Participatory Budgeting for Environmental Justice

ABSTRACT

Corrective measures and remediation efforts aimed at alleviating the conditions of environmental injustice usually depend on federal or state funding. However, such resources could disappear, leaving marginalized communities without the necessary means to mitigate environmental harm. Participatory Budgeting (PB), a process that allows residents to work with municipal governments to decide on community projects, holds promise as a surrogate source of funding. When examining the character of such an enterprise, however, one finds that it does not exactly fit within established paradigms of environmental justice. To account for this condition, one must examine how PB restructures the power dynamics that determine cleanup protocols. The paper ends by highlighting some avenues that municipalities can pursue to incorporate this process into existing budgeting strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• inclusivity
• participation
• community

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Nathan M. Bell, two reviewers, and Ben Hale for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1. I also apply the line of thought above to clean-up protocols, which might be of interest to this journal's readership. For more information, see Epting, S. (2015). The limits of environmental remediation protocols for environmental justice cases: lessons from Vieques, Puerto Rico. Contemporary Justice Review, 18(3), 352-365.

2. It is worth mentioning that Gianpaolo Biocchi and Ernesto Ganuz separate PB into communicative and empowerment dimensions, an effort that provides a highly detailed view that could benefit social justice. However, examining this paper in the current context falls outside of the purview of the present investigation. For more information, see: Baiocchi and Ganuza (2014) Participatory Budgeting as if Emancipation Mattered. Politics & Society, 42(1), 29–50.

3. A point could be raised that some technical projects would require knowledge that must be sought from outside of the community, such as a local university. This is a fair objection, but it seems reasonable to hold that they could bring in an outsider to help with such issues. However, Ganuza et al. exhibit that experts and residents can clash when it comes to the value of expertise, such as witnessed in the first PB case in Chicago. For more information, see: Ganuza et al. (2016) Conflicts and Paradoxes in the Rhetoric of Participation. Journal of Civil Society, 12(3), 328–343.

4. For a detailed account that examines restorative justice’s foundations and recent advancements, see: Gavrielides and Artinopoulou (2013)Reconstructing Restorative Justice Philosophy. Burington, VT: Ashgate.

5. It is worth mentioning that technology can also help support PB. For example, see: Miori, V. and Russo, D. (2011) Integrating Online and Traditional Involvement in Participatory Budgeting. Electronic Journal of E-Government, 9(1), 41.