Law professors Chris Elmendorf and Ethan Leib, UC Davis and UC Hastings, respectively, recently penned a column for the New York Times urging California to adopt a type of participatory budgeting approach. The process is less about citizen input up front and more about breaking budget stalemates. Under the approach, the governor, the Democratic caucus [...]
The civic engagement firm, Public Agenda, has just released the interesting report, “Promising Practices in Online Engagement“, analyzing various forms and scopes of web participation. From the White House to small towns, governing institutions and civic organizations are using the web to engage the public on a variety of enterprises.
The report includes interesting case studies [...]
This past week, Porto Alegre Brazil celebrated its 20th year of participatory budgeting. Widely celebrated in the participatory budgeting community for being one of the first successful programs, Porto Alegre’s process is showing signs of a need for a renewed commitment. Citizens are showing that they are committed to the process, but elected officials are [...]