The design of decision-making: participatory budgeting and the production of localism

Abstract

This paper examines participatory budgeting (PB) as an instrument of localism – the devolution of political governance with the aim to produce sustainable democratic communities. This will be achieved through a detailed exploration of the decision-making mechanisms for creating local governance through PB schemes designed and organised by the Cornwall Council (UK). First introduced in the UK by the previous Labour administration in 2008, PB has become a tool of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and is central to the neoliberal ethos of Big Society and localism. In a time of rapid political change, we respond to Eaton's [2008. From feeding the locals to selling the locale: adapting local sustainable food projects in Niagara to neocommunitarianism and neoliberalism. Geoforum, 39, 994–1006, 996] suggestion that greater attention be paid to “the specificities of particular neoliberal projects” by focusing on the micro-politics of PB. We draw upon empirical evidence from PB pilot schemes run in rural Cornwall in 2008, examining the effect of “nudging” decision-making. Grounding this inquiry in the existing literature on neoliberal statecraft, this paper investigates the role of government technologies which seek to frame local governance using mechanisms of libertarian paternalism [Painter, J., 2008. European citizenship and the regions. European Urban and Regional Studies, 15, 5–19; Painter, J., 2010. Rethinking territory. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 42, 1090–1118; MacLeavy, J., 2008. Neoliberlising subjects: the legacy of new labour's construction of social exclusion in local governance. Geoforum, 39, 1657–1666]. We argue in this paper that neoliberal ideology has integrated the epistemology of behavioural economics. We draw conclusions commensurate with the outcomes of PB projects conducted in Latin America, namely that citizens can be steered towards making certain decisions. We assert that in order to direct decision-making successfully, governmental “top-down” frameworks and goals need to be married with local geographies and “bottom-up” local desires and aspirations, thereby enabling a “countervailing power” [Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C. and Rocke, A., 2008. Participatory budgeting in Europe: potentials and challenges. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32, 164–178] to develop. This power is exercised by a participating and scrutinising citizen that contribute towards, and balance, governmental practices of PB. With a wider governmental emphasis on designing or “architecting” choice in opportunities for local governing, there is now an even greater necessity to recognise the context of geography in local government community-orientated initiatives.

Keywords:

• big society
• governance
• participatory budgeting
• localism
• soft paternalism

Notes

“Soft Paternalism” is an umbrella term for a number of methods, such as libertarian paternalism, which enable choice to be influenced but also the freedom of that choice to remain intact (see Thaler and Sunstein 2008).

See, for example, “You Decide!” in Tower Hamlets, London (£2.4 million spent by residents) and “Everyone Counts” in Walsall and “Your Voice, Your Choice” in Leicestershire (Participatory Budgeting 2008).

Behavioural Economics is the study of economic, cultural and social effects on, for example, decision-making.

Methods of influencing behaviour through certain techniques such as putting “healthy foods” at eye-level in restaurants/cafeterias, or settling defaults in insurance and healthcare policies.

The council officers' name has been anonymised to protect their identity.

Data taken from Cornwall Council Area Profiles, Penzance and Bodmin: Cornwall Council.

A collection of six residents associations in the Redruth North electoral ward, the Town and County Council, and partners and agencies from the local area.

The transition body from a two-tiered local authority to a unitary.

The previous district council, dissolved on 1 April 2009.

The previous District Council before Cornwall became a unitary authority in April 2009.