Democratic Participation in Digital Settings: The Institutional Design of Digital Participatory Budget

Abstract

Studying the institutional design is recognized as crucial to analyze the scope of participatory experiences, and it may be defined as the way how the State's political institutions are shaped. This paper aims to analyze the institutional design of the digital participatory budget (DPB) by the Belo Horizonte City Hall (BHCH). The methodological procedures resort to in-depth interviews, documentary analysis, and content analysis of postings by citizens on the website of DPB, through which its first three editions were analyzed. It is concluded that the institutional design of DPB favors the quantitative expansion of participants, but, at the same time, it constraints the potential for democratic debate of this tool.

Keywords:
Digital Participatory Budget; Institutional Design; Democratic Participation