Everyone Counts: Could "Participatory Budgeting" Change Democracy?

By Josh Lerner

The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce exceptional innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world.

The inaugural medal winner, the Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP), is an innovative not-for-profit organization that promotes "participatory budgeting," an inclusive process that empowers community members to make informed decisions about public spending. More than 46,000 people in communities across the United States have decided how to spend $45 million through programs that PBP helped spark over the last five years. In Everyone Counts, PBP co-founder and executive director Josh Lerner provides a concise history of the organization’s origins and its vision, highlighting its real-world successes in fostering grassroots budgeting campaigns in such cities as New York, Boston, and Chicago. As more and more communities turn to participatory budgeting as a means of engaging citizens, prioritizing civic projects, and allocating local, state, and federal funding, this cogent volume will offer guidance and inspiration to others who want to transform democracy in the United States and elsewhere.

"The Participatory Budgeting Project exemplifies the essential features the award committee was looking for in its inaugural recipient. Political and economic inequality is part of the American national discussion, and participatory budgeting helps empower marginalized groups that do not normally take part in a process that is so critical for democratic life."— John Gastil, Director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell Selects
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780801456053

Book preview

MCCOURTNEY INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY

The Pennsylvania State University’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy (http://democracyinstitute.la.psu.edu) was founded in 2012 as an interdisciplinary center for research, teaching, and outreach on democracy. The institute coordinates innovative programs and projects in collaboration with the Center for American Political Responsiveness and the Center for Democratic Deliberation.

LAURENCE AND LYNNE BROWN DEMOCRACY MEDAL

The Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce exceptional innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world. In even numbered years, the medal spotlights practical innovations, such as new institutions, laws, technologies, or movements that advance the cause of democracy. Awards given in odd-numbered years highlight advances in democratic theory that enrich philosophical conceptions of democracy or empirical models of democratic behavior, institutions, or systems.

EVERYONE

COUNTS

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COULD PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING CHANGE DEMOCRACY?

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

JOSH LERNER

CORNELL SELECTS

an imprint of

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

Ithaca & London

CONTENTS

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?

Money Talks

Importing Democracy from Brazil

Coming to a City near You

The Problems with Potholes

Scaling Up Local Democracy

Stepping Up

Notes

About the Author and the Participatory Budgeting Project

EVERYONE COUNTS

Could Participatory Budgeting Change Democracy?

When a politician has held office for seventeen years, they’ve probably done a lot right. But when that same politician suddenly faces a bruising runoff election, chances are they’ve done something terribly wrong. In 2007, Chicago alderman Joe Moore was rapidly becoming one more example of our mounting frustrations with government. The Participatory Budgeting Project, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, stepped in to transform disillusioned voters into a new movement to reinvent democracy in Chicago and beyond.

For more than a decade, Moore was a rising star on the city council. He led the charge to secure living wages for big box store employees. He also gained acclaim for championing environmental regulations on coal-fired power plants and for a resolution against the war in Iraq. But in the 2007 election, Moore was in trouble. No, he hadn’t been accused of corruption. (Historically, more Chicago aldermen have gone to jail than into higher office.)¹ Instead, he’d done something all too ordinary: He’d lost touch with his constituents.

This problem should sound familiar. Trust in government has plummeted across the United States, sinking below 20 percent by some metrics.² What makes Moore’s story special, however, is its resolution. When voters no longer trust a politician, they usually elect a replacement. Once they lose trust in that person, the cycle repeats.

Moore was fortunate to win his runoff—squeaking by with 51.6 percent of the vote. After the election, he set out to regain his constituents’ confidence. He enlisted my organization, the Participatory Budgeting Project, to