Abstract
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The aim of the paper is to present the functioning of participatory budget practices in municipalities in Slovenia in pre- and during Covid-19 era and its impact on citizen engagement in the process. The paper will therefor focus on the question whether Covid-19 had a negative impact on the use of participatory budget in Slovene municipalities either by diminishing its use (or some of its instruments), or a positive impact, causing the development, promotion and use of new instruments, enabling enhanced citizen participation. With the use of questionnaires, sent to municipalities practicing participatory budget, we shall present, what new practices they expect will remain in use, following the pandemic. Slovenia is a small country with two million inhabitants and two hundred and twelve municipalities. Although in many (political) debates the number of municipalities is often being argued, the problem is not so much the number of municipalities as is their variety – they vary from municipalities with only three hundred inhabitants to the largest one (capital city of Ljubljana) with just under three hundred thousand inhabitants – a one to a thousand ratio. Although, the use of participatory budget, was not prohibited by state legislation, it was not used in practice. The first pilot was tested in one municipality in 2015. Local-Self Government Act was adopted in April 2018 and came to power in May 2018. A new article 48a was added saying that, “In the process of preparing the draft budget, the municipality may determine the amount of funds intended for the financing of projects proposed by the citizens”, and therefor gave explicit legal ground for the use of (a facultative) participatory budget on municipal level. In November 2018, regular local elections were held. All the candidates for mayors, were sent a questionnaire, whether they will support and implement participatory budget in their municipality if elected – 56 of elected mayors said they would. Two years later only 26 of these 56 candidates held their promise and implemented participatory budget in their municipality. On the brighter side, there seem to be some mayors who did not make a pledge to implement the participatory budget, but later changed their mind. Some municipalities are in the process of implementing it in the next year (or two). Although different practices exist worldwide regarding implementation of municipal participatory budgets, certain criteria exist such as that it must include whole or at least part of the budget, citizens must be included in the phase of proposing projects as well as the phase on deciding/voting on their implementation and that the practice of participatory budget is a lasting one. In the last few years, projects were being proposed in different ways in different municipalities - in person on a special form, by ordinary mail or email, different IT tools (applications). Similar was done in the voting phase on proposed project – people voted in person (similar as in general local elections), in general resident meetings, via different IT tools (applications), by ordinary mail or email. The paper will present empirical evidence on the way Corona-19 effected the usage of instruments for the proposition and voting phase of the participatory budget projects in 2020 by analysing and comparing the processes before 2020 and in time of the pandemic. Some municipalities (e.g. Jesenice) even publicly declared that due to Covid-19 vis maior situation they will not start using the participatory budget practice in 2020 as planned. The analysis of different practices and the predictions (provided by municipal answers to the questionnaire) on which instruments will be used and the consequences they will bring (higher voter turnout etc.), will help us answer on the positive or negative impact Covid-19 has on the participatory budget processes in Slovenia. The presented results in the paper will shed a new light on functioning instruments used in different municipal participatory budget processes, and spread the usage of participatory budget in other municipalities.
On the organisational note: if chosen, I agree, my paper be included into the programme of WG1 and WG5 joint session.
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