EMPATIA

Participatory budgets have played a key role in the field of democratic innovations. Portugal is considered as a case for holding one of the highest rates of local participatory budgets and pioneered national and regional initiatives. Such a patchwork raises interest in the ways in which Participatory Budgets function on multiple scales. In-depth examination of institutions, constituencies, and policy areas helps unveil evident pitfalls and emerging potentialities. Against pitfalls, this article acknowledges emerging potentialities in establishing agreements between institutions to improve the efficiency of public funding allocation; intermediary bodies to increase inclusion of citizens; and combined policy areas to foster the synergy among Participatory Budgets.

Participatory budgeting has been advocated as a democratic innovation that could bring governance closer to citizens. A myriad of European countries have embraced this idea and piloted participatory budgeting projects at the local level. In Serbia, however, democratic innovations are at the infantile stage. Only a handful of participatory budgeting projects have been initiated so far. The aim of this paper is to present the main lessons learnt from these projects and to present participatory budgeting as a citizen-centric and fiscally decentralized approach to public financial planning and execution. Using the mix-method, participatory budgeting projects and programs in three local government units in Serbia were analyzed. The results indicate political will of only a handful of Serbian local self-governments to implement participatory budgeting and limited sustainability of the concept of democratic innovation.

Objective: The aim of the article is to analyse participatory budgeting as a tool of organisational listening to the needs of residents in Polish cities with county rights. The study focuses on how this mechanism enables local government institutions to obtain feedback from citizens and use it in decision-making processes. The article formulates three research questions aimed at understanding the impact of civic budget on social dialogue, citydevelopment, as well as its role and prospective growing influence in urban policies. Research Design & Methods: The study involved an analysis of the functioning of participatory budgeting as an organisational listening tool in Polish voivodeship (provincial capital) cities that hold the status of cities with county rights. This analysis was supplemented by an evaluation of the contents of communications published by city offices in digital media, as well as a review of available data on resident participation. The researchwas comparative in nature, which allowed the identification of variations in participatory practices as well as of the degree of the institutionalisation of the citizen listening process in individual local government units. Findings: The analysis indicates significant differences in the level of institutionalisation of civic (participatory) budgets and the effectiveness of their use as organisational listening tools. In all the local government unitsexamined, the civic budget is a formally implemented instrument of public consultation; however, the role of this mechanism in communication with residents and the actual degree of citizens’ influence on public decisionsvary greatly. In cities characterised by a limited openness to social dialogue, civic budget is treated as a formal obligation, which results in lower levels of residential engagement. The results suggest that the effectivenessof participatory budgeting as an organisational listening tool depends not only on its formal existence, but above all on the quality of institutional communication, the transparency of processes, and the availability of genuine co-decision channels. The analysis also shows that projects implemented under the civic budgets of voivodeship cities are more focused on local initiatives rather than on broad city development processes. Implications / Recommendations: Participatory budgeting, as a tool for involving citizens in decision-making processes, can effectively serve an organisational listening function provided it is appropriately embeddedin the structures of local government administration. To increase the mechanism’s effectiveness, it is recommended to intensify actions supporting social dialogue, including the implementation of deliberative tools, the development of civic education programmes, and the provision of diverse communication channels with residents. Another important condition for success is ensuring the transparency of procedures and a real influence of citizens on decisions regarding the allocation of public funds. Contribution / Value Added: This article makes a significant contribution to the literature on civic participation by analysing participatory budgeting as an organisational listening tool in the context of public management.The presented empirical research allows the identification of various models of implementing civic budgets as well as an analysis of the advancement level of participatory processes in Poland’s voivodeship cities. The added value of the work lies in its interdisciplinary approach, which combines aspects of organisational communication with local government practices. As a result, the article deepens the understanding of mechanisms for involving residents in local decision-making processes. Furthermore, the research findings provide practical guidance for local government units, supporting the development of effective and transparent forms of social dialogue. Article classification: research paper JEL classification: H11; H72; D70

Participatory budgeting (PB), a democratic innovation incorporating citizens in the local budgetary decision-making process, has grown from a handful of left-wing municipalities in Brazil to around the globe. While the role of the Workers’ Party in driving PB diffusion in Brazil is well-recognized, less attention is given to how PB traverses across ideological divide and finds audience in some of Brazil’s center-right and conservative parties. This paper proposes a meso-level theory by incorporating party organization in the study of PB diffusion. I argue that parties with a weak brand, low level of internal cohesion, and a decentralized and disconnected structure provide a favorable scope condition for learning about dissimilar policies – an essential step for policy adoption. Combining quantitative analyses of PB in Brazil from 1997 to 2016 and a qualitative study of three major center-right and conservative parties, this paper illustrates the dynamic that explains PB adoption under seemingly unpromising environments.

In this paper I conduct a comparative analysis of three Chinese experiments with participatory budgeting (PB), a democratic innovation that has circulated worldwide. Relying on a renewed typology of political representation and ethnographic fieldwork combined with official data collection in Chengdu, Sichuan and Wenling, Zhejiang over seven years, it investigates the expansion and practice of PB and analyzes the relationship between participation and representation. It asserts that in the Chinese context PB cannot be simply reduced to empowering civil society against established representatives or becoming an instrument of legitimization for established elites. In the three investigated cases—which are not representative of Chinese local politics—PB does contribute to opening the decision-making process to formerly excluded participants, who are nonetheless not exactly ordinary citizens but rather local elites and “super residents” bridging the gap between established elites and residents.

Electronic voting systems are increasingly becoming popular globally for political and non-political purposes. The three key constraints for lack of trust in e-voting systems are security, transparency, and voter privacy. Blockchain is a promising technology that addresses these needs. This study uses a meta-analysis approach to identify key themes, trends, and considerations from current blockchain-based electronic voting system research. The study lists topics that are of potential future research interest and benefit various stakeholders, including researchers, government agencies, election commissions, and electoral bodies.

One of the most recognised democratic innovations of recent decades and with the greatest expansion throughout the world, the participatory budget, has a very strong relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. In this article we will try to explain the relationship between the two, Participatory Budget and Sustainable Development Goals, and the possibilities offered by the Participatory Budget to facilitate the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda. To do so, it is therefore necessary to find a way to take advantage of these intersections so that the Participatory Budget is an intelligent connector of goals and objectives in the urban context. In order to learn more about these links and their possibilities, we have carried out a bibliographic and documentary research. Although it is a subject that is still little studied and analysed, we can affirm that there is a strong link between the PP and the SDGs, both from the principles that drive them and from the proposals that citizens make in the process. There are four objectives that are most frequently referenced, namely number 5 on gender equality, number 10 on reducing inequalities, number 11 on sustainable cities and communities, and number 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions.

Electronic voting systems have been increasingly adopted to improve the efficiency and accessibility of modern elections. However, traditional electronic voting platforms often suffer from several limitations, including security vulnerabilities, lack of transparency, centralized control, and potential risks of vote tampering. These challenges can undermine public trust in electoral processes and highlight the need for more secure and transparent voting mechanisms. Recent advancements in Block chain Technology provide a promising solution for addressing these issues by enabling decentralized, tamper-resistant, and verifiable systems. This study proposes a blockchain-based secure electronic voting framework designed to ensure data integrity, voter privacy, and transparent vote counting. The proposed system utilizes a distributed ledger to record votes as immutable transactions, making it nearly impossible for unauthorized parties to alter or manipulate the stored data. Each vote is encrypted using modern Cryptography techniques before being added to the block chain network, ensuring voter anonymity while maintaining the authenticity of the election process. In addition, smart contracts automate the voting procedures, including voter authentication, vote casting, and result tabulation, thereby reducing human intervention and potential errors. The system architecture integrates a voter registration module, authentication mechanism, block chain network, and secure voting interface. Through the use of decentralized consensus mechanisms, the proposed approach eliminates reliance on a central authority and enables transparent verification of election results by authorized participants. Performance evaluation of the system demonstrates improved security, reliability, and transparency compared with conventional Electronic Voting approaches. Furthermore, the system provides an auditable and tamper-proof record of all voting transactions, ensuring accountability throughout the electoral process.

Este artigo propõe uma revisão bibliográfica de trabalhos, em âmbito nacional, sobre as experiências do Orçamento Participativo. Tem-se como objetivo compreender a dimensão do Orçamento Participativo, no que se refere à concepção, experiência, participação social nesse processo, seus limites e possibilidades. Os resultados alcançados evidenciaram que, mesmo o Orçamento Participativo tendo ampla dimensão de inovação democrática no plano nacional, está limitado na sua fundação e sobrevivência nos municípios, pois dependem dos atores políticos.

The idea of so-called “Participatory Budgeting” (PB) has recently re-entered the modern political discourse. Major metropoles, such as New York, are making progress beyond mere piloting by paving the road for mandatory PB with new legislation, while communities of various sizes and politicians of various ranks all around the world aim to follow suit in an attempt to maintain an image of democratic progress. This paper shall scrutinize PB and provide a critique of PB from the perspective of democratic innovation. Another concept for increasing democratic power of citizens shall be described – the Quantum Budget. The Quantum Budget is an innovative way of funding communal projects that bases on Liquid Democracy. The paper will compare the Quantum Budget to Participatory Budgeting and provide a discussion on their potentials and weaknesses.

The modern electronic voting system is an interconnected set of rules, methods, processes, tools and technologies, as well as legal norms that ensure and regulate the remote legitimate will of authorized users (voters). This article proposes, investigates, and verifies by physical prototyping the two-tier architecture of the electronic blockchain voting system. The lower (first) level enables all components of the electronic identification process to be fulfilled by existing systems such as BankID, MobileID, electronic signature, and the like. This will ensure interoperability of electronic voting, inheritance of already implemented national information systems, in particular, of the national system of electronic confidential services, reproducibility of the results of physical prototyping of blockchain voting. The upper (second) level is intended for the implementation of the expression of votes and the counting of votes, with the provision of independent control over the correctness of the compilation of voter lists; the possibility of anonymous voting only by those who are entitled to it; the invariability and irrevocability of the results of the will; ease and transparency of checking the correctness of the vote count and the like. The obtained results of physical prototyping make it possible to confirm the validity and weight of the developed architecture, its ability to meet the basic requirements of decentralized electronic voting, the requirements of information and functional security and reliability of information technologies. The practical implementation of the developed blockchain voting architecture will increase trust in information resources and services (which is especially relevant for government agencies) and will reduce time and overhead; will make impossible the intervention of centralized institutions and possible corruption; will increase the reliability of information storage and the quality of services provided.

The use of electronic voting is gradually replacing the traditional one. However, the issue of creating an honest and reliable electronic voting system is still open. Creating a reliable e-voting system that meets all security requirements is a difficult task. The paper presents an electronic voting system based on the principle of blind intermediaries using multiple ballots. The basic requirements for systems are described: eligibility, fairness, individual verifiability, universal verifiability, vote-privacy, receipt-freeness, coercion-resistance, vulnerable software/hardware resistance. Blind intermediaries allow you to exclude the user’s vote from communicating with any authentication data. The principle of multiple ballot casting allows verification of the correctness of the ballot without the use of evidence with zero disclosure, as well as ensures compliance with other requirements for electronic voting systems. The system architecture is described, and the components involved in the voting process are described. The voting process is described, consisting of several stages: preparation, voting, counting of results. Cryptographic protocols are used, which are used for data transfer between system components. The compliance with the security requirements of the system is justified.

Conventional electronic voting systems use a centralized scheme. A central administration of these systems manages the entire voting process and has partial or total control over the database and the system itself. This creates some problems, accidental or intentional, such as possible manipulation of the database and double voting. Many of these problems have been solved thanks to permissionless blockchain technologies in new voting systems; however, the classic consensus method of such blockchains requires specific computing power during each voting operation. This has a significant impact on power consumption, compromises the efficiency and increases the system latency. However, using a permissioned blockchain improves efficiency and reduces system energy consumption, mainly due to the elimination of the typical consensus protocols used by public blockchains. The use of smart contracts provides a secure mechanism to guarantee the accuracy of the voting result and make the counting procedure public and protected against fraudulent actions, and contributes to preserving the anonymity of the votes. Its adoption in electronic voting systems can help mitigate part of these problems. Therefore, this paper proposes a system that ensures high reliability by applying enterprise blockchain technology to electronic voting, securing the secret ballot. In addition, a flexible network configuration is presented, discussing how the solution addresses some of the security and reliability issues commonly faced by electronic voting system solutions.

Developing an electronic voting system that meets the practical needs of administrators has been a difficult task for a long time. Now, blockchain technologies solve this problem by providing a distributed ledger with immutable, encrypted, and secure transactions. Distributed ledger technologies are an interesting technological leap in the field of data innovation, transparency, and trustability. In public blockchain, distributed ledger technology is widely used. The blockchain technology can be used in an almost infinite number of ways to benefit from sharing economies. The purpose of this study is to assess how blockchain may be utilized to build electronic voting systems that can be used as a service. The purpose of electronic voting systems is explained in this article, as are the technological and legal limitations of employing blockchain as a service. Then, using blockchain as a foundation, we propose a new electronic voting system that fixes the flaws we observed. In general, this paper evaluates the capabilities of distributed ledger technologies by depicting a contextual investigation in order to fine-tune the process of political election decisions and employing a blockchain-based application that improves security and lowers the cost of conducting nationwide elections.

Traditionally, electronic voting has relied on a centralized method of administration. The database and the system are both under the jurisdiction of the system's central administration, which oversees the voting process. As a result, issues like database manipulation and duplicate voting may arise, whether accidentally or purposefully. Permissionless blockchain technology has helped overcome many of these issues; however, since the basic consensus technique of such blockchains demands particular computer resources for each voting operation, they are not ideal for new voting systems. Power consumption, efficiency, and system latency all suffer as a result. These issues may be alleviated in part if electronic voting technologies are used. By using corporate blockchain technology, this research presents an electronic voting system that is very reliable and secures the secret vote. It also discusses some of the frequent security and dependability challenges of electronic voting system solutions, such as a flexible network setup.