Fostering democratic pedagogy?: the participatory budget in Lisbon

71 Paula Guimarães*, Rocio Valderrama-Hernandez** * Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, **University of Seville, Spain Fostering democratic pedagogy? The participatory budget in Lisbon (Portugal) Wspieranie pedagogiki demokratycznej? Budżet partycypacyjny w Lizbonie (Portugalia) STRESZCZENIE: Uczestnictwo społeczne jest narzędziem wzmacniającym autonomię izdolność decydowania okwestiach publicznych. Jest to także narzędzie uczenia innych iuczenia się. Wostatnim czasie pojawiły się nowe formy partycypacji społecznej, takie jak budżety partycypacyjne. Wspierają one demokratyczny udział i przyczyniają się do bardziej przejrzystych i skutecznych sposobów rządzenia. Udział w budżecie w Lizbonie jest interesującym przykładem miejskiej organizacji społecznej iuczestnictwa wtakiej edukacji. Główne pytanie badawcze tego artykułu przedstawia się następująco: jak budżet partycypacyjny wLizbonie wspiera społeczne uczenie się? Dane zebrane przy użyciu częściowo ustrukturyzowanych wywiadów i analizy dokumentacji wykazały, że społeczne uczenie się pojawiło się dzięki zaangażowaniu ludzi wlokalne kwestie polityczne. Nie zwiększyło jednak znacząco doświadczenia wzakresie skuteczności demokratycznego uczestnictwa. SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: Edukacja społeczna, pedagogika demokratyczna, zaangażowanie, budżet partycypacyjny, demokracja, partycypacja. ABSTRACT: Social participation is a tool to strengthen peoples’ autonomy and ability to decide upon public issues. It is also an educational and learning tool. In recent times, new forms of social participation have emerged such as the participatory budgets. These foster democratic participation and contribute to more transparent and efficient ways of governing. The participatory budget of Lisbon is an interesting example of municipal social organisation and participation involving learning. The main research question of this article is as follows: how is the participatory budget of Lisbon fostering social learning? Data collected by the use of semi-directed interviews and documental analysis showed that social learning occurred through peoples’ commitment and involvement in local public political issues. However it did not boost the development of an effective democratic participatory experience. Paula Guimarães, Rocio Valderrama-Hernandez 72 KEYWORDS: Social learning, democratic pedagogy, commitment, participatory budget, democracy, participation. Social participation and social learning: participation as democratic pedagogy Democracy, as stated by Borrego et al. (1992), is aproject in which everyone may participate through dialogue following ideals of justice, equality and liberty. This is based on aprocess involving dynamic building committed with permanent dialogue aiming at solving conflicts that may occur in personal and social life. Therefore, it is not just apolitical option but alife project. Learning’s role is directed at establishing peoples’ commitment to participle in social transformation of aplace, aregion, acountry. In order for people to take decisions, simply having an opinion might not be enough. There is the need of foster personal understanding of citizenship to transform places and settings. In this process the use of ademocratic pedagogy is essential. The development of critical awareness (Freire 1986; Caride, Meira 2001) through learning favours participation in society as people may analyse difficulties raised by the social system. For this reason it is important to allow dialogue and establish spaces of communication in town as means of democratic development. A democratic and social learning model intends at creating spaces of dialogue and consensus making, fostering democratic participation, allowing access to arenas of decision, of decision-making processes, considering peoples’ interest and needs. The lack of settings for participation can be considered adead end that does not allow people to make their way. It raises risks of paternalism, authoritarian governance and vertical decisions. It may lead to the submission of citizenship and of development of peoples’ autonomy denying the possibility of building asociety of transformation agents (Camacho 1998). For this reason, democratic pedagogy entails participation as away of life. Within the scope of democratic societies, social participation is atool to strengthen peoples’ autonomy and ability to decide upon public issues (Schugurenski 2004). Social participation means a process of social change. It involves reflection and decisions on social, cultural, civic and political policies and projects. It assumes the direct involvement of people in the identification of social needs; the reflection upon and discussion of specific public priorities; and the monitoring and evaluation of decisions already made and implemented projects. Individual dimensions are important, but social and collective dimensions are essential in the accomplishment of social transformation (Valderrama-Hernandez 2013a). Fostering democratic pedagogy? The participatory budget in Lisbon (Portugal) 73 Furthermore, social participation may support functional citizenship. People are considered consumers or clients of existing formal participatory procedures. This reinforces existing power relations and prevents significant social changes. Following normative patterns, participation means intervening through channels and procedures established by a formal administration as away of legitimising public social action. Control of power by formal administration hinders the development of new knowledge and the creation of innovative ways of participating that may arise from citizenship action (Valderrama-Hernandez 2013b). Social participation is also an educational tool. It assures individuals’ development and autonomy when each person is the main actor and responsible for his/her decisions. Opportunities to participate when decision-making is at stake are balanced between experience and reflection upon what happens and has happened; it includes an educational dimension when new and innovative social and collective practices are developed. These practices aim to foster social changes, when social participation occurs at alocal level (the neighbourhood and/or civil society organization). It implies developing anumber of tasks and taking an active part in aprocess of social action, in co-management and shared responsibility processes (Montañes 2004; Valderrama-Hernandez 2013b). It includes learning citizenship (Schugurenski 2004). By means of aparticipation pedagogy, it follows a process beginning with the practice of everyday life situations; it continues with reflection upon aproblem or need, the definition of ways of achieving social change and the development of such processes; and ends with an evaluation of the participation process, considering the emancipatory dimension of what has been achieved (Valderrama- -Hernandez 2012). It has a learning dimension, in the sense that social change includes aprocess of collective and coordinated learning. Webler, Kastenholz and Renn (1995, p. 445) argue that social learning means more than just individuals learning in asocial situation. Other people with diverse personal interests, but common collective interests, may come together to reach an agreement on collective action to solve amutual problem. Therefore, “Social learning refers to the process by which changes in the social condition occur – particularly changes in popular awareness and changes in how individuals see their private interests linked with the shared interests of their fellow citizens”. It involves the acquisition of knowledge (“cognitive enhancement”), which includes: “ — learning about the state of aproblem (information and knowledge); — learning about the possible solutions and the accompanying consequences (cause-effect relations, predictions); Paula Guimarães, Rocio Valderrama-Hernandez 74 — learning about other peoples’ interest and values (information, explanation); — learning about one’s own personal interests (reflection); — learning about methods, tools, and strategies to communicate effectively and reach an agreement (rhetoric, decision theory, small group interaction); — practicing holistic or integrative thinking” (Webler, Kastenholz, Renn 1995, p. 446). Social learning also requires “moral development”. People act in the interests of all and develop asense of self-respect and responsibility towards themselves and others as well as moral reasoning and problem solving skills which enable individuals to solve conflicts as they arise; and asense of solidarity with the group. People become capable of taking on the perspective of others, of learning how to integrate new cognitive knowledge and cooperating with others in solving collective problems (Webler, Kastenholz and Renn 1995). In recent times, several local social participation experiences have be- en observed within the scope of formal representative democracies. They set out to promote new management models, namely at the local level, such as in towns or cities. The implementation of shared decision-making processes with the local population has brought about significant transformations in peoples’ lives, in social learning and in citizenship learning. In some situations, new forms of social organisation have emerged, as is the case of the participatory budgets (Valderrama-Hernandez 2013b). Participatory budgets: fostering democracy Democratic experiences (Santos 2003) that seek to reinforce democracy through social participation have been widely discussed across abroad spectrum of countries. These experiences have generated the invention and effectiveness of new forms of fostering social change through social participation and the development of social learning. Direct participatory decision-making processes have led to changes. These are based on political decentralisation and on the transfer of public decision to people, in general, regarding matters that are considered local problems or projects of interest by local residents (Dias 2014a). Democratic experiences, such as the participatory budget, have been driven by and grounded in aset of core principles, such as democracy, equity, access, community participation, fairness, education and transparency (Pinnington, Lerner, Schugurenski 2009). However, these experiences have branched Fostering democratic pedagogy? The participatory budget in Lisbon (Portugal) 75 into different directions. Some have given rise to apublic survey on specific issues; others have required an in-depth participation, through co-management and co-responsibility procedures in public administration in the development of local policies (Dias 2014b). Participatory budgets may be defined as new ways of broadening and furthering democratic participation by means of participatory practices. According to Santos, they are “extraordinary learning and democratic processes” (Santos 2003). They are based on “inclusive processes of deliberation” concerning real needs and decisions that may affect many people (Schugurenski 2004). Moreover, Pinnington, Lerner and Schugurenski (2009) suggest that a participatory budget is a democratic process of deliberation and decision- -making by which people allocate a budget to the needs they identify generally at amunicipal level. There is ashared decision-making process and governance involving the (local) government and civil society. In general, participatory budgets are based on formal procedures by which the local population decides or supports the decision-making process when specific public resources, for example financial, are available (UN-HABITAT 2004). They are grounded on a set of common foundations: diagnosis, deliberation, collective decision-making, execution and monitoring (Pinnington, Lerner, Schugurenski 2009). In participatory budgets, social participation is derived from information regarding an issue; discussion and reflection upon ways of considering this issue; and awareness raising procedures that culminate in voting on different proposals for spending public money. People become the main character of public administration decision-making. New forms of governing public resources, based on direct participation, foster the definition of policies and political aims for aspecific territory. According to Dias (2014b), participatory budgets represent a“new social grammar”: they involve the State and civil society and consolidate the local dimensions of development. Existing experiences contribute to the construction of more transparent, efficient and democratic ways of governing. These are spaces for citizenship learning and the distribution of political capital (Schugurenski 2004; Santos, Avritzer 2003; Dias 2014a, 2014b). Several kinds of participatory budgets may be encountered – there is no single model. In general, these various types depend on the political determination of local public authorities; the presence and interest of civil society, clear and shared formal procedures set by local public authorities; and the availability of financial resources (UN-HABITAT 2004; Allegretti, Antunes 2014). The first participatory budget was developed in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 1989. Santos (2002) states that this was an urban initiative geared towards Paula Guimarães, Rocio Valderrama-Hernandez 76 the redistribution of the city’s resources among more vulnerable social groups through participatory democracy. It was an innovative procedure and was designed to break away from the authoritarian political tradition in public policies. Its purpose was to establish participation dynamics according to co-ma- nagement procedures of public resources, namely public budget, and to foster public government co-responsibility in the implementation of collective decisions (Valderrama-Hernandez 2012). The participatory budget of Porto Alegre may be regarded as apractice that was the outcome of social actions deriving from the Paris Commune and the Soviets, mixed with local participation practices (Valderrama-Hernandez 2012). It was based on apolitical and social challenge to get people together in territorial assemblies and to promote critical dialogue with municipal civil servants in the decision-making process. Citizenship sought to foster real participation, through the collection of important information, and by establishing the needs of those living in the city and neighbourhoods. Organised citizenship emerged as asignificant outcome. The opportunity of being part of political and technical decisions through social networks contributed towards enhancing the intergenerational nature of the participatory budget and established new democratic main actors who had formerly lacked avoice and asetting to express their opinions and desires (Santos 2002). Other experiences, such as Kerala (Thomas Isaac, Heller 2003; Valderrama-Hernandez 2013a), showed the importance of aconsultation and discussion process in social, cultural and environmental domains. The population demanded solutions and concrete decisions from the State and local authorities. This revealed that it was possible to conceive solutions through apublic political commitment. The creation of an administrative structure assured the continuity of political decentralisation and enabled the local population to discuss development projects. The Seville participatory budget revealed the importance of collective and public commitment in the creation of solutions for social problems affecting sectors of the local population. This experience fostered participation in the management of public policies through an administrative structure based on direct participatory assemblies. In these assemblies, people discussed and decided upon the accomplishment of specific projects. This fostered continuity of the participatory budget over some years, and enhanced its learning and emancipatory dimension. Participation became an exercise of citizenship, involving the development of skills in order to participate actively in social life. It implied constructing, accepting, criticising, practicing norms for living together, democratic values, having rights, freedom, responsibility Fostering democratic pedagogy? The participatory budget in Lisbon (Portugal) 77 and civic duties, to defend ones’ own rights and those of others (Valderrama-Hernandez 2012). Methodological direction The aim of this article is to answer the following research question: how is the participatory budget in Lisbon fostering social learning? Allegretti and Antunes (2014) claim that the Lisbon participatory budget represents asignificant social participation experience. However, unlike this article, their analysis is mainly centred on administration procedures and not on social learning. In order to focus on fostering social learning dimensions, the analysis included in this article is based on aqualitative and comprehensive approach (Lichtman 2006). To this end, the case study (Yin 2009) research technique was selected, and the analysis focuses on the case of the Lisbon participatory budget from 2008 to 2016. Particular attention has been paid to the 2013 edition, when interviews were conducted with individuals who presented projects that had been subject to vote. Several data collection techniques were selected such as the documental analysis (Lichtman 2006) of official reports published from 2008. The analysis of such reports and the interview with the city council civil servant responsible for the participatory budget in 2013 (Interviewee 1) set out to understand the developments achieved in the frame of formal social participation procedures made available by the local municipality, such as the principles underlying the participatory budget, the amounts attributed to successful projects and the tools used to expand the profile of project presenters. Additionally, aconvenience sample was selected and four semi-structu- red interviews (Seidman, 2006) – with Interviewees 2, 3, 4 and 5 – were conducted with individuals who had proposed projects in the same year, of which only two had been successful. Questions referred to their motives for presenting aproject, the problems and opportunities involved in designing the project, having it put to vote and the global assessment of the social learning developed. Acontent analysis (Neuendorf 2002) of data was performed for the identification of main features concerning social participation within the scope of formal procedures, opportunities and constraints to social learning. Discussion of data collected Participatory budget experiences have existed in Portugal since 1998. Nevertheless, that of Lisbon is aparticularly interesting example. It was officially launched in 2008 with adeliberative procedure. This fact was considered asi- Paula Guimarães, Rocio Valderrama-Hernandez 78 gnificant advantage. As referred to by Interviewee 1, “People feel that this is not just presenting ideas. Things in fact happen afterwards”. The Lisbon participatory budget had nine consecutive editions on an annual basis up until 2016. It was also developed in the capital of the country, which had astrong impact on other towns and cities in and beyond national territory (Allegretti, Antunes, 2014). Today, Lisbon is the largest city in Portugal with approximately 564,000 inhabitants. As noted by Pinnington, Lerner and Schugurensky (2009), in the establishment of many participatory budgets, public officials seeking ways to deepen democracy initiate such processes. Interviewees have referred to ageneral feeling of depreciation concerning politicians and public policies: People today are further detached from political parties than in the past. They do not recognise themselves in political parties’ proposals, in the way they act. Of course, they do not find other public arenas to participate either. There is alack of responsibility when people have to show up, participate and even vote. (Interviewee 5) This was also the case with regard to Lisbon. In 2006, amunicipal crisis led to the resignation of the Mayor and mid-term elections. The new municipal government minority coalition agreed on the need to improve public participation by organising innovative forms of governing. Decentralised meetings were geared towards collecting peoples’ opinions on the requirements of city council intervention over the following years. The participatory budget was the result of another decision, and its purpose was to create aspace for dialogue with local residents. It was seen as an innovative practice in public administration but gave rise to some criticism: This was something totally new having citizens deciding upon what had been considered city council domains of decision. In fact, when people voted in municipal elections they had already made their decision. Why ask them again? (Interviewee 1) From 2008, when the participatory budget was launched, rules were created and later adapted according to the needs and problems encountered by the city council. This indicated ahighly valued “experimentation nature”: These are processes that cannot be closed. Everything that involves participation, should maintain an experimental nature. If rules are set and no changes are considered, the participatory budget is over. This is the risk faced by the city council. (Interviewee 1) Fostering democratic pedagogy? The participatory budget in Lisbon (Portugal) 79 The maximum amount aproject can be awarded and domains in which projects can be presented are examples of changes that have occurred since the participatory budget was established. Currently, successful projects can be awarded 150,000 euros or 500,000 euros. In 2008 and 2009, projects had to be presented online; as of 2010, the participatory assemblies were held in each parish in order to involve those who were not keen on presenting projects online. In participatory assemblies, individuals can present projects with the support of municipal civil servants, where they back up the design of the concept and share ideas with other people also interested in presenting similar projects. Furthermore, in this setting, compliance with the rules of the participatory budget is guaranteed. The participatory assemblies have also contributed to a major change in the characteristics of project presenters and voters. Voters are both males and females (with similar percentages). However, age influences the participation in the participatory budget, namely in the presentation of projects. Today, most hold secondary and higher education, and are resident and/or working in Lisbon. Additionally, many are under 35 years of age; however, when the presentation of projects was conducted online, the vast majority of applicants were younger individuals with higher education. In spite of these changes, Allegretti and Antunes (2014, pp. 7–8) argue that the participatory budget still seems to serve the purpose of presenting ideas while failing to enable “citizens to play arole in the co-planning of the implementation or even in the active control of the process”. From this perspecti- ve, the participatory budget appears to foster functional citizenship, following normative procedures defined by the city council, which is away of legitimising the municipal intervention in several areas (Valderrama-Hernandez 2012). According to the Charter of Principles, the Lisbon participatory budget seeks to promote the social (informed, active and responsible) participation of citizens in local governance. It sets out to guarantee the intervention of the local population in decision-making when distributing public resources within municipal policies. Its target is to contribute towards “civic education”: it allows citizens to integrate individual problems into broader issues of common interest. 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