Effects of citizen participation in the social accountability of budget amendments

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper investigates two Brazilian legislative innovations called Participatory Amendments to analyse their effects on electoral connection and on the social accountability of public budgeting. Previous studies have focused on participatory mechanisms in local governments and mainly on the formulation phase of public budgeting. Thus, we aim to fill this theoretical gap by exploring the case of two initiatives designed by congressmen that use direct participation to modify the current modus operandi of deciding and monitoring individual parliamentary amendments to the budget bill. Our results showed that these initiatives changed the decision-making process in terms of power of actors and quality of projects, while increasing the electoral connection, and can mitigate some accountability traps by amplifying voice and by sharpening teeth, especially if associated with capacity-building programmes and monitoring mechanisms.