‘Development is a bag of cement’: the infrapolitics of participatory budgeting in the Andes

Abstract

Reflecting on observations of participatory budget schemes in the Andean region of South America, this article argues that the statements and behaviour of those who take part in participatory budget meetings should be understood as a form of public performance which often differs significantly from the ‘backstage discourses’ of participants once they are no longer performing in public. The widespread prioritisation of small-scale infrastructure projects that involve large volumes of cement highlights the ways in which the participants in participatory budget meetings quietly but strategically adapt external schemes and policies to their own goals and strategies.

Keywords:

• Aid
• Governance and Public Policy
• Latin America and the Caribbean

Notes

This article is based on research conducted with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, Peru's Consorcio de Investigación Económica y Social (CIES), and Dalhousie University's Research Development Fund.

The municipalities studied were Bolivia (Jesús de Machaca, Mizque, Potosí); Ecuador (Bolívar, Cotacachi, Guamote); Peru (Haquira, Limatambo). For more detailed analysis of these cases, see Cameron (2003).

The specific designs of participatory budgeting institutions in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru are examined extensively elsewhere (Cameron 2003; Remy 2005;Van Cott 2008).

Bebbington (2005) argues that the inability or unwillingness of donors and NGOs to recognise and support the livelihood strategies adopted by rural communities results from a combination of inadequate research (in turn a product of the cuts in development research funding by aid donors concerned to demonstrate the short-term impacts of aid on poverty reduction) and the considerable expertise that many rural development NGOs have built up on agricultural issues.