If we follow a practice-focused reading of PB [participatory budgeting] that recognizes the heterogeneity of competing ideas, in-depth case analysis may well suggest that the broader outcomes of participation do not always depend exclusively on institutional design, as PB evolves through a process of contestation and negotiation. Retrospectively, the inclusion of the more participatory second tier in Angola’s PB was certainly crucial, but it would have been difficult for the central government to predict the growing calls for bottom-up participation that have emerged, and continue to emerge, from the complex interactions of different actors and from the very practice of PB on the ground.
Daniel Tjarks (2026). “Participatory Budgeting in Autocracies: Conflicting Logics, Unintended Consequences and Contentious Participation in Angola’s Orçamento Participativo“. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (accessed online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2427.70132)
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WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 