From Empowerment to Community Power in Participatory Budgeting

Bibliographic Data

ID3757248
AuthorsScotney D Evans (0000-0003-0897-0725, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA, corresponding author), Margo Fernandez-Burgos (0000-0003-4374-0490, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA)
Year2023
Volume67
Issue4
Pages578-592
Publication date2023-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00027642221086947
OpenAlexW4224233750
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited35

This paper examines the issue of empowerment in participatory budgeting (PB). We position empowerment as part of the generally agreed theory of change in PB yet acknowledge the limits of an individual construction of empowerment that neglect sufficient attention to dynamic relations of power in participatory spaces and surrounding social contexts. Using the three forms of power theorized by Lukes (1974) and Gaventa (1980), we examine the ways in which these forms of power constrain individual and collective agency and transformative outcomes in participatory projects. We shift the gaze from empowerment to the concept of community power to suggest that getting beyond small adjustments to local services and resource allocations to substantive changes in relations of power may depend on ordinary citizens coming together in sites of radical possibility to define themselves, deliberate, and then act

Agency (philosophy) · Citizen journalism · Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Neglect · Participatory planning · Political science · Power (physics) · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Transformative learning · Community Health and Development · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Psychology · Public Policy and Administration Research