8/12/2019 Participatory Governance in Pune & Berlin

1/3

Participatory Governance in Pune & Berlin

Advancing Direct Democracy

- Matthias Schnabel

Participatory Governance is a phenomenon that is

constantly gaining more and more recognition all over the

world. The idea is to let citizens take part in decision

making processes in which only officials and politicians

are involved otherwise. A number of economists and

social scientists are researching on what constitutes as

good governance and most times 'Participation' emerges as

one of the indispensable pillars. It is through participationthat transparency and accountability can also be achieved

in the process of governance. But the question is; in a

representative form of democracy, participation varies

under different political, social, economic, administrative

and cultural conditions. So what constitutes as Participation and how far can a government

go in directly involving its citizens in the process of governance.

Participatory Budgeting; an important tool of participatory governance is a democratic

process of deliberation by citizens, civic officials and elected representatives on the issuesthat need attention and collectively arriving at decisions that would directly be included in

the budget of the government. This process helps citizens to voice their opinions and decide

on how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget for betterment of theirneighborhoods. Participatory budgeting empowers the citizens to present their demands and

priorities for improvement, and influence through discussions and negotiations the budget

allocations made by their municipalities. It is an opportunity in which the common citizenscan decide about the allocation and distribution of public expenditure in their areas or

regions.

'Janwani' meaning 'voice of the people' has always went the extra mile to ensure that

citizens are included in the decision-making processes concerned with the city of Pune. One

important aspect of work at Janwani is the constant curiosity to learn and this curiosity has

led us to working on a cross-learning paper on what can Pune (the only city in India with a

fully functional participatory budgeting) can learn from Berlin (city with an advanced

participatory budgeting process) and vice versa.

East meets West

8/12/2019 Participatory Governance in Pune & Berlin

2/3

8/12/2019 Participatory Governance in Pune & Berlin

3/3

Matthias Schnabel is an undergraduate Political Science student from Germany. He is currently

doing a year-long internship at Janwani, Pune working on a research paper assessing participatory

budgeting processes in Pune and Berlin. The paper assesses how participation works under

different adminstrational, political and economic environments.