commitment necessary to sustain the workloads required of administrators of a participatory democratic program like the Participatory Budget, but also as individual case studies in their own right of what I earlier called “heroes of democracy.” As normatively suspect as that latter claim may appear to some readers, it is based on my assessment of the evidence that I have been laying out throughout this book: that participatory institutional innovations, occurring in a broad context of Elitist Democracy, can revivify representative democracy by infusing greater pluralism and diversity (i.e. greater nonelite activism) and, therefore, better democratic representation and accountability into the political system. By this logic, those responsible for successfully implementing such inclusionary adaptations can legitimately be called “heroes of democracy.” Personal Stories of Ideological Commitment and Bureaucratic Endurance ●

Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, Chief Administrator of the OP, Planning Secretariat, BH:14

Maria Auxiliadora—or “Dora” as she prefers to be called—received her university degree in economics in the 1970s following a number of years


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working as a teacher in BH’s municipal school system. She began what would become a life of political activism by taking part in the student movement’s protests against the military dictatorship and in favor of a general amnesty for political prisoners and exiles. After graduation, she took a job as an urban planner at the Fundação João Pinheiro (Minas Gerais’ school of public administration) and continued her political activism in neighborhood movements and womens’ movements in the Venda Nova region of BH where she lived. She was one of the founding members of the PT of Minas Gerais in the early 1980s. When the PT won BH’s mayoral elections in 1992, she was asked to become the Regional Administrator of the Venda Nova region. In 1996, with the victory of the PSB’s Célio de Castro, she became Chief Administrator of the OP. When I asked Dora why she chose to work with the OP in spite of the long hours and relatively low pay, she answered quite simply: “I identify with my work.” She added that she had worked in an academic setting as an urban planner for twelve years and had become increasingly frustrated and alienated from her job as she saw virtually all of her projects ignored by successive municipal administrations. In her capacity as Chief Administrator of the OP, she now had a voice and a hand in making projects she really believed in becoming a reality. “In spite of all the problems, to be actively involved makes a big difference, especially since I’m working in an Administration that has defined itself in terms of developing important programs, including maintaining the previous [PT] administration’s commitment to popular participation.” ●

Luiz Henrique de Oliveira Cunha, OP Administrator, Planning Secretariat, BH:15

Like Dora, Luiz Henrique received his university degree in economics in the 1970s and was also a founding member of the PT in Minas Gerais. In the latter years of the military regime, he was a member of a clandestine Leftist organization while also participating more openly in local antigovernment efforts by the Catholic Church and opposition labor union groups. Luiz Henrique worked in the industrial center of BH as a “popular educator” for a union-affiliated organization called the Center for Labor Studies. For several years, he designed and helped disseminate “popular” means of informing workers of their plight and of the union’s efforts on their behalf: political comic books, illustrated pamphlets, etc. After working in the Public Relations office of the first PT administration in Ipatinga, Minas Gerais (1988–1992), he returned to BH in 1992 where he participated in the

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earliest discussions to design and implement BH’s PT-administered OP. He was subsequently asked to oversee the OP’s operations in the Western Region of the city. In 1996, he joined Célio de Castro’s Planning Secretariat as one of the OP planners and administrators for the entire city. Luiz Henrique was one of those whom I interviewed who spoke most openly about the problems of finding the political and administrative support necessary to sustain a successful OP process. For example, he compared the PT’s relatively unified “Popular Front” coalition of Leftist parties from 1992 to 1996 to Célio de Castro’s need to balance the demands of a diverse and antagonistic political coalition, including a number of small Left parties on one side of the ideological spectrum and the powerful (and notoriously clientelistic and corrupt) Partido do Movimento Democratico Brasileiro (PMDB) on the other side. Half the administration, he argued was either uninterested in the OP or interested only in seeing it fail so as to reflect badly on the PT. Why, I asked him, was he willing to work in such a politically difficult environment, especially when his job seemed to include so many evening and weekend meetings in so many different parts of the city? He responded that “It’s really a question of having made an ideological choice.” Indeed, ideologically motivated action seemed to define much of Luiz Henrique’s adult life. In our interview, he outlined that ideology and explained how the OP fit into it: I want to see a Brazil where people exercise control not only over the State but over the market as well. Wherever popular movements exist in Brazil, these can create a better quality of life based on democratic control of the State and the market. It’s very different today, where people are completely victimized by both. I’m interested in a new organization of society, one very different from today’s exploitation by capital. The ultimate goal is that everyone—including capital—would follow democraticallyestablished rules. This would be an entirely new social model, based on the State’s positive interaction with popular movements, where social justice would be its core principal, and where children would be educated into this new vision. We’re far from this now. But I see popular participation as a lesson in preparation for the larger plan of controlling capital. The OP carries out these educative functions, through the organization and utilization of public resources based on the population’s view of their own priorities. This needs to be expanded to include the entire country: to discuss political economy, how much money the State takes in and from where, how much it spends and on what, the contents of the budget,


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etc.. [. . .] When one discusses political economy, one is discussing the real political project of a country. ●

Adonis Pereira, Regional Administrator, Northern Region, BH:16

When I interviewed Adonis Pereira in late 1998, he had been a member of the PSB for four years and the Regional Administrator for BH’s Northern Region for almost two years. Prior to joining the PSB, he had been a member of the PT for seven years. Unlike Dora and Luiz Henrique, Adonis came relatively late to organized Left-wing politics. With a university degree in civil engineering and several years’ experience working in the private sector (mining and civil construction), Adonis and his wife became active in a neighborhood-level Catholic Church group in the 1980s raising funds to help build a church in his neighborhood of Ceu Azul in the Venda Nova region of BH. Eventually, Adonis was elected coordinator of the group and his wife was elected vice-coordinator of the local chapter of the Pastoral de Criança (a Catholic charity organization for poor children). His politicization into Left-wing politics seemed the next logical step. In Adonis’ own words: When you’re young, you’re not interested in politics. But as I became more active in the Catholic church movement in my neighborhood, I began to see that we were doing politics, especially when we were working alongside popular movements which were concerned with such things as public transportation, salaries and work conditions. I felt that I needed to get more involved in politics to help these movements out. In 1987, Adonis joined the PT but was not an active militant for the party. In 1990, he was elected Secretary of his local neighborhood association and soon found himself participating in the first OP processes of the PT administration of BH. He eventually left his private sector job and accepted an offer to direct the office of equipment maintenance in one of the city’s regional administration centers. During that time, however, he became increasingly uncomfortable with the many “disputes for space” within the PT—factional disputes that he felt left him little room to contribute. When those disputes ultimately culminated in the refusal of the party to support the mayoral candidacy of the PSB’s popular vice mayor, Célio de Castro, Adonis left the PT and joined the PSB. With Célio de Castro’s victory in 1996, he accepted the offer to become the Regional Administrator for the Northern region of BH. Why had Adonis left an admittedly more lucrative career in the private sector for public administration? Why had he become, in the words of his

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coworker, Pitagoras dos Santos, one of “the ideologues” most active in support of the OP in the Northern region of BH?17 “Ideas. Social projects. These are the things I’m interested in.” During much of my interview with Adonis, he spoke of the efforts of his OP team to transform traditional clientelistic neighborhood associations into participatory or, at least, representative organizations, more like the popular movements he had encountered in his own politicizing experience in neighborhood-level politics. Replicating this experience for the benefit of others emerged as a guiding theme to his work. “I like to work with independent movements because they can more freely articulate and present the demands of the city’s residents. [. . .] We try, in our discussions, meetings, etc. to describe what a serious neighborhood association is and what it should be doing—especially making demands on behalf of the entire community and not just the association’s handful of leaders or fellow party affiliates.” ●

Pitagoras dos Santos, First Assistant to the Regional Administrator, Northern Region of BH.18

As a teenager still in high school, Pitagoras dos Santos became active in the student movement against the military regime. He cites his Catholic education as a primary reason for his early activism: with its deliberate emphasis in the 1960s and 1970s on teaching social justice, “it gave me a larger vision of the world than the one I grew up in.” He says he never stopped being active in community organizations, even as he attended college to receive a degree in electrical engineering. Rather than take a job in the private sector, Pitagoras decided to enter public administration as a systems analyst. Why, I asked him, when he could have made so much more practicing his profession in the private sector? I made a life choice in a determined moment. Here’s how I justify that choice. I don’t make a lot of money, that’s true. But I have received much from my contact with people over the years. I have received a real education. And I have to distribute the fruits of that education. It’s a personal commitment. [. . .] Tomorrow I could change my mind. But after 30 years, I doubt it. It’s become my vocation. Pitagoras also spoke of the OP administrator’s need to exercise “self control” in remaining “objective, but sympathetic to competing demands” from OP delegates, various local politicians and political groups, and administrative superiors. How did he maintain such self control? Again, his ideology and his


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theology, both expressed and reinforced in the WP and the progressive wing of the Catholic Church, served to bolster his own personal resolve. ●

Mônica Mariz de Jesús Carvalho, Second Assistant to the Regional Administrator, Northeastern Region of BH.19

As an employee of the National Health Foundation (“on loan” to the municipal government of BH since 1993), Mônica Mariz de Jesús Carvalho brought with her the experience of working in poor communities as a “popular health care educator” for the national health system. As a long-time PT militant, she was originally invited by the incoming PT administration to join the Northeastern Regional Administration to organize and administer the OP in that part of the city. Essentially demoted to Second Assistant when the PSB took over the administration in 1997, Mônica nevertheless stayed on to continue her work, albeit with less influence and direct participation in planning. I asked her why she was so committed to working with the OP in BH. I believe in the political project, the ideology, that lies behind the OP. Being a part of that is a significant non-material reward. I believe that people only obtain the things they need when they are organized and when they are conscious of how things around them function—the bureaucracy, specific programs, the society as a whole. I’m here putting into practice what I believe in, especially with respect to addressing community needs. If I were only working in the party [the PT], or in the private sector, I couldn’t do that. Look, I’m an excellent public servant. But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the party. I was appointed to this job because of my commitment to the party’s ideals. Conclusion The preceding life histories of prodemocratic consciousness and activism constitute inspiring tales of personal commitment to an ideology of democratizing democracy. More importantly, they represent the type of commitment absolutely necessary for the successful implementation and administration of participatory mechanisms of public administration like the OP. Standard motivations of money (licitly or otherwise gained), power (including careerism), and traditional or mainstream political cultures cannot explain such a commitment, at least not in the Brazilian case. Collectively, these life histories also represent what Putnam and others have called “social capital” and its capacity to temper self-interested behavior

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with active participation on behalf of the public interest. Yet, here, they are applied not to “average citizens” in civil and political society, but to somehow better-than-average public administrators. Indeed, the argument of this chapter is that without such public administrators, any effort to advance popular participation and civic engagement is likely to fail. The “Problem of Agency” inherent in so many social science prescriptions—usually implying that prescribed reformers are likely to be made from the same “imperfect” building blocks as the citizens and incumbents they are supposed to transform—can only be solved if the agents are somehow specially suited for the task. And as these vignettes illustrate, such agents can and do exist.20 Democratically constructive idealism rooted, in these cases, in ideology, theology, and life histories of efficacious political activism, is not dead. Neither is it “irrational.” Indeed, it is the stuff of real-world heroism.21

CONCLUSION

Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy—Lessons from Brazil

I

began this book talking about the problems of Elitist Democracy in the United States and Brazil. I argued that the worrisome combination of the tendencies toward economic and political inequality that are inherent to market economies, an increasingly disengaged citizenry, and a growing chasm between those relative few who are engaged in some form of civil society activism (or “citizen politics”) and the official politics of political parties, campaigns/elections, and public policy making; all three add up to being a recipe for democratic stagnation and decay. I also argued that exiting from official politics is an entirely rational response if that political game really is one conducted “of, by and for” moneyed and well-connected elites. Indeed, opting for the private comforts of consumerism and apolitical microcommunities of family and friends, rather than the frustrations and disappointments of the distant world of public affairs, appears to have been the option of choice for a great many Americans over the last several decades, just as they have been for most Brazilians over the last several centuries. In the United States, both major political parties have contributed to and benefitted from the increasingly elitist political game of democracy. As a result, efforts to reform the game have been either lukewarm at best, stillborn at worst, or partial and incomplete (closing one set of loopholes, for example, while leaving others untouched). As the party of the elite, we should expect nothing less from the Republican Party. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, bears a great deal of the responsibility for this sorry state of affairs

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for having abandoned its history of democratic reform in favor of competing for the same constituency—the “muddled middle”—and adopting many of the same elitist programs as the Republicans. Half a world away, in the South American country of Brazil, leaders of the Workers’ Party (PT) confronted the problems of Elitist Democracy in their country in a very different manner: by adopting a party platform stressing, among other things, a commitment to empowering traditionally excluded citizens by opening up government decision-making processes to popular participation. They then translated that commitment into actual practice in the state and local governments where the party either governed or took part in the governing coalition. In effect, the PT was using the “NeoTocquevillian” tools of Participatory Democracy alongside the more standard social democratic tools of social programs and mild income redistribution (e.g. “inverting priorities”) to wage war on Brazil’s version of Elitist Democracy, where civic disengagement was seen to be rooted not only in consumerism and a “retreat into the private,” but also in high levels of poverty and violence and a long-standing political culture of acquiescence to social and political hierarchy. Popular participation also held the promise of adding a citizen-based layer of checks and balances to the more familiar, though clearly inadequate, system of checks and balances in Brazil’s official structures of representative democracy. Rather than abandoning the process of democracy, in other words, the PT adopted it as one of the primary planks of its party platform. It’s now time to return to the question that I posed in the Preface: “Could it be that Brazil—notorious for its social inequality and weak democracy— could offer a valuable political model for North Americans?”1 The short answer is, yes. To flesh out that answer, and to do so in the spirit of the title of this book, I offer six lessons for North Americans gleaned from my analysis of Participatory Democratic experiments in Brazil. ●

The First Lesson: as a real-world example of “Neo-Tocquevillian” thought and practice, the programs of Brazil’s PT are relevant to the ills of Elitist Democracy in the United States.

Some North Americans would argue to the contrary: that an admittedly socialist party in a “developing democracy” has absolutely nothing to offer to a “fully developed democracy” historically and, some would say, culturally antithetical to socialism. Yet, as discussed in chapter four, the PT’s focus on what Evalina Dagnino referred to as “new citizenship” (her way of conceptualizing empowerment and the deliberate construction or revitalization of nonelite social capital) clearly represents a break with traditional Left thinking.2 Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leftist thinkers and

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practitioners throughout the world were paying increasingly less attention to the classic Marxist-Leninist notions of class struggle and revolution, and much more attention to the Gramscian notions of hegemonic struggle as applied to the meaning and quality of democracy. In a nutshell, the post–Cold War, post–Marxist-Leninist Left—perfectly represented by the PT in Brazil— is entirely compatible with, if not comparable in many respects to Communitarians and Social Capitalists prevalent in much of the progressive community in the United States and throughout the world (e.g. those most active in “citizen politics”). A key common denominator between them is the Neo-Tocquevillian belief that the quality of democracy can be improved— that is, made less elitist—at least in part through participatory reforms of the institutions and processes of public policy making and administration. A good illustration of such reforms is the Participatory Budget implemented by local and state-level PT administrations throughout Brazil and illustrated in chapter five using the case of Betim, Minas Gerais. It’s important to keep in mind that case studies of the Participatory Budget in Betim, Belo Horizonte (BH), Porto Alegre, and many other cities in Brazil are illustrative examples of similar experiments in Participatory Democracy throughout the world.3 As for comparing Brazil’s “developing democracy” with the “mature” or “fully developed democracy” of the United States, I refer to the argument made in chapter one defining democracy as an ongoing process of “inclusionary adaptation.” The history of democracy in the West has seen such inclusionary adaptation gradually extend itself outward from the well-to-do and the well-connected, deeper and deeper into the ranks of average citizens: working men, women, people of color, etc. Throughout the twentieth century, democratic adaptation came to include the extension of government-provided social goods and services in favor of citizens suffering the effects of various types of market failure, from economic downturns, to entrenched poverty rooted in ethnic and gender discrimination, to urban decay, and to environmental degradation. This, I argue, is the logic of democracy everywhere. In both Brazil and the United States, significant progress in democratic inclusion remains to be achieved on several different fronts. The specifics of exclusion undoubtedly differ between the two countries. But in general terms, both political systems were becoming more rather than less exclusionary as they entered the twenty-first century. Indeed, high levels of civic disengagement in both countries attested to the fact that both democratic political systems were failing in their primary functions to equally and fairly represent—and thereby include—sizeable portions of their populations. The problems in both countries were similar and comparable in this respect, and I have therefore grouped them under the single category of “Elitist Democracies.”

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By the same token, participatory prescriptions for one case are relevant to the other; thus the substantive convergence of the formerly Marxist Left in Brazil and the Neo-Tocquevillian progressives in the United States and elsewhere.4 In short, I see no reason for why variations or adaptations of this participatory institutional innovation could not be applied to local-level public administration in the United States—other than political leaders’ simple lack of interest and/or their fear of the “unwashed masses” and, of course, average citizens’ lack of knowledge of the Participatory Democratic alternative. As one of the buildings in my university boldly proclaims, however, “Knowledge is Power.” As more and more Americans become aware of the Participatory Democratic alternative, it can take a more central place in the public policy agenda. Indeed, as alluded to at several points in this book, some variations of the Participatory Democratic model have already taken shape in a number of cities and counties in the United States. Conservative political analysts and politicians like to argue that Participatory Democracy is an unattainable Utopia, and they are undoubtedly correct with respect to the purest manifestation of the model (i.e. 100 percent citizen participation). But the experience of the OP in Brazil shows that more realistic versions of Participatory Democracy are not only possible in theory, but in practice as well.5 Perhaps leaders of the Democratic Party should take note. ●

The Second Lesson: the Brazilian experience with the OP, as illustrated in this book, alerts proponents of Participatory Democracy to the pitfalls of unrealistic expectations in implementing participatory reforms.

It’s extremely important not to oversell the positive effects of real-world manifestations of Participatory Democracy such as the OP. Much as Derek Phillips argued that historians and social scientists have tended to romanticize and exaggerate the extent of community feeling and involvement in the past, contemporary proponents of Participatory Democracy have tended to romanticize and exaggerate the extent to which participatory reforms can empower the disengaged (i.e. create social capital) and construct a community of civically conscious and engaged citizens.6 Evidence from the cases of BH and Betim suggests two cautionary observations in this regard: first, that civic disengagement is a problem highly resistant to change and; second, that popular participation programs like the OP appeal primarily to the already empowered and politically or civically active. Despite these cautionary observations, the evidence also suggests that participatory reforms can still contribute greatly to the struggle against Elitist Democracy.

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First, evidence from the cases of BH and Betim suggests that civic disengagement is unlikely to be greatly affected, at least in the short run, by Participatory Democratic reforms. In Brazil, many of the disengaged are so deeply mired in poverty that they cannot be expected to divert their attention and energies from their day-to-day struggle to survive. Others have been so thoroughly socialized into an “I hate politics” mentality of cynicism and disbelief—daily reinforced by a never-ending series of corruption scandals that rarely result in punishment and campaign promises that are rarely fulfilled—that they simply don’t see any difference between politicians, political parties, and political platforms (“flour from the same sack”) and are, therefore, unmotivated to take part in any reformist efforts. As is quite prominent in the United States, others are so thoroughly enmeshed in the pursuit of consumer goods (motivated by the billions of dollars spent on advertising and market research) and/or in the social satisfaction produced by any number of apolitical micro-communities, that they are “too busy” for politics of any variety. Then there are those who actually do take part in such participatory processes as the OP, but then either drop out once they discover that they are unable to cut individual clientelistic deals with OP administrators or, conversely, when they do get what they want and no longer feel the need to continue participating. Such “instrumental participation” constitutes participation without empowerment. The magnitude of instrumental participation in the OP is reflected in the fact that of those OP delegates from BH and Betim who were inactive in civil society and political society prior to their involvement in the OP, the overwhelming majority were first-time participants. This association indicates that disproportionately fewer pre-OP nonactivist delegates actually exposed themselves to the democratic learning made possible by the OP, meaning that those most in need of empowerment were the least likely to pursue it (i.e. they dropped out after the first year). Indeed, popular participation may only appeal to a relatively select few— primarily, though not exclusively, to those already politically conscious and active to some degree. This conclusion is clear from the data presented in chapter six showing that most OP delegates in BH and Betim had been active in civil society and/or political society prior to their involvement in the OP. While constituting a direct challenge to the empowerment thesis, this finding should not be interpreted as a reason to reject the Participatory Democratic model. I argued that sustaining existing popular or nonelite political activism (or social capital) is a vitally important contribution to the struggle against the ever-present forces of Elitist Democracy. One of the defining characteristics of Elitist Democracy, after all, is the growing distance

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between such “citizen politics,” on the one hand, and the official politics of political parties, politicians, and their socio-economic elite supporters, on the other. Even if participatory reforms such as the OP don’t empower a great many disengaged nonelites, they can still constitute a space for existing nonelite activists to even further and more effectively engage in democratic institutions by building and maintaining horizontal solidarities and networks (facilitating nonelite collective action), by learning how to compete better and negotiate democratically for scarce public resources, and by monitoring and overseeing the activities of public administrators and elected representatives in the traditional institutions of representative democracy. In addition, arguing against the charge that relatively few citizens actually participate in the OP (so why bother?), I argued in chapter seven that more are participating than would otherwise be the case, and that the number of OP participants represents a significant expansion and, perhaps even more important, a significant diversification or “pluralization” of the ranks of the normally small number of politically aware and active citizens. In a nutshell, then, the evidence suggests that the standard arguments for empowerment as the primary benefit of participatory democratic reforms should take a back seat to equally impressive arguments regarding their pluralization of democratic activism and representation. ●

The Third Lesson: Democratic representation is enhanced by introducing more nonelite activists into the otherwise increasingly elitist world of contemporary representative democracy.

Instruments of participatory democracy can democratize existing institutions of representative democracy without having to actually replace them. If democratic representation means all citizens having their interests, however defined, articulated, and at least considered in decision-making and policymaking processes that impact upon their collective and individual lives, then we have a long way to go before we can say that we as “average Americans” or “average Brazilians” are truly democratically represented in our respective political regimes. Contemporary representative democracy throughout the world is marked by a profound sense of distance or “alienation” between citizens and their political representatives. In the United States, we speak of Washington as if it were another culture or another world (“inside the beltway” versus “outside the beltway”) in much the same way that we refer to the vast social and cultural differences between Wall Street and Main Street, white America and black America, etc. We say “You can’t fight City Hall” and everyone knows exactly what that means. In Brazil, politicians are

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referred to as “the political class” (a classe política), and many Brazilians are so removed from the political world that they can’t even remember whom they voted for in the previous elections. How to bridge this sense of distance between the represented and the representative—not just rhetorically but through effecting actual democratic representation as defined earlier— constitutes one of the major challenges for contemporary representative democracy. Participatory decision-making processes such as the OP in BH and Betim add another more immediate layer of political representation to the traditional mix of “distant” institutions and politicians. In the OP, neighbors represent neighbors, and physical, cultural, and social distances are thereby greatly reduced. Participants in neighborhood OP assemblies debate and decide upon budgetary priorities for neighborhood and city improvement projects, then they elect delegates from among themselves to represent them in subsequent debates and decision-making processes at regional and/or municipal OP assemblies. The process is repeated either annually or semiannually. Those delegates that don’t wish to continue, or who are deemed by their constituents to be unworthy of reelection, are replaced by new representatives. At the same time, a great many neighborhood associations—long associated with citizen-demobilizing clientelism and top-down political manipulation—are either renovated and revitalized from below by OP participants and delegates, or they are created anew. Other existing local-level organizations (e.g. church groups, charitable organizations, parent–teacher organizations, etc.) are similarly revitalized as their members participate in the OP and come to be seen as representatives of those organizations as well as of the neighborhood as a whole. ●

The Fourth Lesson: Participatory institutions are “schools of democracy.”

Critics argue that the OP and similar participatory institutions of governance enhance “ungovernability” or “democratic overload” and/or that they are so “hopelessly inefficient” that they are a waste of time and resources. Such arguments, however, are based, at least in part, on the myth of administrative efficiency of “modern” technocratic styles of governance (a myth that hides the authoritarian nature of such styles). The much-venerated founding fathers of democracy in the United States would be the first to point out that democracy is and must be inefficient by design. It necessarily entails airing noisy and messy disagreement, but also negotiated settlements and compromises. Along with Alexis de Tocqueville and contemporary Neo-Tocquevillian scholars and practitioners, proponents of the OP argue that participatory

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institutions teach participants how to take part in the real-world democracy of multiple conflicts and negotiated compromises. Since the cost of all projects prioritized at the neighborhood level is always greater than available resources, OP delegates are forced to bargain and negotiate among themselves. The design of the OP thus requires delegates to practice the democratic art of compromise whether they like it or not. As the prioritized projects move from the drawing board to the final phases of completion, participating delegates are “rewarded” for their efforts by seeing their communities better served. Others who lose out in the negotiations in one year can (and some actually do) learn from the victors about which negotiating strategies are more effective (e.g. getting more residents to participate in the neighborhood assemblies thereby allowing the neighborhood to elect a greater number of OP delegates to support their projects in the regional and municipal assemblies, also avoiding alliances with unreliable delegates). To be effective, such democratic learning-by-doing requires a certain degree of on-the-job training or “capacitation” of participants (i.e. education into the inner workings, processes, and details of public administration). The fact that “commoners” can learn these things is perfectly illustrated in the cases of BH and Betim. On the whole, participating delegates in these two cases were poorly educated. Yet, as seen in chapter seven, they positively judged capacitation efforts on the part of OP administrators in the same way that they positively judged the serious participation of their fellow OP delegates. ●

The Fifth Lesson: The strategy and design of participatory reforms (e.g. the OP) need to emphasize relevancy, efficacy, realism, and nonpartisanship.

One emerges from an intense observation of OP processes greatly impressed by the capacity of human beings to comprehend even complicated information as long as the issues are perceived to be relevant and the benefits to be clear and forthcoming. With respect to relevancy, participatory processes need to focus on issues/concerns where the excluded, ignored, and underserved need government for solutions to problems that they themselves perceive to be critical. In Brazil, basic infrastructural public works projects fit this requirement perfectly. Many Brazilians still lack access to running water, sewer lines, paved roads in their neighborhoods, electricity, public safety, adequate housing, adequate access to health care facilities, and adequate educational and recreational facilities for their children. These are precisely the real and tangible issues that the OP targets. A similar participatory

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process carried out elsewhere—in the United States, for example—would undoubtedly encompass a different mix of issues (although problems of inadequate health care, public safety, and public education are increasingly widespread in the United States as well as in Brazil). Administrators of such a process would have to be open to responding to such concerns as they emerge “from below” rather than defining the range and scope of the agenda à priori from above.7 Regarding efficacy, chapter seven demonstrated how initially unrealistic expectations on the part of OP administrators and participants in both cases generated a problematic perception of unnecessary delays in implementing prioritized projects (resulting in the actual demobilization of some participants and potential participants). Many people felt that they weren’t being listened to; that their participation was a farce. The BH case, however, illustrated how dedication on the part of the administration to maintaining the process—especially to maintaining if not increasing its funding—can reestablish its legitimacy (i.e. participants’ sense of efficacy) and, subsequently, its levels of popular participation. The conclusion is simple if not obvious: “The ultimate key to explaining fluctuations of participation in the OP, therefore, was the amount of resources dedicated to the process. People participate when and where it’s worth their while to do so . . . which could be said for democracy in any of its incarnations.” OP administrators learned that unrealistic expectations can torpedo even their most dedicated efforts. Indeed, much of the impetus behind capacitation programs for OP delegates stemmed from administrators’ efforts to undo the effects of their own initial naivete in overselling the OP to early participants. OP administrators must be given the flexibility to modify their original ideologically driven motivations for implementing participatory processes to conform to more practical considerations. On-the-job learning applies to them as well as to citizen-participants. Finally, administrators of participatory processes need to be aware of, and guard against, the “partisanization” of participatory reforms. Participation needs to be open to all citizens, and decision-making needs to be entirely transparent and dependent upon democratic procedures. Participatory processes including those of capacitation need to be designed—as were those of the OP in both BH and Betim—so that substantive decisions are made by citizen-participants and not by administrators. What I identified in chapter five as “guided participation” must be minimized, although in practice this turns out to be quite difficult as capacitation and orientation processes unavoidably blur over in the actual practice of popular participation. Capacitation, “ideologization” (i.e. attempting to convince OP participants of

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the superiority of Participatory Democracy over other alternatives) and “politicization” (i.e. teaching OP participants about the nature of political struggles and about who their “allies” and “enemies” are within that struggle) cannot be perceived by delegates to be “partisanization.” Partisan favoritism and propaganda will only delegitimate the entire enterprise before a population, on the whole, disengaged and alienated from party politics. OP administrators in BH and Betim attempted to avoid partisanization of the OP by consciously identifying it not as a “PT thing,” but as a nonpartisan alternative mode of public administration adoptable by any political party or, at worst, as a cornerstone of the platform of the particular mayor in power. Some success in these efforts can be seen in the fact that most OP delegates in BH and Betim were not members or sympathizers of the PT (or of any party, for that matter). As discussed in chapter seven, however, of those delegates who did profess party membership or sympathy, petistas tended to predominate. Again, this is unavoidable. Members and sympathizers of any political party or persuasion that claims popular participation and empowerment as one of the primary planks in its political program or platform will be more predisposed to participate in such processes than members and sympathizers of other political parties and persuasions. In the end, an institutional design guaranteeing openness, fairness, and decision-making autonomy is essential if this natural affinity of process and ideology is not to turn into a charade of partisanship thinly disguised as nonpartisan. ●

The Sixth Lesson: Administrators of participatory processes need to be fully committed to the ideal of Participatory Democratic reform.

In chapter eight, I argued that “political cultures, ideologies, theologies and/or philosophies that recognize the need to check material and hegemonic motivations are absolutely necessary if a given capitalist democracy is to avoid a crippling dynamic of concentration of wealth and power ending in the stagnant domination of the many ‘have nots’ by the very few ‘haves’ (the latter dynamic being intrinsic to, if not encouraged by, capitalist democracies).” In the case of Brazil, for well over twenty years the post– Cold War/post–Marxist Leftist ideology of the PT and the theology of the progressive Catholic Church motivated its leaders and activists to struggle against Elitist Democracy and its concomitant culture of materialism, “detached coolness” and civic disengagement. Administrators of the OP in both BH and Betim shared this set of values, allowing them to dedicate themselves to the, at times, Herculean tasks of planning and implementing

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the OP while avoiding the temptations of corruption, favoritism, and the paternalistic abuse of power. Is such dedication unique to petistas in Brazil? I would argue that it is not. Progressives in the United States, for example, can draw on all three sources of counter-hegemonic mentalities: a political culture with strong components of egalitarianism (a belief in political fair play and equality before the law) as well as respect for the law, a nascent but growing “Neo-Tocquevillian” ideological current (as evidenced by the popularity of Robert Putnam’s and others’ works on social capital, and a palpable and growing belief in the importance of community), and a long-standing—albeit, perhaps, currently dormant—theological (Christian) commitment to the intrinsic morality of assisting the poor and underprivileged. By the same token, if one takes a historical view of the history of democracy in the United States rather than a contemporary snapshot, one sees numerous illustrations of the efficacy of nonelite political activism. And let’s not forget Russell Dalton’s oft-cited argument that, in spite of clear evidence about growing civic disengagement in the United States (and Europe), there has also been a growth of nontraditional or unofficial “citizen politics” primarily among so-called post-materialist citizens. Indeed, it would be easy to argue that the raw materials of successful experiments in Participatory Democracy are much more present in the United States than in Brazil, given the latter’s more consistently elitist and openly authoritarian political history. Ultimately, what made Brazilian progressives commit themselves to Participatory Democracy, and then maintain that commitment through the trials and tribulations of translating ideology into practice, was the simple belief that it could and should be done. The power of that simple belief, reinforced by successful and efficacious implementation in cities like BH and Betim, is slowly democratizing Brazilian democracy. Understanding that to be true, I have no doubt that North Americans— those who are uncomfortable with Elitist Democracy—could replicate the experience of the OP in the United States. The first step is to convince ourselves that it is possible. Perhaps this book can be of some service in helping to make that first step more likely.


Notes

Preface and Acknowledgments 1. In the 1990s in Brazil, those in the top 10% of the income distribution accounted for 48.7% of the national income while those in the bottom 10% accounted for 0.8%. See Jorge Fontes Hereda, “Democratizar a gestão,” in Inês Mahalhães, Luiz Barreto, and Vicente Trevas, eds. Governo e Cidadania: Balanço e reflexões sobre o modo petista de governar (São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 1999), 148. 2. For similar exercises in U.S.–Brazil comparisons, see David J. Hess and Roberto A. DaMatta, eds. The Brazilian Puzzle: Culture on the Borderlands of the Western World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); also Celso Daniel, “A gestão local no limiar do novo milênio,” in Mahalhães, Barreto, and Trevas, 208–209. I was particularly pleased when I read the following in the “Afterword” of Hess and DaMatta, 297: . . . while there are ways in which Brazil is modernizing and in a sense becoming more “Westernized,” it is also possible to examine how the United States is becoming “Brazilianized.” As I think about frightening features in my own country such as its huge underclass, sprouting shanty towns, increasing crime, staggering national debt, and growing gap between rich and poor, Brazil is a useful point of reference. 3. In asking this question, I am reversing the typical prescriptive “direction,” as it were, of most North American analyses of Brazil and the rest of the so-called developing world. Usually, the United States or Northern Europe are presented in various forms as models of development, in this case of political development. Here, I am suggesting the reverse: that innovative and inspiring models of political development currently found in the “developing world” can be both relevant and useful to the so-called developed world. The United States, in other words, can learn from Brazil.

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Chapter One Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in the United States 1. Anthony King asks the same question, and answers that “[i]f people are to be disillusioned, they must previously have had illusions, and America’s present discontents probably owe something, possibly a great deal, to many Americans’ over idealized view of their country’s history and their exaggerated pride in American democracy. Great expectations are always in danger of leading to great disappointments” (King, “Distrust of Government: Explaining American Exceptionalism,” Pharr, Susan J. and Robert D. Putnam, eds. Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries? [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000], 85). 2. John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse argue that Americans may not be upset about political policies or “outcomes” so much as they are about the processes of democracy—including “combative political parties, self-serving politicians, and demonic special interests . . . Whereas people seem to believe the parties espouse different policies, they may view them as nearly identical in terms of processes” (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, “Process Preferences and American Politics: What the people want government to be,” American Political Science Review, 95 [March 2001]: 147 and 149). E.J. Dionne, Jr. essentially agrees while adding to the list the Big-Money campaign financing system and the growth of negative campaigning around overdrawn ideological differences (a form of branding) and personal attacks. See Dionne, Jr., Why Americans Hate Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991). 3. Russell J. Dalton, discusses this pattern of “accentuated elite polarization” in his Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 3rd ed. (New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2002), 228–229. 4. Pippa Norris makes the same point, and expands the argument to other contemporary democracies: “At the turn of the millennium most citizens in wellestablished democracies share widespread aspirations to the ideals and principles of democracy. . . . At the same time citizens draw a clear distinction between which type of government they would choose as their ideal and the performance of current regimes. At the end of the twentieth century citizens in many established democracies give poor marks to how their political system functions, and in particular how institutions such as parliaments, the legal system, and the civil service work in practice.” Pippa Norris, “Introduction: The Growth of Critical Citizens,” in P. Norris, ed. Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1–2. For a similar argument, see Russell Dalton, “Value Change and Democracy” in Pharr and Putnam, 252–269. 5. In the summer of 2002, many Americans woke up to the harsh reality of “crony capitalism” as scores of major North American corporations were forced to reveal they had been over-reporting profits and underreporting losses to the tune of billions if not trillions of dollars. Many of these corporations were major campaign contributors. President Bush himself, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary

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of Defense Thomas White were revealed to have made millions of dollars through such investor frauds in the 1990s. These concerns were subsequently thrust aside as the country stepped up its War on Terrorism, both at home and abroad, and prepared for an only marginally related war in Iraq. 6. Norberto Bobbio, The Future of Democracy: A Defense of the Rules of the Game (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 17. Similarly, Russell Dalton argues “democratization and the expansion of citizen influence is a continuing process even for the established democracies.” See Dalton (2002), 1. 7. See, e.g., Robert Dahl’s brief discussion of “the further democratization of full polyarchies” in Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 10–11. To my understanding, this point was first made in 1950 by British Sociologist, T.H. Marshall when he argued that “political citizenship” precedes and sets the stage for “social citizenship.” See Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (London: Pluto Press, 1992). 8. This definition of democracy as a process—i.e. democracy as democratization— rather than a specific set of institutions, laws and functions is also found in the following: Dahl (1971); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Michael Ignatieff, “The Myth of Citizenship,” in Ronald Beiner, ed. Theorizing Citizenship (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995); Elizabeth Jelin, “Building Citizenship: A Balance Between Solidarity and Responsibility,” in Joseph S. Tulchin and Bernice Romero, eds., The Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America (Boulder: Lynne Rienner/ Woodrow Wilson Center, 1995), 83–87; John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change (Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1996); John S. Dryzek, Democracy in Capitalist Times: Ideals, Limits, and Struggles (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Evelyne Huber, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and John D. Stephens, “The Paradoxes of Contemporary Democracy,” Comparative Politics, 29 (April 1997): 323–342; Edward S. Greenberg and Benjamin I. Page, The Struggle for Democracy, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman, 1997); Dalton (2000), 269; Sidney Tarrow, “Mad Cows and Social Activists: Contentious Politics in the Trilateral Democracies,” in Pharr and Putnam, 275–276; and Eric S. Einhorn, “Liberalism and Social Democracy in Western Europe,” in Howard J. Wiarda, ed., Comparative Democracy and Democratization (Fort Worth: Harcort College Publishers, 2002), 20. Of note, given the historical context in which this book is being written, John L. Esposito applies such a process definition of democracy to the seemingly sterile soil of the Middle East: One can expect that where Islamic movements come into power—as is already the case with many governments in the Middle East, secular as well as Islamic— issues of political pluralism and human rights will remain sources of tension and debate. Greater political liberalization and participation are part of a process of change that require time and experience to develop new political

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traditions and institutions (Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992], 189). Similarly, writing about democracy in contemporary Africa, Stephen N. Ndegwa writes: . . . each democratic experiment ought to be judged by the extent to which it preserves, promotes, and extends rights for its citizens and how it opens up new arenas of democratic action previously dominated by narrow hierarchical organs. [. . .] Given that this is a perennial discourse, it is reasonable to expect continual friction without evident resolution in a short term (Ndegwa, “A Decade of Democracy in Africa,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 36 [2001] http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an 4646550&db aph). For a strong critique of this “new democratic theory” (“the democratic program of equalization”), see Kenneth Minogue, “Democracy As a Telos,” in Paul, Ellen Frankel, Fred D. Miller, Jr., and Jeffrey Paul, eds., Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 203–224. 9. I do not mean to imply a teleological logic to this process. Democracy, conceived of as a process, is not building inexorably toward some Utopian end-point. History around the world shows that struggles “from below” for inclusion will always exist. At the same time, however, resistance “from above” to those struggles is also a constant. Movement in the inclusionary direction can take place via “inclusionary adaptation” (the more or less nonviolent reform of existing procedures and rules of political negotiation in order to include new social demands and interests), or via democratic revolution (the violent imposition of inclusion, oftentimes by eliminating former elites and their political system), or via some mix of the two—elites often undertake or tolerate the former only under threat from the latter. See, e.g. Elisabeth Jean Wood, “An Insurgent Path to Democracy: Popular Mobilization, Economic Interests, and Regime Transition in South Africa and El Salvador,” Comparative Political Studies, 34 (October 2001): 862–888. By the same token, movement in an exclusionary nondemocratic direction can take place via “exclusionary adaptation” (the more or less nonviolent rigidification of existing procedures and rules of political negotiation in order to exclude new social demands and interests), or via conservative revolution (the violent imposition of exclusion, oftentimes by eliminating nonelite leadership and their organizations and whatever democratic freedoms may have existed at the time). A fifth option might be labeled “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”: the imposition of an exclusionary regime headed by formerly excluded groups. Which of these will emerge is ultimately an empirical question, though efforts at theorizing the process are a constant in political science. See, for example, Dahl (1971); Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Graeme Gill, The Dynamics of Democratization: Elites, Civil Society and the Transition Process (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

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10. I’m reminded of a quote from English Political Philosospher John Stuart Mill written in 1861: “. . . representative government institutions are of little value, and may be a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue, when the generality of electors are not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote, or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular election thus practiced, instead of a security against misgovernment, is but an additional wheel in its machinery” (John Stuart Mill, Three Essays: On Liberty, Representative Government, The Subjection of Women [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975], 150). 11. See Dionne, Jr. (1991). 12. Witness the revelations around the collapse of the energy giant, Enron, that took place while this book was being finished. 13. The mass media are either a third partner in this coalition of entrenched elites, or they are a vitally important subgroup among the economic elites. Either way, most Americans receive their information about politics from a small core of media empires that are major corporations in their own right and count major corporations among their most important clients. Some argue that these corporations’ self-interest is inherently contradictory to the journalistic ethics that supposedly guide their reporting and operations. At the very least, their power to subtlety “interpret,” if not manipulate, information for their own and/or their clients’ purposes is indisputable. See Betty Zisk, Money, Media, and the Grass Roots: State Ballot Issues and the Electoral Process (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1987); also Milan Rai, Chomsky’s Politics (New York: Verso, 1996). Others point to the media’s irresponsibility (rather than their duplicity). Focusing on local “shock and jock” stories, they are uncritical in their nonanalysis of the “spin” and readymade “sound bites” that officials, politicians, and parties routinely feed to them in the name of news. Yet another partner in this elitist democratic coalition—albeit, perhaps, an unknowing one—is the mainstream academic political science community. Brazilian political scientist, Leonardo Avritzer, for example, is only the latest to argue that mainstream democratization theory (what he calls “democratic elitism”) is unnecessarily and inappropriately elite-centric and anti-participatory: “Democratic elitism was based on two main theses: first, that in order to be preserved, democracy must narrow the scope of political participation; and second, that the only way to make democratic decision-making rational is to limit it to elites and restrict the role of the masses to that of choosing between elites” (Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Space in Latin America [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002], 14–15). 14. I’ve always liked the Brazilian colloquialism for this phenomenon: “It’s all just flour from the same sack.” For a brief analysis of the increasingly media-driven campaign process in the United States, see Dalton (2002), 39–43.

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15. Edward Rubin, “Getting Past Democracy,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 149 (January 2001) http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an 4263294&db aph; see also Lawrence Walters, “Putting More Public in Policy Analysis,” Public Administration Review, 60 (July/August 2000): 349. 16. See Max Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), especially 232–235. 17. For a comic, but insightful, analysis, see Michael Moore, Stupid White Men . . . and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation (New York: Regan Books, 2001), especially chapter ten entitled “Democrats, DOA.” 18. David Held, Models of Democracy, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 323. 19. Richard M. Valelly, “Couch-Potato Democracy?” The American Prospect, 25 (March/April 1996) 26. See also Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2001). 20. See Robert D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” The Journal of Democracy, 6 (January 1995): 66–70; also R.D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 48–147. Also see Benjamin Barber, A Passion for Democracy: American Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 194; Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam, “Introduction: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Democracies?” in Pharr and Putnam, 8–10. The claim about declining levels of participation in organized civil society has been more convincingly criticized than any of the other arguments. See, e.g., Dalton (2002); Dalton (2000), 268; and Tarrow (2000). It must be noted that some analysts reject the problematic nature of civic disengagement altogether. Some argue that civic disengagement actually represents contentment with the status quo. See, e.g., Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); also Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (New York: Doubleday, 1963). Others argue that civic disengagement is a necessary “functional” ingredient for effective governance and/or for effective living in the busy modern world. See, e.g., Samuel P. Huntington, “Post-industrial politics: how benign will it be?” Comparative Politics, 6 (1974): 147–177; also Samuel P. Huntington, “The Democratic Distemper,” The Public Interest, no. 41 (fall 1975): 9–38. Both of these “do nothing” arguments suffer from an overly static legalprocedural definition of democracy shared by much of the political science literature: electoral rules and institutions are in place, elites are competing for elected office within those rules and institutions, therefore democracy is stable. Many analysts (see note 8) share my belief that understanding democracy in such terms destroys the true core of its meaning as a continuous dynamic process of political activism on behalf of greater freedom and equity for nonelite individuals and groups vis-à-vis the State and the already-incorporated. John Dryzek, for example, argues that “a democratic polity that ceases its search for further

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22. 23.

24. 25.

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democratization is likely to witness the gradual entrenchment of ‘new classes’ of various sorts that profit from their stable occupancy of key points in the system, and an impoverishment of political life through its focus on relatively mundane issues of public administration” (Dryzek, 4). Recognizing the decisive role of nonelite political activism in challenging inevitable tendencies toward exclusionary elitism in representative democracies forces us to also recognize the problematic nature of civic disengagement, especially among nonelites. Academic versions of the “do nothing” arguments emerge from conclusions that civic disengagement is rooted in such deep-seated structural causes as human nature (e.g. selfishness and greed), political culture (e.g. centuries old traditions of clientelism and patrimonialism, including nonelites’ deference to established authority and/or their retreat into apolitical micro-communities), and/or historical-structural transformations (e.g. growing concentration of capital, the collapse of the welfare and Developmentalist State, the “inexorable” globalization of the market economy, etc.). In such analyses, there remains little room or hope for policy-induced reform, and the scope of human agency is limited to merely responding to the tides of history. John Hibing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, using focus group and opinion poll data, identify what they call a “process space discrepancy”: most people in the United States prefer a government process somewhere between participatory and institutional/representative democracy, yet they perceive the current government process as overwhelmingly institutional/representative. They argue that this popular perception that the existing political process keeps citizens’ views from being heard may “help explain why people think the government is out of touch, even though government tends to provide policies closely approximating the people’s desires” (Hibing and Theiss-Morse, 148). My thanks to Becky Adams for this insight. A comparative note: in Europe, people do complain. Russell Dalton, for example, discusses how “popular dissatisfaction with current democratic structures is fueling calls to reform the processes of representative democracy” (Dalton [2000], 268). Also see Norris (1999); Tarrow (2000); and Dalton (2002). As for the effects of September 11, 2001 on civic disengagement, I can only comment that flag-waving acquiescence to an increasingly secretive government bent on using wartime popularity to further an otherwise unpopular economic and political agenda does not necessarily signal a resurrection of citizen engagement. Voter turnout in the 2002 midterm elections offered some signs of hope: approximately 39% of eligible voters turned out, a slight increase from the usual low-to-mid thirties. Nonetheless, only time will tell whether the momentous events of 2001 will reverse the decades-long slide of Americans’ political engagement. Russell Dalton (2002); and Pippa Norris (1999). Regarding the issue of tax cuts, most Americans are unaware of the fact that they pay fewer taxes than any other “developed” country in the world, and

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that corporations have paid an ever-declining percentage of the overall tax bill since the 1960s. 26. For “uncivil movements,” see Leigh Payne, Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). See also my discussion of “antipolitics” in chapter two. Chapter Two Elitist Democracy, Civic Disengagement, and Citizen Politics in Brazil 1. See Dalton (2002), 36. 2. Pharr and Putnam (2000). See also Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King, eds., Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); and Norris (1999). 3. For Venezuela, see Michael Coppedge, “Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of Partyarchy,” in Jorge I. Domínguez and Abraham F. Lowenthal, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance: South America in the 1990s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1996), 3–19; also Jose E. Molina and Carmen Perez. “Evolution of the party system in Venezuela, 1946–1993,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 40 (summer 1998): 1–26; Brian Crisp and Daniel Levine, “Democratizing the democracy? Crisis and reform in Venezuela,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 40 (1998): 27–62; Richard Gott, In the Shadow of the Liberator: Hugo Chávez and the Transformation of Venezuela (London: Verso, 2000); Susan Kaufman Purcell, “Lessons from an Aborted Coup,” America Economia, 230 (May 2002): 50. For Ecuador, see Anita Isaacs, “Ecuador: Democracy Standing the Test of Time?” in Domínguez and Lowenthal, 42–57. For Guatemala, see Deborah J. Yashar, “The Quetzal is Red: Military States, Popular Movements, and Political Violence in Guatemala,” in Douglas A. Chalmers, Carlos M. Vilas, Katherine Hite, Scott B. Martin, Kerianne Piester, and Monique Segarra, eds., The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America: Rethinking Participation and Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 239–260. For Chile, see Paul W. Drake and Peter Winn, “The Presidential Election of 1999/2000 and Chile’s Transition to Democracy,” LASA Forum, 31 (spring 2000): 6; also Kenneth M. Roberts, Deepening Democracy?: The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). For Peru, see Roberts (1998). For Argentina, see Clóvis Rossi, “Vizinho em Crise,” Folha de São Paulo, July 1, 2001, p. B8–9. Thanks to Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies, Jr., Latin Americanists are familiar with seeing the concept of “antipolitics” used exclusively in the context of military-led authoritarian regimes. See Loveman and Davies, Jr., eds., The Politics of Antipolitics: The Military in Latin America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1997). My use of the term, however, stems from the earlier work of North American Political Scientist, John H. Bunzel, who described “anti-politics”

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in 1967 as an attitude among “ . . . those who, for one reason or another, look upon politics in a democratic society with hostility or contempt, or both. The variations on this theme [e.g. Loveman and Davies], each of which is reductionist in nature, reflect different forms, styles, and purposes of this anti-political temper. The common bond that is shared is the rejection of politics [i.e. rule-bound conflict and negotiation] in the name of some nonpolitical ‘truth’ ” (Bunzel, Anti-Politics in America: Reflections on the Anti-Political Temper and Its Distortions of the Democratic Process [New York: Vintage Books, 1967], 3). For a more contemporary use of the term in the context of U.S. politics, see Carl Boggs, The End of Politics: Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 123–165. For a similar use of the term in the contemporary Latin American (specifically, Peruvian) context, see Aldo Panfichi, “The Authoritarian Alternative: ‘Anti-Politics’ in the Popular Sectors of Lima,” in Chalmers et al., eds., 225–232; also Roberts, 202. For an apt application of the term to Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Melo (1990–1992), see Linz and Stepan, 170. 4. Roberts, 1. 5. Abraham F. Lowenthal, “Latin America at the Century’s Turn,” Journal of Democracy, 11 (April 2000), 48. The conclusion from a series of interviews with leading political scientists in Latin America carried out by Folha de São Paulo reporter, Augusto Gazir was the following: “Peoples’ lack of interest in politics and the lack of trust in politicians and political institutions are common characteristics in Latin America, in the opinion of political scientists interviewed by the Folha” (Augusto Gazir, “Desinteresse é comum,” Folha de São Paulo, September 13, 1998, especially, p. 7). Gazir cites Argentina political scientist, Graciela Römer, saying “I have carried out qualitative analyses in fourteen American countries, like El Salvador and Mexico, regarding the subject. The result is the same: apathy and lack of confidence regarding politics.” 6. Before Brazilians could be disengaged, they have to have been engaged, at least formally, in democratic politics. While this is not a book on Brazil’s political history, it helps to have at least a sense of Brazil’s political development. While the following provides merely a brief and formal outline of that process, it does give the reader who is unfamiliar with Brazilian politics a sense of the historical trajectory of Brazil’s democratic development: In Brazil, the 1824 Constitution established a non-secret ballot with eleven restrictions that eliminated 95% of the free adult male population. With the 1934 Constitution, the vote was permitted to those over eighteen years of age, being obligatory for men and for women who exercised a paid public function. For all other women over eighteen, voting was voluntary. According to the [fascist-inspired] 1937 Constitution, voters were defined as “those Brazilians of either sex, older than eighteen years old.” Illiterates, the homeless and those in active military service, however, could not vote. The 1946 Constitution

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established direct elections and the secret ballot for the first time. During the dictatorship [1964–1988], direct elections for the Executive branch were suspended, and the Institutional Act Number 5 of 1968 suspended all political rights. The country’s process of redemocratization during the 1980s culminated in the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, which became known as the “Citizens’ Constitution.” Following that Constitution, elections were made direct for all levels of government. Voting was made mandatory for all those over eighteen years old, with the exception of illiterates, those over 70 years old and those between sixteen and eighteen years old, for whom voting was voluntary (Wilson Ferreira de Carvalho, “Participação Popular no Processo Decisório Municipal–Estudo de Caso: Orçamento Participativo de Belo Horizonte” [MA Thesis, Public Administration, Escola de Governo da Fundação João Pinheiro, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 2000], 53–54). 7. Folha de São Paulo, September 13, 1998; also Ler 1998, September 10, 1998. 2002 figures are for the first round of the 2002 presidential elections; see Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. “Eleições 2002.” 2002. http://www.tse.gov.br/ eleicoes/eleicoes2002/index.html (January 7, 2003). For 1994 and 1998 data for the state of Minas Gerais, see Rafael Pedrosa, “Longe da realidade das ruas,” Estado de Minas, August 5, 2002, 5. 8. Estado de Minas, July 28, 1998; André Petry, “Atenção Com Eles,” Veja, September 30, 1998, 38. 9. Estado de Minas, July 28, 1998. 10. Folha de São Paulo, April 9, 1999; also see Silvio. “Apatia não sorpreende políticos de São Paulo.” Estado de São Paulo, August 6, 1998, http:// www2. estado.com.br/edicao/pano/98/08/05/pol635.html (May 4, 1999). 11. See, e.g., Scott P. Mainwaring, “Grassroots Popular Movements, Identity, and Democratization in Brazil,” The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies Working Papers, no. 84 (October 1986); Renato R. Boschi, “Social Movements, Party System and Democratic Consolidation: Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina,” in Diane Ethier, ed., Democratic Transition and Consolidation in Southern Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan, 1990); 214–222; Chalmers et al. (1997[b]), 549–554. Rebecca Neaera Abers quotes Vera da Silva Telles in noting “a ‘badly disguised sense of disappointment’ among observers of Brazilian urban social movements.” Rebecca Neaera (Abers, Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil [Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000], 32). Kathryn Hochstetler takes issue with this assessment, arguing that Brazilian social movements didn’t so much disappear as change tactics and organizational structures (e.g. forming Nongovernmental Organizations [NGOs] in alliance with international funding agencies). Her insight will become the basis for discussion of citizen politics in Brazil. See Hochstetler, “Democratizing Pressures from Below? Social Movements in the New Brazilian Democracy,” in Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, eds., Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000), 167–182.

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12. Ronald Beiner, “Introduction,” in Beiner, ed., Theorizing Citizenship (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 19. In the complementary words of Democratic Theorist, Benjamin Barber, “A citizen is an individual who has acquired a public voice and understands himself to belong to a wider community, who sees herself as sharing goods with others” (Barber [1995], 286). 13. For excellent examples of this argument, see Guillermo O’Donnell, “Transitions, Continuities, and Paradoxes,” in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O’Donnell, and Samuel Valenzuela, eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 17–56; Frances Hagopian, “The Compromised Consolidation: The Political Class in the Brazilian Transition,” in Mainwaring, O’Donnell, and Valenzuela, 243–293; Selma Rocha, “A exclusão e as desigualidades sociais não são inexoráveis,” in Mahalhães, Barreto, and Trevas, 116; Scott P. Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 175–218; Patrícia Aranha, “Eleição cria uma vala comum,” Estado de Minas, October 15, 2000, http://www.estaminas.com.br/em.html (October 16, 2000); and Abers (2000), 25–29. For a well-reasoned dissenting voice, see Robert Gay, “Rethinking Clientelism: Demands, Discourses and Practices in Contemporary Brazil,” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, no. 65 (December 1998): 7–24. 14. Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 23–24 and 244. 15. Roberto A. DaMatta, Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes: An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 88. Anthony Pereira quotes Brazilian Political Philosopher, Marilena Chauí, who describes Brazilian society as “verticalized and hierarchized . . . in which social relations are always realized either in the form of complicity (when the social subjects recognize each other as equals) or in the form of orders and obedience between a superior and an inferior” (Pereira, “An Ugly Democracy? State Violence and the Rule of Law in Postauthoritarian Brazil,” in Kingstone and Power, 221). 16. Indeed, according to DaMatta, the scope of individual decision-making is severely restricted: “Whether in the street or at home, Brazilians are normally subjected to fixed rules requiring an ongoing relationship and binding the individual to the group. These rules of conduct tie the individual to the group (or groups), ruling out atomized action as an individual; the latter kind of action always lies outside norms, hence tends to be viewed and interpreted as illegitimate. It seems that the trust [sic] and aim of Brazilian society—with its rules and rites—is to effect the dissolution and disappearance of the individual. [. . .] They never enjoy true self-mastery; on the contrary, everybody is controlled by laws, norms, decrees, and government regulations” (Damatta, 88). 17. O’Donnell (1992), 44.

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18. The latter half of the twentieth century saw Brazil evolve from an almost monocrop economy (coffee) to become, by 1990, the eleventh largest economy in the world with 39% of its economic output devoted to industrial production. See United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 186, 188, and 212. By 1999, Brazil was the world’s eighth largest economy. In the early 1950s, 75% of Brazil’s population lived in rural areas. In the 1990s, 75% lived in urban areas. 19. As defined by Ruth Barins and David Collier, corporatism refers to “A pattern of relationships between the state and interest groups based on state structuring of representation that produces a system of officially sanctioned, noncompetitive, compulsory interest associations; state subsidy of these associations; and state imposed constraints on leadership, demand-making, and internal governance” (Collier, Ruth Berins, and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991], 781–782). 20. Populism is “A political movement characterized by mass support from the urban working class and/or peasantry; a strong element of mobilization from above; a central role of leadership from the middle sector or elite, typically of a personalistic and/or charismatic character; and an anti-status quo, nationalist ideology and program” (Collier and Collier, 788). 21. Nationalist-Developmentalism is best defined as a State-directed and foreign capital-fueled “multiclass alliance aimed at protecting the domestic economy from a hostile external environment, encouraging the growth of national industry, and redistributing income away from traditional sectors toward the modern urban economy” (Jeffrey A. Frieden, Debt, Development, and Democracy: Modern Political Economy and Latin America, 1965–1985 [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991], 47). 22. Abers (2000), 25–26. 23. Frances Hagopian. “Traditional Power Structures and Democratic Governance in Latin America,” in Domínguez and Lowenthal, 68. For other critical treatments of sociopolitical elites in Brazil and their perpetuation of citizendemobilizing and disempowering clientelism, see Amanda Sives, “Elites Behaviour and Corruption in the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil,” Parliamentary Affairs, 46 (1993): 549–562; Evelina Dagnino, “Os movimentos sociais e a emergência de uma nova noção de cidadania,” in Dagnino, ed., Os Anos 90: Política e Sociedade no Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1994), 104–105; Eliza Reis and Ziro Cheibub, “Elites’ Political Values and Democratic Consolidation in Brazil,” in Eva Etzioni-Halevy, ed., Classes and Elites in Democracy and Democratization (New York: Garland, 1997), 222–229; Aspásia Camargo, “La Federación Sometida: Nacionalismo Desarrollista y Inestabilidad Democrática,” in Marcello Carmagnani, ed., Federalismos latinoamericanos: México/Brasil / Argentina (Mexico: El Colegio de México, 1993), 300–357; and O’Donnell (1992). 24. Dagnino, 104–105.

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25. See, e.g., Robert Gay, “The Broker and the Thief: A Parable (Reflections on Popular Politics in Brazil),” Luso-Brazilian Review, 36 (1999): 49–70; also Enrique Desmond Arias and Corinne M. Davis, “The Role of Criminals in Crime Management and Dispute Resolution: Understanding Drug Trafficker Control in Rio’s Favelas,” paper prepared for delivery at the 2001 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., September 6–8, 2001. 26. For an analysis of police violence in the cities and the countryside in post-1985 Brazil—tellingly referred to as “low-intensity warfare” resulting in “low-intensity citizenship,” see Pereira, 230 and 235. See also Rowan Ireland, “Popular Religions and the Building of Democracy in Latin America: Saving the Tocquevillian Parallel,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 41 (1995): 11–36. 27. It seems useful to label this concept of social satisfaction “social sufficiency” in order to deliberately juxtapose it to the idea of “self sufficiency.” The latter is a concept that describes the Western liberal ideal of self reliance and individual responsibility, but which arguably only covers half of the requirements of a “balanced” social life. I would argue that Brazilians tend to be, on the whole, more socially sufficient than they are self sufficient. I would also argue that North Americans are, on the whole, more self sufficient than they are socially sufficient. The following quote from a basic text for Political Science undergraduate majors underscores perfectly these concepts of self-sufficiency and socialsufficiency: “It may well be said that the history of politics and political thought is the story of our continuous struggle to attain a sense of unity with others while at the same time actualizing our potential as respected and valued individuals” (Gregory Scott and Stephen Garrison, The Political Science Student Writer’s Manual, 2nd ed. [Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998], 18). 28. The latter refers to the concept of “empowerment” which will be discussed in chapter three. 29. For example, Hess and DaMatta speak of “the double-edged sword of kin ties in Brazil: they are necessary as sources of identity and financial security but they also pose restraints on social mobility” (Hess and DaMatta, 295). This is not the place to go into detail about DaMatta’s fascinating and important arguments (neither am I necessarily the best one to make such a detailed analysis). Nonetheless, in order to provide a bit more of the flavor of his ideas, I want to note a few of what I take to be his more important arguments about the nature of Brazilians’ social integration. First, a key historical source of solidarity in Brazilian society comes from the “principle of Catholicism by which everyone is included in the community, in contrast to the Protestant principle by which society is organized into mutually exclusive sects” (DaMatta [1995], 285). Second, a type of solidarity results from Brazilians’ ability to behave, even think, in contradictory fashion (depending on the context) without necessarily experiencing cognitive dissonance. For example, Brazilians can sympathize with an

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31.

32.

33.

34. 35. 36.

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individual who has been cheated in some way (as most law-abiding North Americans might); but Brazilians can also sympathize with the cheat as someone who has successfully manipulated the always-stacked deck of rules and laws in his/her own favor. According to DaMatta, one of the implications of such contradictory thinking (and this is only one example among many) is that it tends to defuse conflictual “Us versus Them” perceptions of social situations that might otherwise spur people into horizontal (e.g. class) solidarity and emancipatory collective political activism. Sergio Zermeño makes a similar analysis of Mexico in the economic crisis-plagued 1980s in terms of individuals’ “anomic individuation” (their “withdrawal to a small group, to a gang—or . . . within the individual self ”) and the subsequent “decomposition” of Mexican society to the ultimate benefit of economic and political elites (Zermeño, “Crisis, Neoliberalism, and Disorder,” Foweraker, Joe and Ann L. Craig, eds., Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico [Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990], 167). See Bolívar Lamounier, “Brazil: Inequality Against Democracy,” in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America (Boulder: Lynne Riener, 1989), 124–126. For analyses of Brazil’s first years of democratic transition, see Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); also Thomas Bruneau, “Brazil’s Political Transition,” in John Higley and Richard Gunther, eds., Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 257–281. For a general theoretical treatment of the critical importance of nonelite civil society in democratic transitions, see Gill (2000). Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 48–56. See, e.g., the series of essays in Kingstone and Power (2000). Hochstetler, 163. See, e.g., Hernando de Soto, The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (New York: Harper and Row, 1989). See also my analysis of the early years of Brazil’s economic restructuring efforts in “Liberalismo Para Todo Mundo Menos Eu: Brazil and the Neoliberal Solution,” Douglas A. Chalmers, Maria do Carmo Campello de Souza, and Atilio A. Boron, eds., The Right and Democracy in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1992), 259–276. For this type of argument applied to Brazil, see Kurt Weyland, Democracy Without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996). Applied to “late developing” countries more generally, see David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). Weyland (2000), 55–57.

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39. Atilio Borón, “State Decay and Democratic Decadence in Latin America,” in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds., The Socialist Register 1999: Global Capitalism versus Democracy (London: Merlin Press, 1999), 217. See also Licia Valladares and Magda Prates Coelho, eds., Governabilidade e Pobreza no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira), 1995; Carlos M. Vilas, “Latin America: Socialist Perspectives in Times of Cholera (Preliminary Notes for a Necessary Debate),” in Susanne Jonas and Edward J. McCaughan, eds., Latin America Faces the Twenty-First Century: Reconstructing a Social Justice Agenda (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 94–103; Vilas, C.M., “Participation, Inequality, and the Whereabouts of Democracy,” in Chalmers et al., 5–17, 20–26; Jorge G. Castañeda, “Democracy and Inequality in Latin America: A Tension of the Times,” in Jorge Dominguez and Abraham Lowenthal, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s—Themes and Issues (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 42–63; Roberts, 11–12 and 59–67; Tarso Genro, “Um debate estratégico,” in Mahalhães, Barreto, and Trevas, 11–17; Enrique Dussel Peters, Polarizing Mexico: The Impact of Liberalization Strategy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000); and Clóvis Rossi, “Um fracasso e um vazio,” Folha de São Paulo, July 1, 2001, p. A2. Contrary to their theoretical and “official” intentions, neoliberal reforms— especially privatization—are also routinely undertaken for the benefit of wealthy political allies and potential allies thereby generating economically inefficient, even disastrous, economic outcomes. See, e.g., Timothy Kessler’s excellent analysis of Mexico’s neoliberal reforms in the 1980s and 1990s in Kessler, Global Capital and National Politics: Reforming Mexico’s Financial System (Westport: Praeger, 1999). 40. Henry Dietz, Urban Poverty, Political Participation, and the State: Lima, 1970–1990 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 10 and 15. 41. Timothy J. Power and J. Timmons Roberts, “A New Brazil? The Changing Sociodemographic Context of Brazilian Democracy,” in Kingstone and Power, 250. 42. This critique is rooted in a more general critique of liberal capitalism’s tendency to promote individualism (e.g. consumerism) at the expense of community and “public life.” 43. In Déa Januzzi, “Herança Maldita: Corrupção começa em casa,” Estado de Minas, June 24, 2001, p. 25. 44. See Ignatief (1995); also Barber (1995). 45. For the concept of semi-clientelism, see Jonathan Fox, “The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico,” in Chalmers et al., 391–420. 46. See Kathleen Bruhn, “The Seven-Month Itch? Neoliberal Politics, Popular Movements, and the Left in Mexico,” in Chalmers et al., 155–156; Kerianne Piester, “Targeting the Poor: The Politics of Social Policy Reforms in Mexico,” in Chalmers et al., 480–485; and Fox (1997), 404–407. Mexico’s democratic leap

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48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53.

54. 55.

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of 2000 (i.e. the election of an opposition presidential candidate, Vincente Fox) arguably owed much to the decision by Salinas’ successor, Ernesto Zedillo, to essentially abandon PRONASOL in favor of more strict attention to the dictates of the neoliberal model. Fujimori’s Peru as well. See Kurt Weyland, “The Brazilian State in the New Democracy,” in Kingstone and Power, 36–57; also Timothy J. Power, “Political Institutions in Democratic Brazil: Politics as a Permanent Constitutional Convention,” in Kingstone and Power, 17–35. See note 3. For Neopopulism, see Kurt Weyland, “Neopopulism and Neoliberalism in Latin America: Unexpected Affinities,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 31 (1996): 3–31. Applying Tocqueville’s fear of “democratic despotism” to today’s world of “hyper-individualism,” British political analyst, David Marquand, warns of the “Populist Temptation” in England and, by implication, in contemporary democracies in general. See Marquand, “Democracy in Britain,” Political Quarterly, 71 (July–September 2000): 268–276. For uncivil movements, see Payne (2000). Peru’s Fujimori started out as a neopopulist, promising Peruvians in his first election campaign in 1990 that he would never implement neoliberal policies. Shortly after the election, however, he immediately broke that promise and became a model of neoliberal pseudodemocratic leadership. See Roberts, especially 70–72 and 265–268. For Chávez, see Gott (2000); also Kaufman Purcell (2002). Clóvis Rossi, “Suicídio pela lama,” Folha de São Paulo, March 10, 1999. While not taken up here, it is important to note that many analysts also associate civic disengagement with the persistence of poverty throughout the world, including pockets of poverty in the United States. According to Marion RicheyVance, for example, “Poverty isn’t just the lack of material goods. It is also distance from decision-making and a sense of being devalued that manifests itself as apathy, anger, and a weakening of the civic culture” (Ritchey-Vance, Marion, “Social Capital, Sustainability, and Working Democracy: New Yardstick for Grassroots Development,” Grassroots Development, 20 [1996]: 6). A key conclusion from Robert Putnam’s study of Italian economic and political development was that “A region’s chances of achieving socioeconomic development during this [20th] century have depended less on its initial socioeconomic endowments than on its civic endowments” (Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy [Princeton: Princeton University Press], 157). Putnam (2000), 358, his emphases. John Stuart Mill, Three Essays: On Liberty, Representative Government, The Subjection of Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 5–141 and 427–448. Excluded individuals, are deprived of the opportunity to become fully realized (i.e. educated and productive) human beings, and society is deprived of their potential contribution to “the greater good.”

Notes

56.

57. 58. 59.

60.

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David Held offers a wonderfully concise summation of the operative hypothesis behind the concept of “pluralism” in representative democracies: “if competitive electoral systems are characterized by a multiplicity of groups or minorities who feel intensely enough about diverse issues, then democratic rights will be protected and severe political inequalities avoided with a certainty beyond that guaranteed by mere legal or constitutional arrangements” (Held [1996], 205). Putnam defines social capital as follows: “ . . . social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called ‘civic virtue.’ The difference is that ‘social capital’ calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital” (Putnam [2000], 19). Roberts, 281. For the same point, see Pharr and Putnam, 7. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); also Lowenthal (2000). A notable exception among Postmodernists, at whom this sentence is specifically aimed, is Thomas Bridges, The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994).

Chapter Three


1. Among intellectuals, Communitarians and Postmaterialists stand out. For examples of Communitarian arguments regarding Participatory Democracy, see Amatai Etzioni, ed., Rights and the Common Good: The Communitarian Perspective (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Putnam (1995); Ritchey-Vance (1996); Richard A. Couto, Making Democracy Work Better: Mediating Structures, Social Capital, and the Democratic Prospect (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999); and Barbara Cruikshank, The Will to Empower: Democratic Citizens and Other Subjects (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). For Postmaterialists, see Ronald Inglehart, “Values, Ideology, and Cognitive Mobilization in the New Social Movements,” Russell Dalton and Manfred Kuechler, eds., Challenging the Political Order: New Social and Political Movements in Western Democracies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 43–66; also Russell Dalton, “Value Change and Democracy,” in Pharr and Putnam, 252–269. For the Left, see Marcelo Cavarozzi, “The Left in Latin America: The Decline of Socialism and the Rise of Political Democracy,” in Jonathan Hartlyn, Lars Schoultz, and Augusto Varas, eds., The United States and Latin America in the 1990s: Beyond the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1992), 101–127; Jorge Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the

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3. 4.

5.

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Cold War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993); Marco Aurélio Garcia, “Esquerdas: rupturas e continuidades,” in Dagnino, 119–126.; Emir Sader, O Anjo Torto: Esquerda (e Direita) no Brasil (São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1995); Alan Angell, “Incorporating the Left into Democratic Politics,” in Dominguez and Lowenthal, 3–25; Roberts, 17–52; and Avritzer. For the development community, see Matthias Stiefel and Marshall Wolfe, A Voice for the Excluded: Popular Participation in Development: Utopia or Necessity? (London: Zed Books, 1994); Peter Evans, “Introduction: Development Strategies across the Public–Private Divide,” World Development, 24 (1996): 1033–1037; Ritchey-Vance (1996); Mike Douglass and John Friedmann, eds., Cities for Citizens: Planning and the Rise of Civil Society in a Global Age (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1998); and Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001). For U.S. municipalities, see Mark Warren, Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); also Couto (1999). In early 2002, President Bush even climbed onto the Social Capital bandwagon by recreating President Clinton’s AmeriCorps program into the USA Freedom Corps. See Dana Milbank, “ ‘Citizens, Not Spectators’: The president’s call for service to community and country may redefine government’s role,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, March 25–31, 2002, p. 12. Neo-Tocquevillian participatory prescriptions can also be found in the urban planning literature. See, e.g. (in addition to Couto, Douglass and Friedmann, and Warren listed earlier), John Forester, The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999); Don Eberly, Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994); and Henry Sanoff, Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1999). Avritzer, especially chapter six. Dagnino, 108. For an in-depth analysis of empowerment, see John Friedmann, Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991). For a harsh criticism of “empowerment theory,” see Minogue, especially 220–222; also Robert Weissberg, The Politics of Empowerment (Westport: Praeger, 1999). Jane Mansbridge, commenting upon and then quoting a Kaufman article from 1960 (Mansbridge, “Does Participation Make Better Citizens?” New Citizenship Home Page, 1995, http://www.cpn.org/cpn/sections/new_citizenship/theory/ mansbridge1.html [ January 7, 2003]). This notion of participation making “better citizens” lies at the very root of classic republican democratic theory. See Held (1996), chapter two. See Almond and Verba, especially chapter one. The concept of “Cultural Politics” refers to various efforts on the part of social movements, political parties, governments, etc. to impact upon this psychological

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9. 10.

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dimension of social and political relations. See the excellent collection of essays in Sonia E. Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, eds., Cultures of Politics Politics of Cultures: Re-Visioning Latin American Social Movements (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998). Their work takes off from studies of “political socialization” carried out in the 1960s under the rubric of modernization theory (e.g. Almond and Verba), and subsequent analyses of “Identity Politics” referring to mobilization around nontraditional (i.e. nonclass) commonalities such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. (e.g. for Latin America, see Arturo Escobar and Sonia E. Alvarez, eds., The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy [Boulder: Westview, 1992]). Larry Diamond, “Introduction: Political Cultue and Democracy,” in Diamond, Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994), 1. See, e.g., Lawrence Harrison. Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case (Lanham: Madison Books, 1985). Students of political science will note the clear “Neo-Institutionalist” nature of this prescriptive argument: that institutional design can have a clear and even predictable effect on the attitudes, values, and behavior of those having to work with and within the resulting institutions. Examples of such arguments that are relevant to this discussion include William Mishler and Richard Rose, “What are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in the Post-Communist Societies,” Comparative Political Studies, 34 (February 2001): 30–62. That “political culture” is not in reality an all-embracing perceptual straitjacket necessarily linking so-called ordinary people with change-resistant “traditional” values, attitudes, and behaviors is an argument made, among others, by Leonardo Avritzer, who defines political culture as a dynamic and essentially contested concept; in his own words, as “the public struggle over the meaning of political practices that will determine new institutional behaviors in the polity. . . . [E]very society has a dominant political culture and . . . in every society there are attempts to challenge the dominant political culture through actions at the public level” (Avritzer, 58). For Avritzer, the agents of democratization (at least, in twentieth-century Latin America) come from the ranks of “ordinary people” while elites are best characterized as agents of exclusion (see especially chapter three). For the importance of pluralism, see note 55 in chapter two. See Jonathan Fox, “How Does Civil Society Thicken? The Political Construction of Social Capital in Rural Mexico,” World Development, 24 (1996): 1089–1103; also Margaret Hollis Peirce, “Bolivia’s Popular Participation Law: A Case of Decentralized Decision making” (PhD Dissertation, Department of International Studies, University of Miami, 1998), 15–17; and Brian Wampler, “Participatory Publics and the Executive: Participatory Budgeting Programs in Recife and Porto Alegre,” paper prepared for delivery at the XXI Congress

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15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

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of the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, March 16–18, 2000, 6–12, 31–39. See, e.g., Dahl (1971), 77. In Tocqueville’s words, “civil associations pave the way for political ones, but on the other hand, the art of political association singularly develops and improves this technique for civil purpose” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America [Garden City: Doubleday, 1969], 521). The book was originally published in 1848. This conceptualization of empowerment as a process of democratic learningby-doing beginning with an initial participatory experience and leading to a “spillover” effect into greater political consciousness and further civic engagement is similar to Fox’s concept of civil society “thickening.” See Fox (1996). For similar treatments, see also Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 299–300; Mainwaring (1986), 21–24; Barber (1995), 22; Power and Timmons Roberts, 256–257. Dahl (1961), 299. Cited in Howard Handelman, The Challenge of Third World Development, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000), 89. The other important question, of course, is how to meaningfully connect those currently engaged in “citizen politics” with the official politics of political parties, politicians, and their socioeconomic elite supporters. That question will be taken up later on. Putnam (2000), 292. To see the debt owed to Tocqueville’s insights, one has only to read the works of such “Neo-Tocquevillians” as Robert N. Bellah, “The Quest for Self,” in Etzioni, 45–57; Couto (1999); and Eberly (1994). See Tocqueville, 668–702. Tocqueville, 62–63. For an overview of such arguments, in theory and in practice in the United States, see Robert Jay Dilger, Neighborhood Politics: Residential Community Associations in American Governance (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 61–103, especially “the populist approach,” 93–94. The idea is well-represented in the title of the following article on an experience of community organizing in rural North Carolina: see Jane Braxton Little, “Where People Feel Connected, Voter Turnout Soars,” American News Service, no. 19 (no date) http://civic.net/civic-values.archive/199601/msg00350. html ( January 15, 2003). It is also suggested in the title of the popular book written by then-U.S. first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Tocqueville, 68. In words that Tocqueville could only agree with, Mishler and Rose outline the “institutional” argument regarding citizens’ trust in political institutions: “Trust in institutions is rationally based; it hinges on citizen evaluations of institutional performance. Institutions that perform well generate

Notes

24. 25.

26.

27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

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trust; untrustworthy institutions generate skepticism and distrust” (Mishler and Rose, 31). Dilger, 78. See also Dahl (1971), 226–227. I had thought that the term “Neo-Tocquevillianism” was uniquely my own until I came across it in Putnam (1995) and, later, in Omar G. Encarnación, “Tocqueville’s Missionaries: Civil Society Advocacy and the Promotion of Democracy,” World Policy Journal, 17 (spring 2000): 9–18. See Marcus André B.C. de Melo, “Municipalismo, Nation-Building e a Modernização do Estado no Brasil,” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, no. 23 (October, 1993): 85–100. See also Marcos André B.C. de Melo, “Ingovernabilidade: desagregando o argumento,” in Valladares and Prates Coelho, 23–48. Melo (1993, 1995); Peirce, 10–13; David Samuels, “Reinventing Local Government? Municipalities and Intergovernmental Relations in Democratic Brazil,” in Kingstone and Power, 77–98; and Abers (2000), 25–35. This is especially problematic given the political culture of subservience inculcated among the poor throughout Latin America by five centuries of patrimonial dominance. See DaMatta (1991); Howard Wiarda, ed., Politics and Social Change in Latin America: Still a Distinct Tradition? (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992); Tereza Sales, “Raízes da Desigualdade Social na Cultura Política Brasileira,” Revista Brasileira das Ciências Sociais, 25 ( June, 1994), 26–37. The city of Curitiba, Paraná is, perhaps, the best example in Brazil. For a positive evaluation, see Rubens Figueiredo and Bolivar Lamounier, As Cidades Que Dão Certo: Experiências Inovadoras na Administração Pública Brasileira, 2nd ed. (Brasília: MH Comunicação, 1996), 25–50; for a critical analysis, see Klaus Frey, “Crise do Estado e Estilos de Gestão Municipal,” Lua Nova, no. 37 (1996): 107–138. Secondary institutions are those that stand mid-way, so to speak, between the individual citizen and the national government. They include everything from interest groups and professional organizations (civil society) to political parties (political society) to city councils and commissions of local government. Tocqueville argued that localized political consciousness served to keep centralizing tendencies at bay as communities struggled to maintain their autonomy vis-à-vis the central government. Tocqueville, 525–528. Citing the work of Seyla Benhabib, Rebecca Abers aptly labels this “Enlarged Thinking.” See Abers (2000), 177–194. Barber (1984), 152. Derek L. Phillips, Looking Backward: A Critical Appraisal of Communitarian Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 24–80. See Weber (1946[b]), 79–80. Analysts of democratic transitions have long noted an “awakening of civil society” as authoritarian regimes, for whatever reason, begin to lose their ability to control and repress. For one of the earliest analyses of this phenomenon, see, O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986). For more recent analyses, see Gill (2000); also Avritzer (2002).

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36. 37.

38.

39. 40.

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One of the many paradoxes of authoritarian rule is that in restricting outward and public expressions of opposition, it stimulates more introspective and private feelings of discontent. These may be nurtured and combined into a systematic critique by “apolitical” organizations like the Catholic Church or neighborhood collective soup kitchens (as in much of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s), or they may be privately constructed by individuals confronting such day-to-day challenges of authoritarian rule as the constant fear of police patrols, searches, and secret informants, and one’s forced ignorance due to censorship. In the end, one can become more empowered, as I have defined the term, by having carefully thought through and arrived at a critique of the system, than if one had simply joined a political organization for the usual reasons of family tradition, self or class interest, and/or peer pressure. As described in several of the chapters contained in Escobar and Alvarez (1992). For example, the growth of such “postmaterialist” concerns as environmental protection and tolerance of “alternative lifestyles” and their consequent social movement organizations in late twentieth-century advanced industrial societies. See Dalton (2002), especially chapters five and six. Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1981). What Jürgen Habermas called “public spheres” in his Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989). Habermas’ analysis is well-summarized in Avritzer, 5, 39–43. While Avritzer initially separates “public sphere theory” from “participatory democracy theory,” his analysis then skillfully unites them under the banner of “participatory publics” (40 and 52). Incorporating a process definition of democracy similar to the one described and used in this book, participatory publics are innovative and elite-challenging “societal practices” emerging from civil society that have been subsequently institutionalized in the public sphere. See, e.g., Lawrence Susskind and Michael Elliott, “Paternalism, Conflict, and Coproduction: Learning from Citizen Action and Citizen Participation in Western Europe,” in Susskind and Elliott, eds., Paternalism, Conflict, and Coproduction: Learning from Citizen Action and Citizen Participation in Western Europe (New York: Plenum Press, 1983), 6–8; Albert Hirschman, “The Principle of Conservation and Mutation of Social Energy,” in Sheldon Annis and Peter Hakim, eds., Direct to the Poor: Grassroots Development in Latin America (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 1988), 7–14; Michael Walzer, “The Civil Society Argument,” in Beiner, 153–174; Dryzak, 46–54; and Avritzer (2002). The concept of “political society,” as distinct from civil society and the State, is developed in Linz and Stepan, 8–10. See, e.g., Melo (1993); ShivSharan Someshwar, “People Versus the State?: Social Forestry in Kolar, India,” in John Friedmann and Haripriya Rangan, eds., In Defense of Livelihood: Comparative Studies of Environmental Action (West Hartford: Kumarian Press/UNRISD, 1993), 182–208; Hagopian (1996[a]);

Notes

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42. 43.

44.

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Jorge I. Domínguez and Jeanne Kinney Giraldo, “Conclusion: Parties, Institutions, and Market Reforms in Constructing Democracies,” in J.I. Domínguez and Abraham F. Lowenthal, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance: Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s—Themes and Issues (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 3–41; Bryan R. Roberts, “A Dimensão Social da Cidadania,” Revista Brasileira das Ciências Sociais, 12 (February 1997): 5–22; Alba Zaluar, “Exclusão e Políticas Públicas: Dilemas Teóricos e Alternativas Políticas,” Revista Brasileira das Ciências Sociais, 12 (October 1997): 29–47; Roberts (1998), 71–78 and 279; Magalhães et al. (1999); and Wampler (2000). Kenneth Roberts’ empirical evidence from the postauthoritarian regimes in Chile and Peru, his argument that globalization and neoliberalism have “informalized” and “atomized” contemporary Latin American societies making collective action increasingly difficult, and his reference to Sidney Tarrow’s analysis of the rise and inevitable fall of “cycles of protest” wherever they occur, convincingly support such a conclusion. See Roberts (1998). Valelly, 26. The quote is from Roberts (1998), 278. Earlier, he juxtaposes what I’m calling the civil society-centered view (and which he identifies as the popular empowerment perspective) with a political society-centered view that dispenses entirely with the emphasis on empowerment and focuses more or less exclusively on electoral strategies and on working within the existing legal-institutional framework of representative democracy—even its seriously flawed Latin American variant— for limited welfare and legal gains for nonelites (11–20). Since I’m discussing “Neo-Tocquevillian” perspectives here, I avoid talking about Roberts’ second option. More importantly, I reject the implication that a non-Marxist political society-centered strategy must necessarily be pragmatic and devoid of a transformational vision or ideology. In short, Roberts has constructed a false dichotomy (or “tradeoff ” as he would have it). Indeed, I will argue that Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT) has been successful precisely in combining the seemingly contradictory “logic of social movements” (empower nonelites) with the “logic of party competition” (win elections). To his credit, Roberts does recognize the PT’s accomplishment in his conclusion (277–279). But he does not sufficiently factor it back into his initial dichotomous analytical framework. That the normative foundation of the Participatory Democratic model is rooted in the accepted values of the status quo—liberal freedom, equality, and democracy—distinguishes it from mere Utopianism and ivory tower theorizing. Indeed, such normative pragmatism is a great source of the model’s strength. The very fact that those status quo values are not realized within the status quo is precisely what gives the Neo-Tocquevillian argument its transformative potential. Its motivating goals and ideals are already fully inculcated. Agreed-upon notions of Justice have only to be juxtaposed with a reality found wanting.

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I am reminded here of the adoption and use of Christian morality (a key cultural-ideological component of imperialism and of cultural domination in much of the “Third World”) to garner domestic and international support for the undeniably progressive causes of the nineteenth-century abolitionism and of Guatemalan indigenous peoples’ cultural survival and resistance to genocide (e.g. Menchú in Burgos-Debray, 1984). For an example of the former, see Paul Edwards, ed., Equiano’s Travels: His Autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African (Reading: Heinemann, 1967); for an example of the latter, see Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, ed. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (London: Verso, 1984). I am also reminded of Marx’s and Engel’s dialectical arguments about how certain components of the morality of dominant classes are internalized by the oppressed classes, then gradually reworked to express an emancipatory or revolutionary morality. Highly suggestive of the changes involved in the Post–Cold War Left in Latin America, e.g., is the title of Jorge Castañeda’s 1993 Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War. I do not mean to suggest that the Leninist revolutionary option has been abandoned by all Leftists in Latin America. Kenneth Roberts points out, e.g., how it remained strong among certain “fundamentalist” factions of the Left in Chile and Peru through the 1990s (Roberts, 1998). Continued guerilla activity in Colombia as of 2003 also indicates significant remnants of Leninism. For socialism, see Anthony Wright, Socialisms: Theories and Practices (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). For democratic progressivism, see Markoff (1996); also Dryzek (1996). For a real-world example, see the collection of essays by PT leaders examining the content and implications of the party’s local and state government experiences, in Magalhães et al. (1999). For an excellent summary, see Irene Gannitsos, “Popular Participation for Municipal Development Planning in Rural Bolivia: Limits and Constraints” (MS Thesis, Graduate Studies, University of Guelph, Canada, 1998), 12–13. See note 2 for more references. See Philip Oxhorn, Organizing Civil Society: The Popular Sectors and the Struggle for Democracy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); also Hochstetler (2000).

Chapter Four Participatory Democracy in Practice—Brazil’s Workers’ Party and the Participatory Budget 1. Several years later, Brazil adopted an electoral system requiring that a candidate win at least 50% plus one of the votes, or else the two candidates with the most votes would compete in a second-round election to be held one month later. Brazil’s most popular news magazine, Veja, correctly identified this two-round electoral system as “the notorious anti-PT weapon invented by the National

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3. 4. 5.

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Congress” (Alexandre Secco and Rubens Valente, “A Quarta Tentativa,” Veja, July 4, 2001, 46). The same anti-Left electoral system was employed in neighboring Uruguay in the name of “Constitutional Reform” to insure that the Leftist Frente Amplio party would never be allowed to win a presidential election. While the two traditional conservative parties (Blancos and Colorados) are each smaller than the Frente, they have so far successfully managed to construct winning anti-Frente second-round and Congressional coalitions. For case studies of the Erundina administration in São Paulo, see Cláudio Gonçalves Couto, O desafio de ser governo: O PT na prefeitura de São Paulo (1989–1992) (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1995); Lúcio Kowarick and André Singer, “The Workers’ Party in Sao Paulo,” in L. Kowarick, ed., Social Struggles and the City: The Case of São Paulo (New York: Monthly Review, 1994), 225–256; Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinski, Brazil: Carnival of the Oppressed; Lula and the Brazilian Workers’ Party (Nottingham: Latin America Bureau/Russell, 1995), 76–91; Paul Singer, “Poder público e organizações populares no combate à pobreza. A experiência do governo Luiza Erundina em São Paulo—1989/92,” in Valladares and Prates Coelho, 267–311; and Pedro Jacobi and Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira, “Orçamento Participativo: O caso de São Paulo (1989–1982) à luz das experiências de Porto Alegre e Belo Horizonte,” São Paulo: mimeo, 1996. I am reminded here of Max Weber’s discussion of the necessary balance between an “ethic of ultimate ends” and an “ethic of responsibility” (Weber [1946[b]). Castañeda (1993), 359. While the concept of “party building” refers to the PT’s efforts to construct a national party organization with an effective institutional reach beyond its historical origins in the highly urbanized and industrial São Paulo area, it should also include the construction of a relatively coherent party platform, or project. In so far as this latter programmatic construction is based on interpretations of the party’s own past mistakes and successes (e.g. experiences in PT-led local and state governance), we can speak of “institutional learning.” See my “Reconstructing the Workers’ Party (PT): Lessons from North-Eastern Brazil,” in Chalmers et al., especially 435–439. While I am emphasizing the PT’s ideological development regarding democracy (the political dimension), a similar and parallel development has been taking place regarding capitalism (the economic dimension). Writing in the early 1990s, for example, Castañeda commented on the latter: “Every now and then, the Brazilian Workers’ Party claims that it does not wish to become a reformist, socialdemocratic organization. But if one looks at what it does and not so much at what it says, it is in fact becoming just that” (Castañeda [1993],153). For similar evaluations, see my “The Making of a Loyal Opposition: The Workers’ Party (PT) and the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil,” in Kingstone and Power, 126–143; also Secco and Valente, 36–46.

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9. 10.

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All of this would seem to confirm Otto Kirshheimer’s classic observation that “mass integration parties” like the PT eventually turn into more moderate catch-all parties as candidates’ and office holders’ learning-by-doing combines with a general “de-ideologization” in the interests of greater electoral viability. Foundational commitments to grassroots constituents and radical structural transformations are abandoned, according to Kirshheimer, in order to attract a broader variety of voters (Otto Kirshheimer, “The Transformation of the Western European Party Systems,” in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner, eds., Political Parties and Political Development [Princeton: Princeton University, 1966], 184–195). Far from de-ideologizing, however, I would argue that the PT actually became more clearly ideologized as heterodox groups succeeded in elevating or prioritizing certain longstanding basic principles (and de-emphasizing others) from the ideological grab-bag that reflected the PT’s founding alliance of heterogenous social and political forces. The ideas that stand out most clearly are the embracing of “internal democracy” within the party, the critique of peripheral capitalism’s tendency to produce inequality, the assertion that the State remains the best instrument by which to counteract this inequality, and the belief that partisan activism combined with greater citizens’ participation in governance can transform formal democracy and State policy making from essentially elitist games to increasingly popular ones. Much of the following is from Nylen (2000). See Kenneth Erickson, The Brazilian Corporative State and Working Class Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); also Leôncio Martins Rodrigues, Partidos e Sindicatos; Escritos de Sociologia Política (São Paulo: Ática, 1990), 46–76. Scott P. Mainwaring, “Brazilian Party Underdevelopment in Comparative Perspective,” Political Science Quarterly, 107 (1992/1993): 677–707. For this transformation of the Latin American Left’s goals and strategies, see Cavarozzi (1992); Richard L. Harris, Marxism, Socialism, and Democracy in Latin America (Boulder: Westview, 1992); Castañeda (1993); Garcia (1994); also Sader (1995). Much of this historical overview is drawn from Margaret Keck’s excellent account of the PT’s first decade, and from Marta Harnecker’s collection of interviews with PT founders and early activists. See Keck, The Workers’ Party and Democratization in Brazil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), and Harnecker, O Sonho Era Possível: A história do Partido dos Trabalhadores narrada por seus protagonistas (Havana: MEPLA/Casa América Livre, 1994). Also useful were M. Keck, “The New Unionism in the Brazilian Transition,” in Stepan, 252–296; Rodrigues (1990), 7–33; John A. Guidry and Lothar Probst, “Consistencies of Democracy: Opposition Parties in Brazil and Germany,” Paper prepared for delivery at the XX Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Guadalajara, México, April 17–19, 1997; and Branford and Kucinski (1995).

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12. This basista interpretation of the role and function of the party would change over time, increasingly privileging the leadership of the party. 13. See Rodrigues (1990), 12–14. 14. Kowerick and Singer (1994), 227–228. 15. This latter “Leninist” idea was expressed most notably by the party’s intellectual “Leftists” (rather than by the “unionists” or “popular organizations”). See Harnecker, especially 101–110; also Keck (1992); and José Álvaro Moisés, “Poder Local e Participação Popular,” in Pedro Dallari, ed., Política Municipal (Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto/Fundação Wilson Pinheiro, 1985), 19. 16. Paulo Fernandes Baia, “A Economia Política do Partido dos Trabalhadores: Um estudo sobre o discurso petista (1979–1994)” (MA Thesis, Department of Political Economy, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 1996), 56. 17. PMDB stands for Partido do Movimento Democratico Brasileiro (Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement). For a thorough description and analysis of this and other Brazilian political parties up to the late-1990s, see Mainwaring (1999), especially xviii and 63–135. 18. Branford and Kucinski, 58. 19. Data up to 1998 is from Magalhaes et al., 246–247. 2000 data is from João Paulo Cunha, “O PT e as eleições 2000,” Teoría & Debate, no. 45 (July–September 2000), http://www.fpabramo.org.br/td/nova_td/td45/td45_nacional.htm (January 7, 2003); and from José Dirceu, “PT é o grande vitorioso,” Teoria e Debate, no. 46 (November 2000–January 2001). http://www.fpabramo. org.br/td/nova_td/td46/td46_eleicoes.htm (January 8, 2003). 2002 data is from the PT’s web site: http://www.pt.org.br/; also the commercial news service: http://noticias.terra.com.br/eleicoes Not reflected in the table is the fact that at the party’s founding in 1980, one incumbent senator and five incumbent federal deputies switched party allegiances to the PT. 20. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies is composed of 513 deputies from twenty-seven states. 21. Brazil’s Senate is composed of fifty-four senators. 22. In 1997, citing irreconcilable differences with local party militants and leaders, Espirito Santo’s Governor, Victor Buaiz, withdrew from the PT and affiliated with the Green Party (and, later, withdrew from that party as well). 23. The PT governed the city of São Paulo on two occasions, as of this writing: the aforementioned administration of Luiza Erundina (1988–1992) and that of Marta Suplicy (2000–2004). Other dimensions of the magnitude and diversity of experience in local governance were equally impressive and telling. Following the 2000 elections, the PT administered municipal governments in 20 states, down from 22 in 1996–2000, but still above the 18 cities administered in 1992–1996 and 10 in 1988–1992. And while 16 (or 62%) of its 1988–1992 administrations were located outside

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26. 27.

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of São Paulo (the PT’s home state, so to speak), the corresponding figures for 1992–1996 was 45 (or 80%), 102 (or 89%) for 1996, and 75 (or 69%) in 2000. Minas Gerais was the state with the largest number of PT-led administrations in both 2000 (34) and 1996 (30). São Paulo was next in 2000 (33), up from a relative handful (13) in 1996. Rio Grande do Sul came in third place in 2000 (32) and was second in 1996 (26). See Secco and Valente (2001). Membership data from Partido dos Trabalhadores, “PT Elege 115 prefeitos,” 1996, http://www.pt.org.br/ (November 21, 1996). Party preferences from Instituto Gallup/Fundação Pedroso Horta, Principais Gráficos e Tabelas da Pesquisa de âmbito nacional sobre Partidos Políticos e Problemas Nacionais (Brasília: mimeo, 1995). June 20, 1996 personal interview with the author. June 11, 1996 personal interview with the author. See also Jorge Bittar, ed., O Modo Petista de Governar (São Paulo: Teoria e Debate, 1992); and Silvio Caccia Bava, “Participação Popular e Democracia Representativa no Fortalecimento do Poder Local,” in Fundação Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Série Debates, Vol. 6: Subsidiariedade e Fortalecimento do Poder Local (São Paulo: Fundação Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1995), 81–86 and 95. I am here referring to Dagnino’s five-point description of the “idea of citizenship as a political strategy” (107–109, her emphasis). Dagnino’s first point focuses on the question of individual rights, particularly the right to define new rights as they emerge from the specific and unique conflicts of contemporary Brazilian sociopolitical reality (seen as inevitably different from the reality of Eighteenth Century Western Europe and the United States which spawned classical liberalism). “The right to autonomy over one’s own body, the right to environmental protection and the right to decent housing are examples . . .” (108). Her second point contrasts the concept of “empowerment” to Liberalism’s “inclusion”, seeing in the latter a top-down strategy of co-optation and social control and, in the former, “the construction of active social subjects, defining for themselves what they consider to be their rights and fighting for recognition of those rights” (108). The third point of this “new citizenship” addresses its scope or reach, entailing a vision of its enlargement beyond formal laws and political institutions into all aspects of social life. Thus, liberalism’s principle of political equality (i.e. one person, one vote at the ballot box) could be extended to include one person, one vote in defining the content of the government’s budget priorities, or its cultural policy, or even setting up new rules for what constitutes “public order” or “public morality.” Dagnino’s fourth point constitutes a further criticism of the narrowness of the liberal paradigm in that “the new citizenship must transcend the privileged focus of the relationship with the State, or between the State and the individual, to strongly include the relationship with civil society” (109). Citizenship, in other words, should not be just freedom from State intervention in the private realm of civil society, but freedom from elite

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civil society’s interventions in the private and social lives of nonelite individuals (what she calls “social authoritarianism”). Finally, “the new citizenship transcends a central reference of the Liberal concept, which is the demand for access, inclusion, membership, belonging to the political system, when what is really in play is the right to participate effectively in the actual definition of that system, the right to define what it is we want to be included in . . . ” (109, her emphasis). For a brief analysis of the historical development of this “citizenship frame” among social movement activists in Brazil in the 1990s, see Hochstetler, 167–171. 29. In the words of Carlos Vilas, “Socialism is the name that has been given, since the 19th century, to popular aspirations for a life of dignity, justice, and liberty. These aspirations have not disappeared with the Berlin Wall or the statues of Lenin” ([1994], 102). For a more detailed historical analysis leading to the same conclusion, see Wright (1986). For Marx, this “crusade” was far from being a “moral” one, as it could be both explained and justified in terms of his “scientific laws” of history. For contemporary Leftist activists often struggling against the fear and rejection of the very people whom they wish to enlighten and emancipate, however, the moral component has always been of utmost importance in keeping them committed to the cause. 30. For Gramsci, see Carl Boggs, Gramsci’s Marxism (London: Pluto, 1976), especially chapters one and two. 31. The PT’s founders thereby hoped to avoid the siphoning off of constituent organizations’ vitality and leadership into a closed party bureaucracy and leadership (i.e. what might be called the “Chilean disease”). They also hoped to recruit new leadership and prevent ossification by building “transparent” mechanisms of rank-and-file participation in the party’s administration and decision-making. Between 1980 and 1999, for example, the party held eleven national conventions, or encontros, where the “party line” was openly debated, and the party leadership was popularly elected from among candidates representing various factions, or tendências, within the party. Similarly, at the state and local levels, party encontros elect the party’s local-level candidates and leadership, and discuss the party’s programmatic positions vis-à-vis the governments and government programs at their respective levels. The PT presents this process as a “school of democracy” for its members, and as the source of an “organic” conceptualization of party goals and strategy that effectively respond “from the bottom-up” to changing circumstances and changing perceptions. To avoid the twin perils of fractionalization and individual defection, however, party rules also insist on programmatic unity once collectively determined decisions have been reached, and on ethically exemplary behavior from party cadres and office holders. Programmatic unity means that sometimes even the leadership loses out and is compelled to abide by majoritarian decisions attained in secret balloting. PT legislators and candidates also frequently find themselves restricted by the outcomes of such collective decision-making processes. On several occasions, individual

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office holders and even entire factions have been expelled from the party for transgressions of these rules. 32. Given the long association of the Left with Marxist theory’s implication of the deep structures of capitalism as the root cause of modern economic and political exclusion, and with the Leninist conclusion that the violent overthrow of capitalism organized by a vanguard revolutionary elite is the only effective political strategy of emancipation, this revisionist focus on political culture, institutional reform, and citizenship needs to be appreciated as a major transformation in the Left’s theorizing and practice. Another important, or at least interesting, dimension to this incorporation of political culture into the programmatic forefront of the Brazilian and Latin American Left is how long it took for a similar transformation to take place in academic Leftist circles. In my early graduate student years in the early 1980s, for example, I asked my favorite professor what he thought of the argument that Latin American political culture strongly influenced the regions’ politics and development. I remember his answer very clearly: “Political culture doesn’t exist.” He was a Marxist and, to him, political culture was nothing but an intervening variable—the attitudinal and behavioral reflection of underlying class domination. Real explanations for social and political dynamics could only be found in the realm of class analysis and economic structure. Second, he argued, political culture was an ethnocentric imposition of primarily North American academics pretending to explain Latin American events and processes by the less-than-useful declaration that “they are not like us.” My professor was not alone back then in his dismissal of political culture as an illegitimate focus for analysis and understanding of Latin American politics. The dominant analytical frameworks among Latin Americanists in the 1970s and early 1980s were Neo-Marxism and Dependency Theory, and we graduate students of the time were eager consumers. One of the primary targets of both was the political culture literature pioneered by Almond and Verba and other Modernization theorists in the 1960s. Interestingly enough, I later discovered that just as so many of us were trashing political culture in North America, realworld Latin American Leftist activists were discovering that class analysis and economic structure offered only a partial understanding of the region’s social and political dynamics, and that political culture was important, even fundamentally so. Pretty soon, back in the United States, we were all “bringing back in” a whole series of nonclass variables, including the State and other political institutions, and political culture. 33. Genro (1999), 15–16. 34. The significant degree of administrative decentralization constructed in the 1988 Constitution is an important background condition for the PT’s subsequent ability to implement innovative policies and programs at the local and state levels where the party governed. Frank De Paula Ribeiro explains the decentralizing

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nature of that document as resulting from two historical factors: The first stems from the fiscal and financial crisis of the authoritarian State, whose models of intervention exhausted themselves as much in terms of the availability of resources as in institutional terms. The second stems from the country’s subsequent process of redemocratization. The forces that fought for the reestablishment of the democratic regime saw in decentralization a break with the centralized yet organizationally fragmented model of State-dominated public administration. Decentralization came to be seen, in this perspective, as an instrument that would guarantee a greater degree of openness to the demands of society, facilitating greater social control of the activities carried out by the public sector (Frank de Paula Ribeiro, “Cidadania Possível ou Neoclientelismo Urbano? Cultura e Política no Orçamento Participativo da Habitação em Belo Horizonte (1995–2000)” [MA Thesis, Public Administration, Escola de Governo da Fundação João Pinheiro, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 2001], 19). See also Samuels (2000). 35. See Guidry and Probst (1997) for an alternative “neoinstitutionalist” explanation for the PT’s moderation. 36. See Keck (1992); Cavarozzi (1992); Cláudio Gonçalves Couto and Fernando Luiz Abrucio, “A Dialética da Mudança: O PT confronta-se com a institucionalidade,” Cadernos CEDEC, no. 31 (1993); and Clovis Bueno de Azevedo, A Estrela Partida ao Meio: ambigüidades do pensamento petista (São Paulo: Entrelinhas, 1995). Each of these argue in one form or another that the operative logic of playing by the rules of “institutional politics” (i.e. the negotiating, compromising and interest-aggregating logic of políticos) contradicted the vision of the party’s “bases” (organized labor and existing social movements) that the party should represent the needs and interests of its constituent grassroots social movements and support those movements’ efforts outside the institutional arena of politics, even if that meant compromising electoral prospects. According to this argument, these competing “logics” lie at the root of much of the PT’s party infighting. 37. See the description and analysis of fractional and organizational disputes within the PT’s first municipal administration in Diadema, São Paulo (1982–1985) in Keck (1992), 199–215. For descriptions and analyses of such disputes in the PT’s administration of Fortaleza, Ceará, see Valeska Peres Pinto, “Prefeitura de Fortaleza: administração popular, 1986–88,” Pólis, no. 6 (1992): 1–52; and Ercília Maria Braga de Olinda, A Dimensão Educativa do Partido Político (Fortaleza: Expressão, 1991). 38. See Bittar (1992); Rebecca Abers, “From Ideas to Practice: The Partido dos Trabalhadores and Participatory Governance in Brazil,” Latin American Perspectives, 23 (1996): 39; and Magalhães et al. (1999).

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39. Kowarick and Singer (1994), 239–240. For a sampling of case studies of PT municipal administration, see the collection of essays in Gianpaolo Baiocci, ed., Radicals in Power (London: Zed Press, 2003); also Avritzer (2002), 151–157; Abers (2000); Nylen (1997[a]); William Nylen, “Does Popular Participation Continue When Electoral Defeat Ends Popular Participation Programs? Preliminary Answers from Two Case Studies of the Aftermath of Participation in the Participatory Budgets of João Monlevade and Betim, Minas Gerais, Brazil,” a paper prepared for delivery at the Latin American Studies Association XXI International Congress, Washington, D.C., September 6–8, 2001; Jacobi and Teixeira (1996); Mercês Somarriba and Otavio Dulci, “A democratização do poder local e seus dilemas: a dinâmica atual da participação popular em Belo Horizonte,” in Eli Diniz and Sérgio de Azevedo, eds., Reforma do Estado e Democracia no Brasil (Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1997), 391–425; and the readings in note 2. See also issues of the São Paulo-based journal Pólis (Instituto de Estudos, Formação e Assessoria em Política Sociais) which regularly publishes articles on “popular democratic” (i.e. PT-administered) municipal governments and policies. Similarly, the PT’s own trimesterly magazine, Teoria & Debate, often runs articles describing and analyzing PT administrations. 40. For such a comparison analyzing the case of BH, capital of Minas Gerais and focusing on the PT administration’s (1993–1996) construction of low-cost housing and sanitation works in previously unserved areas of the city, see Somarriba and Dulci (1995), 25–29. For a similar comparison in the issue area of education for the PT’s first administration of São Paulo (1989–1993), see Pedro Jacobi, ed., “Descentralização, Educação e Democracia: O caso do município de São Paulo,” Cadernos Cedec, no. 49 (1995). 41. Caccia Bava, 170. 42. Abers (1996), 35. 43. See Nylen (1997[a]); Nylen, “Popular Participation in Brazil’s Workers’ Party: ‘Democratizing Democracy’ in Municipal Politics,” Political Chronicle, the Journal of the Florida Political Science Association, 8 (1997[b]): 1–12; and Nylen (2000). 44. The eight cities were: Angra dos Reis (RJ), Betim (MG), Belo Horizonte (MG), Diadema (SP), Londrina (PR), Porto Alegre (RS), Santo André (SP), and São Paulo (SP). See Partido dos Trabalhadores, Projetos do PT para o Habitat II (São Paulo: Diretório Nacional do PT, 1996). For a full accounting of all awards won by PT-administered cities between 1993 and 2002, see Partido dos Trabalhadores, “Onde o PT Governa e Ganha Premios,” September 2000, http://www.pt.org.br/ (January 7, 2003). 45. See MED/UNICEF/CENPEC, Educação & Desenvolvimento Municipal (Brasília: Quantum, 1993). 46. Chapter six of this book is an effort to answer this question using a case study and survey methodology, as is my “Testing the Empowerment Thesis: The

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48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53. 54.

55.

56. 57.

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Participatory Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil,” Comparative Politics, 34 (winter 2002): 127–145. See Maurício Dias, “Informe JB,” Jornal do Brasil, June 21, 1996, in which he discussess the results of a national poll of 2,680 respondents administered in mid-May of 1996 by Vox Populi. See José Álvaro Moisés, “Elections, Political Parties and Political Culture in Brazil: Changes and Continuities,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 25 (1993): 575–611. See Rachel Meneguello, “Partidos e tendências de comportamento: o cenário político em 1994,” in Evelina Dagnino, 151–172.; Instituto Gallup/Fundação Pedroso Horta; and “Eleitores participam cada vez menos,” Folha de São Paulo, September 13, 1998. In the words of Brazilian political analyst, Roberto Amaral, “The Brazilian media are political actors who intervene in the political order, have an active voice in the electoral process, and take sides, almost like a political party. The media help maintain the status quo because state and media interests coalesce” (Amaral, “Mass Media in Brazil: Modernization to Prevent Change,” in Elizabeth Fox and Silvio Waisbord, eds., Latin Politics, Global Media [Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002], 38). For an outsider’s similarly critical view of the Brazilian media, see Page, Joseph A. Page, The Brazilians (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1995), 155–175 and 444–465. See, e.g., Caio Navarro de Toledo, “As esquerdas e a redescoberta da democracia,” in Dagnino, 127–136; Robert Gay, Popular Organizations and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: A Tale of Two Favelas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994); and Frances Hagopian, “After Regime Change: Authoritarian Legacies, Political Representation, and the Democratic Future of South America,” World Politics, 45 (1993): 464–500. For “the theme of empowerment” as expressed at the time of the 1982 campaign, see Keck (1992), 139–140. Empowerment (and “praxis”) are also crucial themes in liberation theology; which makes sense given the historically close relationship between the PT and Brazil’s progressive Catholic Church. See Abers (2000), 51. See Ruth Cardoso, “Popular Movements in the Context of the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil,” in Escobar and Alvarez, 291–302; Abers (1996), 38; and María Helena Moreira Alves, “Something Old, Something New: Brazil’s Partido dos Trabalhadores,” in Barry Carr and Steve Ellner, eds., The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika (Boulder: Westview, 1993), 225–242. For an “official” elaboration of the initial formulation of that project, see Bitter (1992). For a subsequent reanalysis based on almost ten years of experience, see Magalhães et al. (1999). As argued by Raul Pont, public lecture entitled “Participação Popular,” Câmara Municipal de São Paulo (19 June, 1996). From author’s field notes. As argued in Baia (1996).

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58. Ladislau Dowbor, “Decentralization and Governance,” Latin American Perspectives, 25 (January 1998): 51–52. 59. For a discussion of the conflictual process whereby “heterodox” ideas became hegemonic within the PT, see Nylen (1997), 430–439; also for examples of early efforts by the PT in the Northeastern state of Ceará to construct effective mechanisms of local-level popular participation. For the Porto Alegre case, see Abers (2000), 108–109. 60. Ricardo Tavares, “The PT Experience in Porto Alegre,” NACLA Report on the Americas, 29 (1995): 29. 61. “The data on total participation in the regional meetings demonstrate that while 250 organizations and a total of 403 individuals participated in 1989, these numbers grew to 650 organizations and 10,735 individuals in 1993” (Jacobi and Teixeira, 23). For more data on the popularity of Porto Alegre’s OP, see Abers (2000), 102–104. As mentioned earlier, Dutra ultimately lost his 2002 reelection bid. 62. See, e.g., José Dirceu, “Governos locais e regionais e a luta política nacional,” in Mahalhães et al., 18–25. 63. Celso Daniel, “A gestão local no limiar do novo milênio,” in Mahalhães, Barreto and Trevas, 237. 64. Field notes from the September 19, 1998 speech by Patrus Anias before the Regional OP Forum of the Oeste Region of BH. 65. The literature on such cases is enormous and growing. The following represent mere starting points. For Japan, see Yasuo Takao, “Participatory Democracy in Japan’s Decentralization Drive,” Asian Survey, 38 (October 1998): 950–967. For Jamaica, see Eleanor Wint, “Factors Encouraging the Growth of Sustainable Communities: A Jamaican Case Study,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 27 (spring 2000): 119–133. For Canada, see James C. Frankish, Brenda Kwan, Pamela A. Ratner, Joan Wharf Higgins, and Craig Larsen, “Challenges of Citizen Participation in Regional Health Authorities,” Social Science & Medicine, 54 (May 2002): 1471–1480; also Thomas Ponniah and Judy Rebick, “The New Politics Initiative: Toward a Living Democracy,” Canadian Dimension, 33 (September/ October 2001): 21–23. For Uruguay, see Benjamin Goldfrank, “The Fragile Flower of Local Democracy: A Case Study of Decentralization/ Participation in Montevideo,” Politics and Society, 30 (March 2002), 51–83; also Eduardo Canel, “Municipal Decentralization and Participatory Democracy: Building a New Mode of Urban Politics in Montevideo City?” Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe/European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 71 (October 2001): 25–46; and Peter Winn and Lilia FerroClérico, “Can a Leftist Government Make a Difference? The Frente Amplio Administration of Montevideo, 1990–1994,” in Chalmers et al., 447–468. For Bolivia, Benjamin Kohl, “Stabilizing Neoliberalism in Bolivia: Popular Participation and Privatization,” Political Geography, 21 (May 2002): 449–472; also Gannitsos (1998), also Peirce (1998); for South Africa, see Tony Emmett,

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“Beyond Community Participation? Alternative Routes to Civil Engagement and Development in South Africa,” Development Southern Africa, 17 (October 2000): 501–518. Chapter Five


1. Much of the first section of this chapter is from Nylen (1996[b]). 2. See James Brooke, “Inland Region of Brazil Grows Like Few Others,” New York Times, August 11, 1994. Also see Estado de Minas, March 13, 1998; Diário da Tarde, December 12, 1997. Brazil went from being 75% rural in the 1950s to being 79% urban by the late 1990s. 3. Minas Gerais is Brazil’s second-most-populous state, with a geographic area (588,384 square kilometers) slightly smaller than Alaska. CBMM/FJP. Perfil de Minas Gerais/Guide to the Economy of Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte: Compania Brasileira de Metalurgia e Mineração/Fundação João Pinheiro, 1998), 150. 4. For patron–clientelism in Minas Gerais, see Francis Hagopian, Traditional Politics and Regime Change in Brazil (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996). A particularly glaring contemporary example of the elitism and corruption endemic to clientelistic politics came to light in July and August of 2001 when, after much investigative reporting, the Estado de Minas newspaper revealed that the salary of the president of the assembly in the year 2000 was larger than the salary of the president of the United States ($440,000/year versus $400,000/year). In the context of recession, increasing unemployment, and a minimum wage below $100/month, the newspaper further revealed that the average salary for state deputies was $288,000/year, and that many deputies’ offices were filled with family members and with relatives of close political allies. See “Tudo contra o social,” Estado de Minas, August 11, 2001; also “Presidente da Assembléia ganha mais do que Bush,” Estado de Minas, August 12, 2001; also “Nepotismo na Assembléia,” Estado de Minas, August 13, 2001. 5. Otilie Macedo Pinheiro, “Orçamento Participativo: A Experiência de Betim,” Paper presented at the II Encontro das ABOPS [Associação Brasileira de Orçamento Público] Regionais, Betim: mimeo, no date. For more information on Betim at this time, see Brooke (1994); also “Betim tem o maior índice de favelas,” Estado de Minas, March 24, 1993, pp. 1 and 21. For BH, see Berenice Martins Guimarães, “As Vilas Favelas em Belo Horizonte: O Desafio dos Números,” Luiz Cesar de Quieroz Ribeiro, ed., O Futuro das Cidades: Desigualidades e Governabilidade (Rio de Janeiro: Revan, 2000), 351–374. 6. Following the 1988 Constitution, 36% of total tax revenues went to the federal government, 42% to states, and 21% to municipalities. Meanwhile, in 1991, 63.44% of all taxes were collected by the federal government, 31.15% by the states, and 5.41% by municipalities. See Gil Shidlo, “Local Urban Elections in Democratic Brazil,” in Henry A. Dietz and Gil Shidlo, eds., Urban Elections in Democratic Latin America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1998), 63–90; also

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

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Samuels, 77–98. For the budget-reducing effects of Azaredo’s State-level fiscal reforms in Betim, see “Betim vai cortar 40% dos gastos,” Hoje em Dia, February 12, 1996, p. 4. In 1988, the PT in Betim elected three city council members (out of twenty-one) while its candidate for mayor, Maria do Carmo Lara, placed second. See, e.g., Nilza Murari, ed., É possível fazer diferente: Gestão Popular de Maria do Carmo—1993/1996 (Betim: Editora do Autor, 1998). Some meetings included two or three smaller neighborhoods together. The city had previously been divided into eight administrative regions as part of an accompanying decentralization effort. That Betim’s OP was rooted in the party’s model (i.e. analyses of existing OPs in Porto Alegre, Ipatinga and Santo Andre, and close reading of internal party debates about the model) was confirmed in a July 18, 1996 interview with the then-mayor of Betim, Maria do Carmo Lara. Another long-time party leader, however, was quick to inform me that the local party was not controlled by the state or national organizations and that “Not even the OP is dictated from above” (July 19, 1996 interview with Cordovil Neves de Sousa, Assesor do Chefe da Gabinete da Prefeita). Other dimensions of Betim’s popular participation strategy included election of municipal-run public school officials by school employees, students and parents; also election rather than executive appointment of councilors in the Municipal Health Council, and the expansion of the number of Municipal Health councilors from eighteen to twenty-four. See “Betim: Eleição na rede escolar municipal,” Diário Da Tarde, November 19, 1993; also “Conselho Municipal de Saúde é ampliado,” Frente A Frente, June 16–30, 1993. In 1993, more than 6,000 people participated in Betim’s first OP process. In 1994, that number rose to 10,000. See “Betim promove outra reunião do Orçamento Participativo,” Diário Da Tarde, June 23, 1995; and “Betim discute prioridades administrativas para 95,” Diário Do Comércio, August 30, 1994. In 1995, according to official figures, the number of participants rose to 20,000. This represented a significant increase over 1995’s R$7,040,000 (or 11% of total revenues of R$64,000,000). See “Betim terá problemas no orçamento do próximo ano,” Diário Do Comércio, July 27, 1994. For a journalistic account of 1995’s OP process, see “Orçamento Participativo de Betim já teve nada menos de 128 reuniões,” Diário Da Tarde, August 30, 1994. Abers points out that in the celebrated case of Porto Alegre, “If one excludes earmarked loans, the capital expenditure budget [of 1995] accounted for about 18 percent of total estimated revenue of the city; explicitly bottom-up, neighborhood-based expenditures accounted for about 7 percent” (Abers [2000], 87–88). The key issue at the outset of the PT administration was the percentage of the budget allocated to the Council in salaries, expenses and “extras.” See “Manifestação acaba em pancadaria na Câmara de Betim,” Hoje em Dia, July 5, 1994; also “Vereadores de Betim fazem greve contra a prefeitura,” Estado de Minas, August 4, 1994.

Notes

15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

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No single party controlled the City Council. Non-PT members came from a variety of parties described earlier as “clientelistic”: the PDT, PFL, PMDB, PTB and PSDB. For descriptions and analyses of these parties up to the mid-1990s, see Mainwaring (1999). See, e.g., “Betim: continua impasse sobre os salários dos vereadores,” Estado De Minas, January 22, 1994; also “Câmara mantém vantagens dos ‘privilegiados’,” Diário Da Tarde, May 28, 1994; also “Veradores de Betim contratam até 50 parentes,” Hoje em Dia, March 3, 1995. In addition to citations in note 14, see “Câmara instala CPI contra atos da prefeita,” Diário da Tarde, June 1, 1994; “Prefeita de Betim acusa Legislativo de retaliação,” Diário do Comércio, June 7, 1994; Lara, Maria do Carmo, “O repasse e as contas,” Hoje em Dia, July 7, 1994; “Uma receita . . .” (July 29, 1994); “Aumento do repasse e a paz da Câmara com a Prefeitura,” Diário da Tarde, August 6, 1994; also “Justiça anula impeachment contra prefeita,” Diário da Tarde, September 2, 1994. “Vida de Cidadão: Inchaço,” Estado de Minas, January 29, 1998; also “Moralização ou demagogia?” Diário da Tarde, April 2, 1998. “Oposição denuncia clientelismo.” Hoje em Dia, March 17, 1996; also July 19, 1996 interview with Betim city council president, Paulo Mundim (PDT). Also suspected in the plot were Lima’s Vice Mayor (a member of the same party as the principal suspect), a prominent local businessman and a driver for the City Council. See Herivelton Moreira, “Delgado pedirá novo prazo para conclusão de inquérito,” O Tempo, October 21, 1997; “Promotor oferece denúncia contra ‘Deto’ e Elias por atentado a Jésus,” O Tempo, November 28, 1997; “Atentado foi vingança, diz PM,” Folha de São Paulo, January 31, 1998; also Aida Lopes, “Elias é libertado por habeas corpus do STJ,” O Tempo, May 21, 1998. Luis Castro Silva, “Pacote mineiro agrada aos prefeitos petistas,” Estado de Minas, December 6, 1997; also “Políticas empobrecem cidades,” Estado de Minas, March 20, 1998. Franklin Almeida de Mendonça, “Legislativo com Verba Menor: Acordo em Betim deve garantir programas,” Diário do Comércio, February 25, 1998. Hila Rodrigues, “Vereadores de Betim imitam os deputados,” Estado de Minas May 7, 1998. Most information in this paragraph is from August 25, 1998 and November 12, 1998 interviews with Elke Reagan de Oliveira, Assessora da Coordenação do Orçamento Participativo, Betim. In 1993, more than 6,000 people participated in Betim’s first OP process. In 1994, that number rose to 10,000. See “Betim promove . . .”; also “Betim discute . . .”. In discussing services, programs and projects, we are democratizing information. By discussing the city’s finances, we make public administration more transparent, thereby increasing citizens’ capacity to make decisions about the best way to manage a truly democratic city (Prefeitura Municipal de Betim, Orçamento Participativo 1999: A conquista de uma gestão transparente e de parceiras [Betim: mimeo, 1998]).

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According to this report, the city’s eight regional administrative offices would be included in these discussions beginning in 1999. 26. August 25, 1998 interview with Elke Reagan de Oliveira. 27. See, e.g., Abers (2000) regarding Porto Alegre. 28. This formulation plays on the double meaning of the word “popular” in Portuguese (and Spanish): on the one hand, “of the people” or “admired (by the people)” and, on the other hand, as in the general English sense of the word, broadly “approved” or “admired.” Quoted definitions are from James L. Taylor, Webster’s Portuguese–English Dictionary (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1970). Chapter Six Examining the Claims of Proponents of the Participatory Budget 1. The concept of empowerment is discussed in greater detail in chapters three and four. 2. For an analysis of the efficacy of this “insurance policy,” see Nylen (2001). 3. Certainly, the majority of PT leaders and activists had reached the conclusion that it was their responsibility to provide the generative experience for citizen empowerment through such “democratic and popular” institutional reforms as the Orçamento Participativo (OP). These individuals, then, are Brazil’s “NeoTocquevillians”, to recall the term from chapter three. We will return to them in chapter eight. 4. Belo Horizonte (BH) was governed by former PT city council member, Patrus Ananias, from 1993 until 1996, when the party leadership disagreed with Ananias’ choice for successor, Vice Mayor, Célio de Castro, of the Brazilian Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Brasileiro), one of the constituent parties of the 1992 campaign’s “Frente BH Popular,” a coalition of progressive and Left parties supporting Ananias. Castro won the election, but the PT retained important posts in his government, including the Secretaría de Planejamento, the agency responsible for the OP. In 1998, BH was undertaking its sixth OP. For historical accounts of BH during this period, focusing on the OP and other aspects of participatory governance, see Ribeiro (2001); Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, “Orçamento Participativo: Participação Popular e Controle Social em Belo Horizonte,” paper prepared for the Escola de Governo na Fundação João Pinheiro—Curso de Gestão Urbana e de Cidades, Belo Horizonte, March 12–24, 2000; Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento/Prefeitura de BH. “Orçamento Participativo Cidade,” Planejar BH, 2 (February 2000); Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento/Prefeitura de BH, “Orçamento Participativo: 8 anos de História,” Planejar BH, 3 (December 2000); Somarriba and Dulci (1997); and Mercês Somarriba, “Movimento Reivindicatório Urbano e Política em Belo Horizonte: Balanço de uma Década,” Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Textos: Sociologia e Antropologia, 43 (July/September 1993).

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5. This was not a randomly selected sample of OP delegates chosen from a randomly selected sample of PT-administered OP processes. Inevitable sampling errors must be considered: self-selection, literacy (only partially offset by the use of paid assistants to help illiterates fill out the questionnaire), etc. Like any exploratory analysis, results should be taken as suggestive and not indicative of inference to the universe of participants in PT-administered OP processes. 6. From November 5, 1998 personal interview with the author. Because of the primarily nonelite composition of OP delegates, a further disincentive for middle- and upper-class citizens to participate in the OP is the likelihood that their neighborhood priorities will lose out to those of poorer neighborhoods. One OP delegate from a BH favela gave me the following illustration: Then there was the neighborhood near Pampulha [a wealthy neighborhood near the airport], no one voted for them. . . . People went around and saw all these other neighborhoods with everything falling apart and everyone agreed that those folks by the airport have the money to do things themselves, and no one’s really in a dangerous situation over there. They wanted to make a recreational area. Instead, everyone opted for improvements of poorer neighborhoods and Vilas.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

From November 16, 1998 personal interview with Maria Aparecida Martins, daycare center worker, first-time OP delegate, Vila São Francisco, BH. This latter claim is certainly true in the United States. Referring to a 1995 study by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady, Dalton argues that, “Higher-status individuals, especially the better educated, are more likely to have the time, the money, the access to political information, the knowledge, and the ability to become politically involved” (Dalton [2002], 47). See also Ram A. Cnaan, “NeighborhoodRepresenting Organizations: How Democratic Are They?” The Social Service Review, 65 (December 1991): 614–634. More detailed presentation of these data can be found in annex two. For an argument, focused on the U.S. case, as to why the lack of “descriptive representation” in formal institutions of representative democracy (i.e. the formal representatives are not reflective of the demographic characteristics of society as a whole) entails a lack of “substantive representation” (the interests of descriptively “under represented” groups are not articulated or defended), see Mansbridge (1999); also Phillips (1995). Abers (2000), 132. From November 17, 1998 personal interview with the author. From November 27, 1998 personal interview with the author. From November 9, 1998 personal interview with José Marcius Vale, Assistant Regional Administrator, Northeastern Region of BH. From November 15, 1998 personal interview with Marcia de Almeida Coelho, OP delegate, Bairro Tupi-Alto Mirante, Northern Region of BH.

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15. From November 26, 1998 personal interview with Dalba D. dos Santos, OP delegate, Bairro Santa Maria, Northeastern Region of BH. 16. The following section is primarily from Nylen (2002). 17. Held (1996), 268. Held refers to Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), chapters two and six; Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), note 95; and D. Held and Christopher Pollitt, eds., New Forms of Democracy (London: Sage, 1986). 18. The lack of a before–after comparison constitutes the major problem with the otherwise excellent study of BH’s OP found in Mercês Somarriba and Otavio Dulci, “Primeiro Relatório de Atividades da Pesquisa ‘Avalicação da Experiência de Implantação e Atuação de Foruns de Participação Popular na Administração Municipal de Belo Horizonte–Período 1993–1996’ ” (Belo Horizonte: mimeo, 1995). 19. I included only those responses from delegates who indicated both current and pre-OP civil society participation. In BH, valid responses numbered 966 of 1,086 respondents (89%). In Betim, valid responses numbered 186 among 222 respondents (85%). 20. “Significance” is measured by a two-tailed comparison of means, with scores less than 0.05 determined to be practically significant. 21. The index of unionization throughout Brazil fell from 27.2% in 1989 to 16.2% by 1995. 22. In the words of Maria Auxiliadora Gomes, Coordinator of OP Operations in BH (from November 17, 1998 personal interview with the author), “You can’t change people’s consciousness in one year.” 23. This is a slightly different interpretation from a previous work in which I stated “The results do not strengthen the empowerment thesis” (Nylen [2002], 135). 24. Excluding “no responses” from the data, the number of valid responses in this section is 792 delegates for BH and 163 delegates for Betim. The large percentage of delegates in both cases (25.8% of BH’s respondents and 26.6% of Betim’s) who either did not answer the questions of political society activism, or who answered only the pre-OP or time-of-survey portion, or who registered contradictory answers, are likely to include more nonactivists than activists, thereby skewing these results to some extent. 25. “Party Militancy” refers to being not just a member of a political party, but an active member. Many Brazilians state that they vote for, or are active on behalf of, “individuals, not parties.” “Candidate Militancy” is an attempt to capture this antiparty, but not antipolitical society, sentiment. “Party Sympathy” is commonly used in Brazil to express a less committed measure of party identification. “Disinterested voters” are those claiming to have no interest in party politics but who still vote in elections. “Disinterested non-voters” represent the extreme of disengagement from party politics and political society in general. 26. Additional data from the survey suggest that OP delegates were less disengaged than citizens outside the OP process (although such a conclusion is tentative at

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best given the lack of a control group of nonparticipants). Several questions included in the survey asked delegates to register their degree of agreement/ disagreement with certain “politically charged” statements. Delegates were asked, for example, to react to the statement, “All parties and all politicians are the same.” While this is something of a common saying in Brazil, reflecting a disillusioned view of politics, it is also patently false as it ignores the significant differences that exist, for example, between parties representing the clientelistic Right, the neoliberal Center-Right and the “neo-Tocquevillian” Left. Agreement with the statement, therefore, suggests an uniformed and/or alienated disillusionment with party politics, while disagreement suggests more informed engagement. In Betim, only 18.92% of OP delegates expressed either complete or partial agreement with the statement, while 33.05% of BH delegates expressed the same. On the other hand, 65.77% of Betim’s delegates expressed either complete or partial disagreement, as compared to 50.09% of BH delegates. While these data suggest that BH delegates are more disillusioned with, and alienated from, party politics than their Betim counterparts, the fact of the matter is that a majority of delegates in both cases express disagreement with the statement. These results are essentially reproduced in delegates’ responses to the statement, “If I weren’t required by law to vote, I wouldn’t.” Agreement with this statement suggests alienation and/or disillusionment with electoral democracy, while disagreement suggests a degree of engagement and commitment. Only 20.72% of Betim’s delegates expressed complete or partial agreement, while 34.55% of BH’s delegates expressed the same. On the other hand, 64.41% of Betim’s delegates expressed complete or partial disagreement, as compared to 52.43% of BH delegates. Again, these differences suggest a greater degree of disillusionment with electoral and party politics among BH delegates compared with their Betim counterparts. Once again, however, in spite of differences of degree, a majority of delegates in both cases expressed disagreement with the statement—an especially noteworthy result given the aforementioned results of a national poll taken only several months earlier in which 49% of respondents stated that they would not vote if they weren’t required to do so (Estado de Minas, July 28, 1998). 27. “Inactive” refers to delegates who indicated they were either disinterested voters or disinterested non-voters. All others I regard as “active” in political society (ranging from interested nonpartisan voters to party activists). A few disinterested voters indicated sympathy for a political party. Rather than score this as a contradiction, I considered it a reasonable response. 28. This conclusion also challenges Abers’ conclusion “that innumerable individuals who had never participated in social movements or civic groups began to gain experience with collective action in the context of the budget policy” ([2000], 131–132). This difference may be due to something unique about the Porto Alegre case, but I doubt it. Abers reaches her conclusion about individual empowerment from data measuring participation in assemblies in neighborhoods and

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29. 30. 31.

32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42.

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regions with differences in histories of collective organization and mobilization. Her reasoning from the collective to the individual level of analysis, however, is inherently flawed. Participating individuals in previously unorganized and unmobilized neighborhoods may have had personal histories of activism in any number of civil society organizations and/or in political society. Her conclusion of OP-inspired empowerment, therefore, is highly suspect. See Oxhorn (1995); also Roberts (1999); also Hochstetler (2000). Handelman (2000), 92. Sérgio Azevedo and Leonardo Avritzer, “A Política do Orçamento Participativo: nova forma de relacionamento entre Estado e Sociedade Civil,” paper prepared for delivery at the XVIII Encontro Anual da Associação de Pós-graduação em Ciências Sociais, Caxambu, Minas Gerais, 1994, 13. See Uribatan de Souza, “Orçamento participativo, do município ao estado,” in Mahalhães, Barreto and Trevas, 73. From November 26, 1998 personal interview with Sr. Dalba D. dos Santos. From 1993 through 1998 in BH, a total of 1,497 OP delegates had also served as elected delegates in one of the nine Regional Oversight Commissions (Comforças) where they regularly met throughout their year of service to oversee and discuss the implementation of OP projects with fellow delegates from different neighborhoods and with regional and municipal OP administrators. Comforças is the acronym for Comissão Regional de Acompanhamento e Fiscalização do Orçamento. Instituted with BH’s first OP in 1993, OP delegates from each of the city’s nine regional administrations elect a body of Comforças members at each year’s regional OP Congress. See Gomes (2000), 3. The Comforças is functionally equivalent to the CMOP in Betim discussed in chapter five. For the Porto Alegre case, see Abers (2000), 167–169. Political Scientist, Jonathan Fox, refers to this process of engaging otherwise isolated neighborhood-level activists in regional and municipal dialog and networking among themselves as “scaling up” (Fox [1996]). Azevedo and Avritzer, 23. As argued by, among others, Ribeiro (2000). From July 17, 1996 personal interview with Gilberto Lisboa, Betim. From November 17, 1998 personal interview with Rogério Pereira de Araújo, Bairro Nossa Senhora dos Passos, BH. Somarriba and Dulci (1995), 30. From November 26, 1998 meeting with representatives of the Santa Maria neighborhood association and four OP delegates; quote is from OP delegate, Sr. Dalba D. dos Santos. From November 6, 1998 interview with the author. From September 1, 1998 field notes. See Gay (1994); also Abers (2000), 25–35; and Cnaan (1991). According to Hochstettler, “Neighborhood movement leaders have been especially susceptible to co-optation efforts” ([2000], 175).

Notes

43. 44.

45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53.

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These practices do not disappear overnight. According to Vieland Silberschneider, BH’s Secretary of Planning at the time of this study, “The participatory spaces opened up by the Orçamento Participativo are sometimes used for clientelistic, power-brokering purposes, especially at the neighborhood level. When the results are negative, it is the Administration that is to blame. When the results are positive, they take the credit” (from August 24, 1998 personal interview with the author). Similarly, in the words of Mêrcia Adriana de Oliveira Cruz, Second Assistant to the Regional Administrator of the Northern Zone of Belo Horizonte, “City Council Members hate the OP because it makes things happen in ‘their’ neighborhoods without them getting any credit. Some even try to take advantage of the day that a given OP obra is inaugurated by claiming it to be ‘their’ obra” (from August 31, 1998 personal interview with the author). From July 17, 1998 personal interview with Gilberto Lisboa, Betim. Gay (1994); and Rebecca Abers, “Inventing Local Democracy: Neighborhood Organizing and Participatory Policy-Making in Porto Alegre, Brazil” (PhD Dissertation, Department of Urban Planning, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 1997), 99–100 and 135–153. John R. Baker, “Citizen Participation and Neighborhood Organizations,” Urban Affairs Review, 30 (1995): 880–887. From November 11, 1998 personal interview with the author. Abers (2000), 135–214. Ribeiro offers a more cautious analysis based on a case study of the Participatory Public Housing Budget of BH between 1995 and 2000 ([2000], 114 –136). He argues that the leadership of supposedly representative grassroots movements and organizations can and do, in some instances, reproduce the antidemocratic practices of clientelism and corporatism once they have been “anointed” as civil society partners in a given instance of participatory decision-making. He calls this outcome “Neocorporatism.” From November 13, 1998 interview with Adelia Mendes, secondary school teacher, first year OP delegate, Bairro Nossa Senhora dos Passos, BH. From November 15, 1998 personal interview with Djalma, OP, and Comforças delegate, Bairro Tupi Alto Mirante, BH. From November 15, 1998 personal interview with José Estacio da Silva, security guard, first year OP delegate, Bairro Tupi Alto Mirante, BH. From November 16, 1998 personal interview with Maria José Pereira Ramos, car washer, first time OP and Comforças delegate, Vila São Francisco, BH. From November 16, 1998 personal interview with Adeja Anira dos Santos Rodrigues, worker at a Catholic church community center for poor women and children, OP delegate, Vila São Francisco, BH. From November 16, 1998 personal interview with Maria José Pereira Ramos, Vila São Francisco, BH. From November 16, 1998 personal interview with Adeja Anira dos Santos Rodrigues, Vila São Francisco, BH.

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54. From August 31, 1998 interview with Luís Henrique, OP Administrator, Secretariate of Planning, BH. 55. The problem of “opaque” public administration is directly related to the problems of clientelism and corruption at all levels of governance in Brazil. For example, “According to the United Nations, only 18% of international development assistance to Brazil, for public works and programs, are actually invested in those works and programs. The remaining 82% gets eaten by bureaucracy” (“Betim mostra Orçamento Participativo na ONU,” Diario da Tarde, June 12, 1996, p. 1). 56. From November 19, 1998 personal interview with the author. 57. From November 19, 1998 personal interview with the author. See also Partido dos Trabalhadores (1996[a]), 18. This commitment to “transparency” was visible in areas of public administration other than the OP process—in fact, transparency constitutes one of the three basic principles of the “PT Mode of Governance” alongside popular participation and “inverting priorities.” Adonis Pereira, Regional Administrator for the Northern Region of Belo Horizonte, for example, provides an illustrative example: We try all means of inviting direct participation in the functioning of the Regional Administration. First, we provide information about what we’re doing and about how we’re attending the community. Every year, we meet with leaders of neighborhood associations and other community organizations to go over our books and records. [. . .] We integrate and communicate a lot with these leaders (from November 11, 1998 personal interview with the author). Chapter Seven Examining the Claims of Critics of the Participatory Budget 1. “ . . . the most important role of the City Assembly is an unofficial one: that of interlocutor between civil society and the executive branch of municipal government” (Abers [2000], 96). 2. From January 19, 1996 interview with the author. 3. See, especially, Barry Ames, “Electoral Rules, Constituency Pressures, and Pork Barrel: Bases of Voting in the Brazilian Congress,” The Journal of Politics, 57 (1997): 324 –343; also Mainwaring (1999), and Power (2000). For one of many contemporary examples, see Ana Maria Campos, “Deputado recebe verba de assessores,” Jornal do Brasil, August 17, 2001. 4. For a version of this argument, see Rocha (1999), 116. 5. See, e.g., Daniel (1999), 235. Abers goes even further to argue that the “neighborhood-based clientelism” of traditional city councils “was virtually eliminated in Porto Alegre with the PT administration and, in particular, with the participatory budget” ([2000], 96).

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6. This criticism took the form of a legal challenge to the state-level OP introduced in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in 1999 by the PT administration of Olívio Dutra, former mayor of Porto Alegre. The challenge came from ex-governor and then-federal deputy, Alceu Collares. See De Souza (1999), 80–81. 7. See Maria Victoria Benevides, A Cidadania Ativa: Referendo, Plebiscito e Iniciative Popular (São Paulo: Ática, 1991). 8. Since choosing the OP as a means of organizing the administration’s budget proposal stems entirely from executive decision and not from a legally constructed process, the OP exists only as long as administration leaders want it to exist. As such, the OP is extraordinarily vulnerable to elections cycles and results. Most cities that turn out a PT administration end up losing the OP as well (as occurred in Betim in 2000). See Nylen (2001). 9. From July 18, 1996 interview with Romulo Veneroso, Betim city council member (PSDB). Veneroso went on the charge that these delegates, and others from other neighborhoods, form little groups who use their positions as OP delegates primarily for self-interested or partisan purposes. 10. Data for Porto Alegre and BH are from Jacobi and Teixeira (1996) and Somarriba and Dulci (1995). A 1994 survey cited by Abers “found that about 8 percent of the adult population had directly participated in the budget assemblies” ([2000], 110). 11. Data are from Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento/Prefeitura Belo Horizonte (December 2000), 6–25 and 39. See also Gomes (2000), 2. Beginning in 1996, BH separated out public housing from the OP, creating a separate OP budget and participatory process exclusively for public housing. Data for the Housing OPs are not included here. 12. In addition, the fact that upper-middle and upper-class residents participated minimally in these cases suggests to critics yet another dimension of the unrepresentativeness of OP processes (call it “reverse exclusion” if you will). 13. Alípio Freire, Rose Spina, and Vicente Trevas, “Cinco desafios—Entrevista com Celso Daniel,” Teoria e Debate, no. 33 (November 1996–January 1997): 16. 14. Dahl (1961), 279. 15. OP proponents assume, of course, that more participation means better democracy. For all but the most starry-eyed Neo-Tocquevillians, however, there is a practical limit to how much participation one can either expect or even hope for. Michael Walzer argues, for example, that the ideal cannot be universal participation, but the production of sufficiently public-spirited and legitimate representatives from among a mass of “joiners” at all levels of society; this must be fostered and maintained by the democratic State in a variety of ways— including participatory decision-making at local levels (Walzer [1995], 153–174). Chapter six made it clear that the OP is an arena primarily for those already, to some extent, politically conscious and active. Let me reemphasize the argument, once again, that preserving and developing preexisting stocks of social capital is no mean feat. And in a context of elitist and clientelist democracy such

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16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

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Notes

as Brazil’s, the fact that this social capital has a primarily nonelite bias is an entirely positive contribution to that country’s democracy—conceived of, it should be recalled, as a necessarily conflictual process of inclusionary adaptation. From November 29, 1998 interview with the author. Dahl (1961), 276–282; also Dahl (1971), 126–128. In the words of Russell Dalton, “The question of who participates is as important as the question of how many participate” (Dalton [2002], 47). Wieland Silberschneider, “Orçamento Participativo: Redefinindo o Planejamento de Ação Governamental com Participação Popular: A Experiência de Belo Horizonte/Minas Gerais/Brasil” (Belo Horizonte: mimeo, 1998), 17. Abers (1996; 2000). Abers (1996), 42. From July 18, 1996 interview with Regina Lucia Rezende, Betim city council member (PSDB). From November 5, 1998 interview with the author. From July 19, 1996 interview with Paulo Mundim, Betim city council member (PDT). Field notes from November 5, 1998 meeting of the Comforças, Northern Region of BH. Then-mayor of Betim, Maria do Carmo Lara, similarly explained that a major problem with the implantation of OP-prioritized sewer and water system projects was the local state-owned civil construction company, Copasa: “They can’t accompany our rhythm” (from July 18, 1996 interview with the author). After attending my first several regional OP meetings in BH, I made the following observation in my field notes (August 22, 1998) which I believe is relevant to the discussion here: [Administration] speakers try hard to explain carefully the difficult reasons for why the city has decreasing income, why they can’t finish certain obras, etc. This instead of making empty promises with pats on the back and/or doing a half-assed job, both being the traditional way of dealing with problems of low-income people. Taking people seriously and treating them with respect can easily backfire, because sometimes the truth hurts [and, I would add today, because sometimes the truth is misinterpreted].

28. From November 5, 1998 interview with Dona Suelí, OP delegate, president of the neighborhood association of Bairro Maríse, Northern Region of BH. 29. From July 19, 1996 interview with the author. 30. Information on João Monlevade comes from personal interviews with numerous former members of the PT’s administration including former Mayor (1988–1992) Leonardo Diniz Diaz (July 10, 1995); Marco Aurélio Loureiro, city council member and former Economic Secretary (July 5, 1995); Dr. Laércio José Ribeiro, former Secretary of Health and the PT’s mayoral candidate in 1992 and mayor from 1996 to 2000 (July 6 and 13, 1995); also several long-time

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residents of Novo Cruzeiro and participants in that neighborhood’s OP processes: Antonia Maria Ferreira Dias, Ângela Maria Babosa and Nair da Silva de Cassia. 31. From July 9, 1995 interview with Antônia Maria Ferreira Dias, João Monlevade. 32. From November 12, 1998 interview with Elke Reagan, Betim. 33. From field notes taken in a speech by PT city council member, Renato Siqueira, before the Sixth Municipal OP Congress (September 13, 1998). Similarly, Somarriba and Dulci argue that even participants’ and citizens’ complaints about the slow delivery of public works designated as “high priority” by the OP process should be seen in a positive light: On the one hand, construction delays are exploited politically as a means of opposing the municipal government; even, in some cases, as an indirect form of attacking the very idea of the OP. On the other hand, however, the OP’s basic proposition is strengthened, since the criticisms take the form of calling on the government to fulfill its commitments as laid down in the budget ([1995], 34). 34. For a characterization of this struggle within the PT, see the discussion in chapter four. 35. From November 12, 1998 interview with Elke Reagan, Betim. 36. This would eventually be realized in the program entitled Projeto CEIA (Center of Meetings and Integration of Activities). See Prefeitura Municipal de Betim, Betim Faz Assim: Algumas Ações Implementadas Pela Prefeitura Municipal de Betim—Gestão 1997/2000 (Betim: PMB, 1999), 46–49. 37. From July 25, 1995 interview with the author. 38. Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento/Prefeitura Belo Horizonte (December 2000), 37. Figures in 2000 values. 39. In a move that mirrored that of neighboring Betim, Castro approved the diversification of BH’s OP. The subsequent 2001–2002 OP would include a “Citywide OP” (OP Cidade), would include discussion of 100% of the administration’s public works expenditures, and would set budget guidelines for two years rather than one. Discussions of citywide projects would initially be divided up sectorally, then combined in a large municipal assembly. See Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento/Prefeitura Belo Horizonte (February 2000). 40. Beginning with the OP 1999–2000, all projects prioritized at neighborhoodlevel OP meetings in BH were given a relative weighting based on administration planners’ interpretation of the each project’s “social scope” (abrangência social ) and “social relevance” (relevância social); or, respectively, the estimated number of beneficiaries of the project, and the number of times the project had been voted on at the neighborhood level but rejected at the regional level. The complicated formula for determining these numbers was a source of irritation to BH’s OP delegates. Even more irritating, however, was the fact that the weights accounted for 20% of the final voting results in the Regional Congresses,

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41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

54.

55. 56. 57.

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Notes

which meant that the voting power of OP delegates had effectively been reduced by one-fifth. Recall from chapter five that Betim reduced the number of participants in neighborhood meetings required to elect an OP delegate from ten to five due to declining participation. This conclusion is consistent with the case study of Porto Alegre’s OP in Abers (2000). From November 16, 1998 interview with the author. From November 24, 1998 interview with the author. From November 29, 1998 interview with the author. From November 24, 1998 interview with the author. From November 24, 1998 interview with the author. From July 19, 1996 interview with the author. From field notes of August 23, 1998 OP Regional Meeting of Downtown Region, Betim. This made more sense in 1998 in BH, where Mayor Célio de Castro belonged to the PSB and the PT was merely a junior partner in his administration. From August 24, 1998 interview with Luís Henrique, OP Administrator, Secretariat of Planning, BH. Luís Henrique further explained that although BH’s PT leaders publically praised the OP because it was popular and because it was administered by the PT (in a PSB-led administration), they had decided it was not a high priority for the party since it was not perceived to be bringing in any new party members. They might have even worried that it would reflect more positively on Célio de Castro and the PSB than on the PT. From November 11, 1998 interview with the author. Both the PFL and the PMDB are nominally Right-wing parties that, in practice, rely heavily on clientelism and patronage. Careful not to appear partisan, OP administrators in Betim and BH did, however, regularly associate the OP and administration programs with the names of current and past mayors, thus reinforcing, inadvertently perhaps, the traditional personalization—but not the alleged “partisanization”—of political policies and programs. The Porto Alegre administration had no reason to restrict participation in such a manner [i.e. to PT members and sympathizers]. Much to the contrary, privileging petistas would have narrowed the administration’s sphere of influence. Instead, the prefeitura [administration] encouraged an open process, in which anyone could participate and, if he or she played by the rules, could benefit (Abers [2000], 100–101). A similar argument from one of the designers of Porto Alegre’s OP can be found in De Souza (1999), 73. From author’s field notes (1996). Once again, similar results are also seen in Abers’ account of Porto Alegre’s OP ([2000], 101).

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58. This story of the OP 1994 project (paving four streets in Bairro São Gonçalo) comes from a November 24, 1998 interview with Mêrcia Adriana de Oliveira Cruz, Assistant to the Regional Administrator of the Northern Region of BH. 59. From November 13, 1998 interview with Adélia Mendes and Dona Darcí, OP delegates from Bairro Nossa Senhora dos Passos, BH. 60. Somarriba and Dulci (1995), 11, 14 and 15; also (1997), 402–403. 61. See tables 6.3 and 6.4 in chapter six. 62. Abers argues in one reading that OP participation in Porto Alegre led to a greater number of PT “sympathizers” (Abers, “Learning Democratic Practice: Distributing Government Resources Through Popular Participation in Porto Alegre, Brazil,” in Mike Douglass and John Friedmann, eds., Cities for Citizens: Planning and the Rise of Civil Society in a Global Age [Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 1998]). Elsewhere, however, she argues that “the majority of participants were not active PT militants and many were not even party sympathizers” ([2000], 101). In the two regions of the city that she studied intensively, “only twenty-nine out of the sixty-five (45 percent) delegates interviewed said that they sympathized with the PT.” Since she doesn’t compare this number with comparable data regarding other parties (only non-petistas), it’s impossible to conclude whether or not PT militants or sympathizers constitute a relative majority among OP participants. 63. See, e.g., Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watunuki, eds., The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission (New York: New York University Press, 1975). For a critical analysis, see Held (1996), 233–273. 64. The first 90 minutes of one Saturday afternoon OP meeting in Betim’s PTB neighborhood, for example, were taken up by city officials talking about the previous year’s budget and the administration’s accomplishments, and an explanation for new delegates of the broad outlines of what a city budget entails—arguably, necessary components of well-informed participation. Far from actively participating, however, delegates merely sat and listened, until one stood up and shouted, “Public works! Public works! Everything else is useless information!” In another such meeting the next day, I heard one delegate quietly complain to another, “We’re only listening. We’re not saying anything.” From author’s field notes, PTB-Betim (August 22, 1998) and Sede-Betim (August 23, 1998). A reminder: given the city’s overwhelming fiscal difficulties in 1998, Betim officials decided that the OP-1998 would be dedicated to discussing the year’s budget and finishing ongoing OP projects from previous years rather than voting for new public works projects that they could not afford to complete (see discussion in chapter five). 65. From July 19, 1996 interview with the author. 66. From November 17, 1998 interview with Rogério Pereira de Araujo, OP delegate and PT activist from the Nosso Senhor dos Passos neighborhood of BH. 67. Personally, I suspect that the myth of democratic harmony reveals a certain nostalgia for the days when the common people “knew their place” (or else!) and

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68.

69. 70.

71. 72. 73.

74.

75.

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Notes

politics entailed “agreements among gentlemen.” This myth ignores the fact that even the restricted aristocratic democracy of pre-industrial societies was far from harmonious. For empirical challenges to this myth, see Phillips (1993). See, e.g., Avritzer (2002); also Pepe Vargas, “A cidade que queremos,” in Mahalhães, Barreto and Trevas, 173–181; also Frank Fischer, “Citizen Participation and the Democratization of Policy Expertise: From Theoretical Inquiry to Practical Cases,” Policy Sciences, 26 (August 1993): 165–187. Abers (2000), 88. In chapter eight, we will examine more closely the other side of capacitation: whether or not OP administrators can carry out the task without distorting it with partisanship or self-centeredness. From November 17, 1998 interview with the author. From August 24, 1998 interview with the author. The France-based NGO “Doctors Without Borders” did fund a small pilot project for forming thirty community managers (“Gestores comunitários”) in five shanty towns in the Northeastern region of BH through a six-month course that included history of community movements in general, principles of ethics in community leadership, basic instruction in math and writing skills, and a field internship in participants’ own communities. The relatively low “very clear” answer in BH more than likely reflects the introduction in 1998 of a complicated, and very controversial, mathematical formula making it easier for passage of projects that benefitted larger numbers of people and that had been claimed in years past as OP priorities at the neighborhood level, but had lost out in prioritization at the regional level. During the much simpler process of 1994, Somarriba and Dulci reported a “Very Clear” response to this same question from 62.5% of BH delegates ([1995], 21). It is worth remembering that nothing is more politically efficient than an authoritarian regime. Latin America was filled with such “efficient” regimes in the 1960s and 1970s. Democracy, on the other hand—with its systems of checks and balances, constant changes of government personnel, and sometimes heated public debate—is designed to be inefficient. In democratic politics, efficiency cannot be the guiding normative principle.

Chapter Eight Dedication

Administering the Participatory Budget—Ideology and

1. I am inclined to agree with this assessment of Russia after reading Jeffrey Tayler’s “Russia is Finished: The unstoppable descent of a once great power into social catastrophe and strategic irrelevance,” The Atlantic Monthly, 287 (May 2001): 35–52. 2. In terms of voting in the United States (democracy’s minimal level of political participation), Gallup poll data from the post–World War II period confirm that economic issues have consistently been the “most important problem” in voters’

Notes

3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

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minds. See Michael S. Lewis-Beck and Tom W. Rice, Forecasting Elections (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc, 1992), 52. For Madison and the Pluralists, see Held (1996), 89–94 and 199–208. This latter conceptualization would have offended the grandfather of neoclassical economics, Adam Smith, whose 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations clearly argued for a set of laws and institutions that would direct and channel what he felt to be human nature (e.g. self interest and a “propensity to truck, barter and exchange”) into activities that would promote and preserve economic competition, thereby guarding against both State intervention in the market and private sector monopolization of the market, and ultimately stimulating economic productivity, technological innovation, and “universal opulence.” See Wright (1986). From August 24, 1998 interview with the author. From November 24, 1998 interview with the author. From November 17, 1998 interview with the author. From November 9, 1998 interview with the author. From August 24, 1998 interview with the author. Recalling the arguments made at the beginning of this book, this commitment to democratizing democracy represents the essence of democracy-as-process (defined as a conflictual process of demands “from below” for greater inclusion eventually generating “inclusionary adaptations” of the existing political rules of the game). Using this logic, the Left in Brazil (and, arguably, elsewhere) is the primary agent of democracy. Here, I am referencing the debate between those locating the principal cause/actors behind (re)democratization in so-called “elite settlements” (e.g. Huntington [1991]; Higley and Gunther [1992]) and those locating them in grassroots and mass pressures “from below” (e.g. Joe Foweraker, “Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico,” in Foweraker and Craig, 3–20; Dietrich Rueschmeyer, Evelyne Huber-Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992]). For an excellent analysis of this debate, albeit one pressing the latter over the former, see Avritzer (2002). I make this argument in a more detailed way in Nylen (2000). From November 17, 1998 interview with the author. From November 11, 1998 interview with the author. From November 11, 1998 interview with the author. From November 1, 1998 interview with the author. Pitagoras went on to argue that “those [public administrators in BH] who are among the ideologicallyoriented come from the community movements: religious movements, popular movements, and the like. The rest are much less capable of seeing the real problems and needs of the communities we work with.” From November 5, 1998 interview with the author.

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19. From November 6, 1998 interview with the author. 20. Even in places where most North Americans might (ethnocentrically) believe to be the last place they expect to find such democratic agents. 21. Could social capital merely be another name, perhaps a less value-laden or frightening one to North Americans, for ideologically and/or theologically rooted social consciousness (what Adam Smith called “moral sentiments” and Emile Durkheim simply called “morality”)? Conclusion Participatory Democracy versus Elitist Democracy—Lessons from Brazil 1. Perhaps it would be better to ask, “Could the PT offer a valuable political model for North Americans?” 2. Dagnino (1994), 107–109. Also see note 28 in chapter four. 3. As mentioned in the preface and in chapter four (note 65). 4. See note 2 in chapter two. 5. An argument made, as well, by Avritzer (2002), though he restricts his analysis to Latin American cases. 6. Phillips (1993). 7. It’s important to distinguish between the design of participatory institutions “from above” (a virtual necessity in many “disillusioned democracies”) and the setting of those institutions’ policy agendas “from above” (an unnecessary and de facto evisceration of the very core of such institutions).

Annex 1: Questionnaire for Delegates and Councilors of the Participatory Budget, 1998

I. PERSONAL DATA 1. Name (optional): 2. Sex:

__ Male

__ Female

3. Age:

__ Years

4. Education:

__ illiterate __ semi-literate __ elementary school incomplete __ elementary school complete __ high school incomplete __ high school complete __ college incomplete __ college completed

5. Profession:

__ Scientific, technical, artistic, administrative, professional and the like __ Public service/government __ Worker in commerce, services and the like __ Worker in industry __ Business owner __ Retired/Pensioner __ Home maker __ Unemployed __ Others

6. Neighborhood where you live: 7. How long you’ve lived in that neighborhood: 8. How long you’ve lived in this city:

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II. DATA REGARDING PARTICIPATION IN THE PARTICIPATORY BUDGET – choose only one answer 1. How many times were you elected a delegate/councilor of the OP? __ 1 __ 2 __ 3 __ 4 __ more than 4 times 2. Why did you want to be a delegate for the OP? 3. What’s your opinion about the explanation of facts relating to the municipal budget? __ Very Clear __ Not Very Clear __ Wasn’t Done 4. What’s your opinion about the explanation of the responsibilities of OP delegates? __ Very Clear __ Not Very Clear __ Wasn’t Done 5. What’s your opinion about the quality of the government team that administers the OP? __ Excellent __ Good __ OK __ Bad 6. What’s your opinion about the quality of the participation of the OP delegates? __ All participate seriously and with interest __ Many participate seriously and with interest __ Some participate seriously and with interest __ None participate seriously and with interest 7. In your opinion, what are the most positive things about the OP? 8. In your opinion, what are the most negative things about the OP?

III. PARTICIPATION IN ENTITIES OUTSIDE THE OP 1. Currently, do you participate in one (or more) of the following entities?: __ Community organizations (neighborhood, residents, region or the like) __ Unions __ Religious __ Cultural __ Philanthropic __ Sectoral Council [other issue-specific participatory organs] __ Political Parties __ Others __ You don’t participate in any

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2. Before becoming a delegate of the OP, did you participate in one (or more) of the following entities?: __ Community organizations (neighborhood, residents, region or the like) __ Unions __ Religious __ Cultural __ Philanthropic __ Sectoral Council [other issue-specific participatory organs] __ Political Parties __ Others __ You don’t participate in any 3. Currently, do you participate in party politics (you can choose more than one option)?: __ I am a member of a party (which party?: ____) __ I am an activist for a party __ I am an activist for a politician/candidate __ I am a sympathizer of a party (which party?: ____) __ I am interested in party politics, but I don’t have a preferred party __ I am not interested in party politics, but I vote in the elections __ I am not interested in party politics, and I don’t vote in the elections 4. Before becoming an OP delegate, did you participate in party politics (you can choose more than one option)?: __ I was a member of a party (which party?: ____) __ I was an activist for a party __ I was an activist for a politician/candidate __ I was a sympathizer of a party (which party?: ____) __ I was interested in party politics, but I didn’t have a preferred party __ I was not interested in party politics, but I voted in the elections __ I was not interested in party politics, and I didn’t vote in the elections IV. POLITICAL ATTITUDES: Indicate if you Agree or not with the Following Phrases (Afterwards, include a Comment if you’d like—Choose only One Answer) 1. “All of the parties and all of the politicians are the same.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Don’t know __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional): 2. “The best government is the one that governs less and gives more space to citizens to do what they want to do on their own.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Don’t know __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional):

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3. “In the final analysis, democracy is a game in which a few elites manipulate the rest of us to get what they want for themselves.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Don’t know __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional): 4. “If I weren’t required by law to vote, I wouldn’t vote.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional):

__ Don’t know

5. “I don’t see any problem in voting for a candidate in exchange for favors, gifts or even public works projects, as long as these really benefit me or benefit my community.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Don’t know __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional): 6. “To build a better life, we have to place the interests of the community before our own interests.” __ Agree completely __ Agree in part __ Don’t know __ Disagree in part __ Disagree completely Comment (optional):

Annex 2: Characteristics of 1998 OP Delegates (Respondents) in Betim and Belo Horizonte*

●

SEX Betim 137 men (61.71%) 84 women (37.84%). Belo Horizonte 590 men (55.24%) 472 women (44.19%).

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AGE Betim 31 delegates (13.96%) are 30 years old and younger, 150 delegates (67.57%) are between the age of 31 and 50 31 delegates (13.96%) are 51 years and older. Belo Horizonte 194 delegates (18.16%) are 30 years old and younger, 574 delegates (53.75%) are between the age of 31 and 50, 229 delegates (21.44%) are 51 years and older.

●

EDUCATION Betim 8 delegates (3.60%) consider themselves illiterate, 137 delegates (61.71%) consider themselves semi-literate or have less than 8 years of formal education ( primeiro grau incompleto)

* Where percentages do not add up to 100 percent, the remainder corresponds to the number of “no answers” or illegible responses.

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35 delegates (15.77%) completed at least 8, and no more than 11, years of formal education (primeiro grau completo and/or segundo grau incompleto), 23 delegates (10.36%) completed 11 years of formal education and/or some university-level education (segundo grau completo and/or universidade incompleto), 13 delegates (5.86%) have university degrees. Belo Horizonte 23 delegates (2.15%) consider themselves illiterate, 483 delegates (45.23%) consider themselves semi-literate or have less than 8 years of formal education (primeiro grau incompleto), 231 delegates (21.63%) completed at least 8, and no more than 11, years of formal education (primeiro grau completo and/or segundo grau incompleto), 223 delegates (20.88%) completed 11 years of formal education and/or some university-level education (segundo grau completo and/or universidade incompleto), 97 delegates (9.08%) have university degrees.

EMPLOYMENT Betim 11 delegates (4.95%) are employed within the category of “scientific, technical, artistic, administrative, professional and similar activities,” 34 delegates (15.32%) are public sector employees, 29 delegates (13.06%) are workers in the commerce or service sectors, 37 delegates (16.67%) are industrial workers, 1 delegate (0.45%) is a business owner, 23 delegates (10.36%) are housewives, 25 delegates (11.26%) are retired pensioners, 28 delegates (12.61%) are unemployed, 34 delegates (15.32%) either did not respond or indicated “Other.” ● Belo Horizonte 82 delegates (7.68%) are employed within the category of “scientific, technical, artistic, administrative, professional and similar activities,” 153 delegates (14.33%) are public sector employees, 169 delegates (15.82%) are workers in the commerce or service sectors, 88 delegates (8.24%) are industrial workers, 40 delegates (3.75%) are business owners, 117 delegates (10.96%) are housewives, 148 delegates (13.86%) are retired pensioners, 117 delegates (10.96%) are unemployed, 154 delegates (14.42%) either did not respond or indicated “Other.” ● ●

●

RESIDENCY Betim 112 delegates (50.45%) live in the city 10 years or less, 63 delegates (28.38%) live in the city between 11 and 20 years, 35 delegates (15.77%) live in the city more than 20 years.

Annex 2 Belo Horizonte 73 delegates (6.83%) live in the city 10 years or less, 201 delegates (19.29%) live in the city between 11 and 20 years, 762 delegates (71.35%) lives in the city more than 20 years. ●

OP EXPERIENCE Betim 110 delegates (49.55%) are participating for the first time, 35 delegates (15.77%) are participating for the second time, 21 delegates (9.46%) are participating for the third time, 14 delegates (6.31%) are participating for the fourth time, 16 delegates (7.21%) have participated more than four times. [86 delegates (38.74%) are “veterans” in the OP process] Belo Horizonte 582 delegates (54.49%) are participating for the first time, 177 delegates (16.57%) are participating for the second time, 82 delegates (7.68%) are participating for the third time, 76 delegates (7.12%) are participating for the fourth time, 68 delegates (6.37%) have participated more than four times. [403 delegates (37.73%) are “veterans” in the OP process.]

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Bibliography

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“Promotor oferece denúncia contra ‘Deto’ e Elias por atentado a Jésus.” O Tempo, November 28, 1997. “Tudo contra o social.” Estado de Minas, August 11, 2001. “Uma receita milionária para o ano que vem.” Diário da Tarde, July 29, 1994. “Veradores de Betim contratam até 50 parentes.” Hoje em Dia, March 3, 1995. “Vereadores de Betim fazem greve contra a prefeitura.” Estado de Minas, August 4, 1994. “Vida de Cidadão: Inchaço.” Estado de Minas, January 29, 1998. Diário da Tarde, December 12, 1997. Estado de Minas, March 13, 1998. Estado de Minas, July 28, 1998. Folha de São Paulo, April 9, 1999. Veja, July 4, 2001, 46.

Index

accountability, 59, 77, 93, 120 see also democracy; participatory budget, citizens oversight in Africa, 160n.8 Ananias, Patrus (mayor of Belo Horizonte, 1993–1996), 50, 105, 112, 194n.4 see also Belo Horizonte (BH) antipolitics and civic disengagement, 24–25 definition of, 23, 164–165n.3 examples: Brazil, 23, 24; Colombia, 23; Ecuador, 22; Europe, 23; Peru, 23, 172n.51; United States, 23; Venezuela, 21–23 see also Chavez, Hugo; Fujimori, Alberto; neopopulism; uncivil movements Belo Horizonte (BH) participatory budget (OP) in, 62–144, 148–155, 196n.19, 196n.24, 196–197n.26, 201n.11, 202n.27, 203n.33, 203n.39, 203–204n.40, 204n.53, 206n.74 socio-political history of, 51, 194n.4 see also Ananias, Patrus (mayor of Belo Horizonte, 1993–1996); Castro, Célio de (mayor of Belo Horizonte, 1997–2004); Comforças; participatory budget

Betim participatory budget (OP) in: city council in (as exemplar of clientelistic and paternalistic practices, and as principal opponents of OP), 55–57, 59–60, 91–94, 112, 193n.14; CMOP (Municipal Council of the Participatory Budget) in, 56, 57, 104–105, 122; diversification of, 58–59, 105; empowerment in, 66–80, 149; instrumental participation in, 149; neighborhood meetings in, 52–54, 59, 114, 205n.64; OP Caravan in, 55, 59; partisanization of, 109–119; percentage of total budget devoted to, 54, 100, 192n.13; popular participation in, 58, 63–66, 94–109, 119–126, 192n.12, 193n.24; Regional Assemblies and Municipal Congress in, 53–56, 58, 59, 62, 110–111; representation in, 80–89; training of delegates (capacitation) of, 55, 67, 121–126, 153 socio-political history of, 51–52, 193n.14 see also CMOP, Lara Perpétuo, Maria do Carmo (mayor of Betim,

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Betim—continued 1993–1996); Lima, Jésus (mayor of Betim, 1997–2000); participatory budget Brazilian Constitution of 1988 allowance for citizens’ councils in, 94 as “the Citizens’ Constitution,” 166n.6 decentralization measures in, 52, 186–187n.34, 191n.6 Bush, George W. (President of United States, 2001–present), 1, 158–159n.5 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique (President of Brazil, 1995–2002), 23, 41, 42, 52 Castro, Célio de (mayor of Belo Horizonte, 1997–2004), 106, 109, 111–112, 139, 140, 141, 194n.4, 204n.51 see also Belo Horizonte Catholic church (in Brazil), 19, 38, 118, 139, 141, 142 Chavez, Hugo (president of Venezuela, 1999–present), 21–23 see also antipolitics citizen politics, 8–9, 12, 25, 33, 77, 131, 145, 147, 150, 155 see also critical citizens civic disengagement and antipolitics, 24 in Brazil, 14–19, 46, 149 and consumer capitalism, 8, 10, 145 debate (positive or negative political implications), 9–10, 162–163n.20 definition of, 7 and “detached coolness,” 8, 154 in Latin America, 165n.5 and participatory democratic reforms, 79, 110 and poverty, 172n.53

and “retreat into the personal,” 8, 10, 14, 145 in United States, 7–8, 10, 11, 149, 155, 158n.1 see also disempowerment compare empowerment civil rights movement (United States), 4 civil society, 68–73 clientelism in Brazil, 15–17, 19, 31, 37, 45, 51, 55–57, 84–85, 92–93, 100, 103, 191n.4, 200n.55 and civic disengagement/ disempowerment, 17, 37, 46, 98, 102, 126–127 definition of, 15–17 neoliberal critique of, 20–21 and participatory democracy (e.g. participatory budget), 28, 45, 199n.42, 200n.5 see also corruption; neighborhood associations; semi-clientelism CMOP (Municipal Council of the Participatory Budget, Betim and Belo Horizonte), 56, 57, 89, 104–105, 121, 122 see also Betim; participatory budget Collor de Mello, Fernando (president of Brazil, 1990–1992), 41 Comforcas (Regional Budget Oversight Commission, Belo Horizonte), 88, 89, 121, 122, 198n.33 see also Belo Horizonte; CMOP; participatory budget Communitarians/Communitarianism, see neo-Tocquevillians corporatism, 37, 168n.19 corruption, 132, 191n.4, 200n.55 see also clientelism critical citizens, 9, 11, 12, 104 see also citizen politics crony capitalism, 158–159n.5 cultural politics, 174–175n.7

Index democracy in Brazil, 14–20, 24, 37–42, 147, 165–166n.6 citizenship (as sense of collective identity or inclusion) in, 15, 18–19, 22, 28, 31, 42–43, 61 heroes of, 134, 138, 144 inherent inefficiency of, 120, 151, 206n.75 procedural definition of, 4 process definition of (conflictual process of inclusionary adaptation), 3–4, 11, 19, 134, 147, 159–160n.8, 160n.9, 207n.11 substantive definition of, 42–43 in United States, 2–12, 13, 147, 155 see also civic disengagement; democratic citizenship; disaffected democracies; elitist democracy (exclusionary elitism); empowerment; participatory democracy; political activism, nonelite; representative democracy; Workers’ Party, ideology/platform of Democracy in America, see Tocqueville, Alexis de democratic citizenship, 3, 10, 15, 42–43, 167n.12, 184–185n.28 see also democracy; empowerment; Workers’ Party, ideology/platform of Democratic Party (United States), 4, 5, 145–146, 148 disaffected democracies, 13, 24 disempowerment, 32, 98, 102, 126 see also civic disengagement Durkheim, Emile, 18, 208n.21 elitist democracy (exclusionary elitism) in Brazil: and clientelism, 15, 16; and

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corporatism, 16; and crime/violence, 17–18; and democratization (late1970s–present), 16, 19; and hierarchical society, 15–16, 120; and nationalistdevelopmentalism, 16; and personalism, 16; and political centralization, 16; and political culture, 14, 18–19, 170n.30; and populism, 16; as social authoritarianism, 17; and State as Super Patrón, 16; and Statecentered modernization (e.g. nationalist-developmentalism), 16–17; and Workers’ Party (PT), 146, 147 definition of, 4, 24–25, 131, 145, 147, 149–150 materialistic and hegemonic motivations for political activism in, 133–135 in United States: and administrative State, 6–7; and campaign financing, 4–5, 8; and corporate welfare/crony capitalism, 5, 9, 158–159n.5; role of Democratic Party in, 5, 145–146, 148; role of mainstream political science in, 161n.13; role of mass media in, 132–133, 161n.13; role of Republican Party in, 5, 145 see also antipolitics; civic disengagement; disempowerment; media bias; representative democracy compare empowerment; participatory democracy empowerment and corruption, 28 debate over origins/strategies of, 32–34, 179n.43

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empowerment—continued definition of, 27–28, 61–62, 67–68, 77, 110–111, 148 and democratic pluralism, 29, 90, 149–150 and democratic political culture by institutional design (e.g. schools of democracy), 28, 29–30, 124 need for active promotion of, 32, 34 neo-Tocquevillians’ adoption of (e.g. post–Cold War Left, Workers’ Party in Brazil), 27–34, 38, 46–50, 61–62 opponents’ arguments against, 54, 94–130 paradox of authoritarian empowerment, 38, 178n.33 proponents’ arguments for, 28–34, 66–80, 90, 124, 148, 184–185n.28 spillover effect of (“empowerment thesis”), 29, 66–80, 148–149 see also democratic citizenship; participatory budget, empowerment in (“empowerment thesis,” pro-OP claim #2); neo-Tocquevillians; participatory democracy; Tocqueville, Alexis de; Workers’ Party, ideology/platform of compare civic disengagement; clientelism; disempowerment Erundina, Luiza (mayor of São Paulo, 1989–1991), 35–37, 44–45 Gore, Albert, 1 guided popular participation, 54, 114, 153 Hayek, Friedrich, 6 see also neoliberalism ideologization (in participatory budgets), 153–154

compare partisanization; politicization inequality in Brazil, ix, 17, 157n.1 as social authoritarianism, 17 as threat to democracy, ix, 5, 10–11, 21, 23, 134 in United States, ix, 11–12 institutional learning, 36–37, 42–44, 48, 181n.5, 192n.11 inverting priorities (inversão de prioridades) assessment of, 45, 188n.44 illustration of, São Paulo under PT mayor Luiza Erundina (1989–1992), 44–45 Workers’ Party (PT) platform regarding economic policy and social spending, 44–46, 146 see also socialism; Workers’ Party (PT) João Monlevade, Minas Gerais, 102–103 labor unions (organized labor, new unionism in Brazil), 14, 16, 19, 37, 38, 42, 44, 70, 196n.21 see also Workers’ party, history of Lara Perpétuo, Maria do Carmo (mayor of Betim, 1993–1996), 52, 53, 55, 56, 100, 105, 192n.7 see also Betim Lima, Jésus (mayor of Betim, 1997–2000), 52, 57–59, 88, 102, 103–105, 109 see also Betim Lula, see Silva, Luis Inácio Lula da (President of Brazil, 2003– present) see also Workers’ Party Marxist-Leninist (orthodox) Left, 34, 37, 43, 47, 186n.32 compare neo-Tocquevillians

Index media bias against Workers’ Party in Brazil, 36–37, 46, 114, 189n.50 in United States, 132–133, 161n.13 Middle East, 159–160n.8 Mill, John Stuart, 25, 161n.10, 172n.55 municipal councils, 47, 48–49 see also participatory budget; Workers’ Party nationalist-developmentalism (Brazil’s economic development model, 1930s–1980s), 168n.21 neighborhood associations and clientelism, 84–89, 90, 92–93, 126, 198–199n.42 and the participatory budget, 54, 81–82, 84–89, 90, 126, 142, 151, 198–199n.42 neo-Tocquevillians (also New Left, Post–Cold War Left, Heterodox Left, Communitarians) and civic disengagement, 30 criticism of, 31–32 and Latin America, 31, 180n.45 normative foundation of, 179–180n.44 prescriptions of, 30–34, 146–148, 151–152 and United States, 30–32, 146–148, 153, 155 Workers’ Party as an example of, 37, 38, 47, 50, 135, 137, 146–148, 185–186n.31 see also empowerment; participatory democracy; Tocqueville, Alexis de; Workers’ Party (PT) compare Marxist-Leninist Left neoconservativism, ix see also neoliberalism neoliberalism as theory/analytical framework for addressing problems of

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contemporary democracy, 5–6, 20–21, 30–31, 134 as threat to democracy, 20, 21–23, 23–25, 27, 170n.30, 170n.42, 171n.39, 179n.41 see also antipolitics; civic disengagement, and consumer capitalism; Hayek, Friedrich; inequality; Republican Party (United States) neopopulism, 13, 23, 24, 25, 27, 62, 172n.49 see also antipolitics New Deal (United States), 11 see also democracy, process definition of NGOs, 19, 33, 122, 166n. 11 Orçamento Participative (OP) see participatory budget participatory budget (Orçamento Participativo—OP) accountability in, 59, 77, 93, 120 administration of, 101–103, 135–144, 154–155 in Betim, 52–60, 62–89, 91–126, 149, 192n.13, 192n.12, 193n.14, 193n.24, 205n.64 building and sustaining activist networks through, 78 as chaotic and inefficient mechanism of public administration relying on incompetent non-elites (antiOP claim #4): arguments, 119–126, 129–130; counter arguments, 120–126, 129–130, 151–154 citizens oversight in, 77, 89, 93, 200n.55 democratic schooling in, 78–79, 152 description of: in Betim, 51–60; in Porto Alegre, 49–50 diversification of, 58–59, 203n.39

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participatory budget—continued empowerment in (empowerment thesis, pro-OP claim #2): in Betim and BH, 68–80, 90, 149–150, 196–197n.26 expanded representation in (pro-OP claim #3), 80–89, 90, 93, 98, 150–151, 152, 200n.55 importance of administrators’ ideological commitment to, 137, 154–155 levels of participation in: in Betim and BH, 95–99, 201n.10; in Porto Alegre, 95, 97, 99 and Municipal Councils and Popular Councils, 47, 48–49 and neocorporatism, 199n.46 and participatory elitism (refutation of ), 63, 79, 195n.6 partisan affiliations and sympathies of OP delegates: in Betim and BH, 115–117; in Porto Alegre, 205n.62 partisanization and disguised party recruitment (anti-OP claim #3): arguments, 109–119, 128–129, 153–154; counterarguments, 110–119, 128–129 pluralization/democratization of representative democracy, 64–66, 77, 79, 84–89, 98, 150 popular participation in (pro-OP claim #1): in Betim and BH, 63–66, 79, 98, 195n.6; in Porto Alegre, 65 as sustaining existing citizen politics and social capital, 77–79, 148–150 as unnecessarily antagonistic to legislative bodies and existing neighborhood-level organizations (anti-OP claim #1): arguments, 91–94,

126–127; counter arguments, 92–94 as unpopular and non-participatory, therefore wasteful Utopianism (anti-OP claim #2): arguments, 94–109, 127–128; counter arguments, 96–108, 127–128, 202n.18; countermeasures taken in Betim and BH, 101–107 vulnerability to electoral cycles, 61–62, 201n.8 Participatory Democracy normative foundation of, 179–180n.44 practice (e.g. in PT-led local and state governments in Brazil), x, 37, 35–144, 146–155 proponents of (neo-Tocquevillians): post–Cold War Left, 27, 30–31, 33–34, 135; international development community, 27, 34 theory, 27–34 see also empowerment; neoTocquevillians; participatory budget compare elitist democracy; representative democracy participatory publics, 27, 178n.37 partisanization assessment of in participatory budget, 60, 109–119 definition of, 110, 153–154, 204n.53 compare ideologization; politicization party building, 37, 181n.5 patrimonialism, see clientelism patron-clientelism, see clientelism PFL (Liberal Front Party, Brazil), 111, 204n.52 pluralism, 133, 173n.55 see also participatory budget, pluralization/democratization of representative democracy

Index PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, Brazil), 39, 111, 140, 204n.52 political activism, non-elite in Brazil: continued Citizen Politics (critical citizens), 19–20; hopes for transformed political culture, 19; pre-1964, 19; resurrection of civil society (late-1970s through 1980s), 19 motivations for, 132–135 see also Catholic church, NGOs, labor unions, social movements political culture in Brazil, 15–16, 17, 102–103, 109, 127, 167n.15, 167n.16, 169–170n.29 and civic disengagement, 162–163n.20 and democracy in 3rd World, 28, 175n.10 in Latin America, 177n.26, in Marxist and neo-Tocquevillian analysis (e.g. Workers’ Party), 43, 48, 146, 186n.32 and participatory budget, 79, 102–103, 109, 127 and political activism, 133–135, 143, 154–155 in United States, 5, 30, 155 see also clientelism political parties in Brazil: machine-style party clientelism, 35, 37; nationalistpopulist parties of the State, 37; PFL (Liberal Front Party), 111, 204n.52; PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), 39, 111, 140, 204n.52; PSB (Partido Socialista Brasileiro), 112, 132, 139, 141, 143, 194n.4, 204n.51; PT (Workers’ Party), x, 12, 20, 34, 38–50, 104, 111, 135, 138, 141,

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146–147, 179n.43, 181–182n.6, 183n.15, 183n.19, 183–184n.23, 185–186n.31, 187n.36, 188n.44; PTB (Brazilian Workers’ Party), 37; two-party (or two-coalition) system, 42 and empowerment from above, 33–34 in United States: criticism of, 1–2, 158n.2; Democratic Party, 4, 5, 145–146, 148; Republican Party, 5, 145; third party, 2, 8, 10; two-party system, 10 see also institutional learning; party building; political society political society, 33, 68, 73–77, 178n.39, 196n.25, 197n.27 politicization, 154 compare ideologization; partisanization popular councils, see municipal councils popular participation ( participação popular) as alternative to Neoliberalism, 44, 50 definition of, x, 47, 135, 194n.28 inherent contradiction in under representative democracy, 49 and participatory budgets, 49–50 and Workers’ Party (PT), 46–50, 47, 48–50, 111, 135, 200n.57 see also empowerment; participatory democracy; Workers’ Party populism, 168n.20 Porto Alegre, 49–50, 111, 120–121, 147, 200n.5, 204n.54, 205n.62 post–Cold War Left, see NeoTocquevillians see also Workers’ Party problem of agency, 144 Progressive Movement/Era (United States), 4, 8, 11, 34

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Index

Progressive Movement/Era—continued see also democracy, process definition of PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party), 112, 132, 139, 141, 143, 194n.4, 204n.51 PT (Worker’s Party), see Workers’ Party PTB (Brazilian Workers’ Party), 37 public opinion about politics in Brazil, 150–151 in United States, 1–2, 133–134, 150, 158n.2, 158n.4, 163n.21 representative democracy and administrative state, 6–7 lack of substantive representation in, 195n.9 as model/ideal, 2 need for reform of, 2, 8, 11, 134–135, 163n.21, 163n.23 and participatory democratic reforms (e.g. participatory budget), 12, 28, 34, 79, 89–90, 91–94, 98, 126, 138, 150–151 stagnation/decay of under elitist democracy (including civic disengagement), 2–5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 133, 145, 161n.10, 162–163n.20 in United States, 2– 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 150–151, 195n.9 and Workers’ Party (PT), 43, 146 compare elitist democracy; participatory democracy Republican Party (United States), 5, 145 see also elitist democracy (exclusionary elitism) Sarney, José (President of Brazil, 1985–1990), 39 semi-clientelism in Brazil, 23, 52

definition of, 22 in Mexico, 22–23, 171–172n.46 compare clientelism September 11, 2001, 8, 26, 163n.23 Shay’s rebellion (United States, 1786–1787), 3 see also democracy, process definition of Silva, Luis Inácio Lula da (President of Brazil, 2003–present) as candidate for president (1989, 1994, 1998, 2002), 41–42 as founder of PT, 38 see also Workers’ Party Smith, Adam, 6, 207n.4, 208n.21 social capital, 12, 25, 29, 33, 97, 143–144, 148, 155, 173n.56, 208n.21 see also empowerment; participatory democracy social justice, 34, 134 social movements, 3, 14, 19, 34, 38, 78, 166n.11 see also democracy, process definition of social sufficiency, 18, 22, 169n.27 compare democracy, citizenship (as sense of collective identity or inclusion) in socialism, 34, 38, 185n.29 term limits, 2 Tocqueville, Alexis de, ix, 29–32, 81, 151, 176n.14, 176–177n.23, 177n.28 see also empowerment; neoTocquevillians; participatory democracy uncivil movements, see antipolitics ungovernability/overload thesis, 32, 93, 119, 121, 129, 151 see also elitist democracy

Index compare democracy, process definition of; empowerment voter turnout (low and/or declining rates) in emerging democracies, 13 in other democracies in the developed world, 13 in United States, 7 see also civic disengagement; elitist democracy Weber, Max, 6, 32, 181n.3 Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores—PT) and economic development, 181–182n.6 electoral performance of, 39–42 history of, 38–42, 138, 185–186n.31 ideology vs. electoral logic in, 104, 187n.36

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internal programmatic debates and eventual consensus, 39–49, 141, 179n.43, 182n.6, 183n.15, 183n.19, 183–184n.23 inverting priorities (inversão de prioridades) regarding economic policy and social spending, 44–46, 146, 188n.44 and participation in representative democracy, x, 20, 42–43, 146–147 popular participation ( participação popular), 46–50, 111, 135, 194n.28, 200n.57 relevance of to U.S. politics, ix–xi, 146–147, 157n.2, 157n.3 see also empowerment; municipal councils; neo-Tocquevillians; participatory budget; political parties, in Brazil

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