Translating participatory budgeting into an administrative system: the case of Taipei city

Abstract

Recently, participatory budgeting (PB) has received widespread attention and has been widely adopted and implemented all over the world. Although the vast part of the literature on PB demonstrates the international prestige and diffusion of PB as a research object, little attention has been paid to understanding the endogenous factors that affect PB’s functioning and outcomes achieved or the way in which it limits success. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the growing debate by exploring how PB, as a democratic governance tool, has been translated within the public sector. Based on a policy translation framework, this study focuses on Taipei City in Taiwan, which was the pioneer to initiate experiments towards PB. Using several data sources, including personal involvement of PB programmes, document analysis and in-depth interviews with experts, policy planners, and council members, a closer analysis of how the translation took place in Taipei City could help to identify mechanisms underlying the PB construction in practice.