O desafio da participação: diagnóstico da baixa efetividade do orçamento participativo no município de Jaú-SP

Abstract

A period of political mobilization took place in Brazil, especially from the 1980s onward, in pursuit of greater civil society participation in public budgetary decisions, which became institutionalized through the innovation known as Participatory Budgeting (PB). This public mechanism ensures popular involvement in decisions regarding the allocation of a percentage of the public budget. However, this dimension of democracy—marked by advances and setbacks—remains far from consolidated in many municipalities across the country where PB was implemented. The collaboration between government authorities and the population, through direct and indirect mechanisms of participation and decision-making, strengthens and materializes democracy. Nevertheless, the country exhibits several shortcomings, both in institutionalization and in ensuring and promoting civil society participation. It is this latter issue that we intend to address in this dissertation, through a case study of the municipality of Jaú-SP, based on the diagnosis that the city demonstrates negative—or decreasing—levels of public participation in budgetary decisions. Our objective is to identify the factors and conditions that have hindered this participation, ultimately obstructing the implementation of PB in the municipality, particularly regarding its original democratic-participatory purpose. The research also has an applied objective: to identify and propose alternatives, measures, and methods to enhance the engagement of Jaú’s civil society in the municipal Participatory Budgeting process.