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Accountability Through Participatory Budgeting in India: Only in Kerala?

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Governance for Urban Services

Part of the book series: Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements ((ACHS))

Abstract

Since its beginning in Brazil in 1989, participatory budgeting (PB) has spread worldwide to several thousand local governmental units (LGUs) in all continents, celebrated for its success in combining citizen involvement and state accountability in delivering public services. While PB has been adopted in most places by individual LGUs on their own initiative, in India the state of Kerala implemented PB throughout all its governmental units from rural villages and urban wards up through district in one “big bang” move in 1996. Over the succeeding two decades and more, PB has become securely institutionalized, surviving numerous changes of ruling party at state level. Outside of Kerala, however, few LGUs of any sort have implemented PB and it has not flourished in any of the adopters. Using the World Bank’s principal-agent model of state accountability for public service delivery, this paper will explore Kerala’s experience at PB and more briefly look at its lack of success elsewhere in India.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The latest published count estimates between 1269 and 2778 PB “traceable experiments,” depending on how they are counted (Sintomer et al. 2013: 11). In this listing, Kerala counts as just one case.

  2. 2.

    The use of “voice” with both the long and short routes (see Joshi 2007; WDR 2004) but with different meanings in each context is not helpful. But there seems no better expression in either framework. In any case, the remainder of the present paper will be dealing with the short route use of the term.

  3. 3.

    Mass demonstrations on a wide scale could be considered a short route mechanism, but such activity is virtually always negative, seeking to undo or reverse some perceived state malfeasance, aiming to pressure the state to desist, as with the recent “yellow vest” protests in France (e.g., Friedman 2018; Viscusi 2018). In the extreme case, the demonstrations seek to replace or overthrow the state itself (e.g., in the fall of communist rule in Eastern Europe around 1990). But short route activity toward more positive ends is essentially local.

  4. 4.

    It can be argued that civil society offers a third, middle route to accountability in addition to the long and short routes (Blair 2018).

  5. 5.

    For a somewhat more extended discussion of the model, see Blair (2013: 146–149). It has been extensively analyzed, e.g., in Baiocchi and Ganuza (2017).

  6. 6.

    The Porto Alegre model has been explained in detail many times, for instance in Koonings (2004), also Wainwright (2003) and Avritzer (1999).

  7. 7.

    The very poorest stratum was much less involved, however, in large part because of transaction and opportunity costs.

  8. 8.

    The city of Belo Horizonte, which adopted the Porto Alegre PB model in 1993, underwent a similar de-emphasis on PB combined with a widening to include a middle-class constituency and a decrease in funding after a non-PT administration took over the municipality. See Montambeault (2019).

  9. 9.

    This and the preceding paragraph are largely drawn from Melgar (2014). See also Baiocchi and Ganuza (2017).

  10. 10.

    See Sintomer et al. (2013: 14&ff). In contrast with Porto Alegre’s “Participatory democracy” model, the weakest of Sintomer et al’s six types is labeled “Multi-stakeholder participation” and includes private interests generally in a dominant position. Participation is largely a management tool. This type is characteristic of PB systems in Eastern Europe and Africa. The other four types have one or more elements of the Porto Alegre model.

  11. 11.

    The first five points are based in Sintomer et al. (2013). The last two are my own, based on the Porto Alegre experience in early years. After the PT lost power in 2004, these two characteristics significantly weakened (though they did not completely disappear).

  12. 12.

    Information in this and the next paragraph is largely taken from Heller et al. (2007). For more detail, see Isaac and Franke (2002). Heller (2012) discusses similarities between Porto Alegre and Kerala.

  13. 13.

    The most complete description of Kerala’s PB process can be found in Isaac and Franke (2002).

  14. 14.

    Heller et al. (2007: 636–637) attributes this pattern to Kerala’s history of lower class mobilization beginning in the late 19th century and more recently a progressive land reform. See also Rajesh (2009). To this might also be added the high level of literacy throughout the state, which enables greater scope for local accountability.

  15. 15.

    Total development plan outlay has held steady over the years at about 18% of GOK spending (Sebastian et al. 2014: 22), so one-third of that would come to around 6%.

  16. 16.

    Data from GOK, Economic Review (various years).

  17. 17.

    PB’s track record in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s other major city taking up the program in earlier years, is very similar to Porto Alegre’s experience when the PT lost power. See Montambeault (2019). Heller (2012) presents an extensive comparison between the Kerala and Brazilian histories with PB.

  18. 18.

    Analysis and evaluation have followed an even greater rural orientation. With the exception of George and Neunecker’s (2013) study, virtually all of it has focused on the rural side, with urban attention confined to statistical data (e.g., GOK 2018). The PB process itself was essentially similar in both rural and urban areas.

  19. 19.

    This point will be taken up later on in the paper.

  20. 20.

    In India as in the subcontinent generally, the government’s fiscal year runs from 1 April to 31 March.

  21. 21.

    See Keefer and Khemani (2005: 18–21).

  22. 22.

    In a study of participatory accountability mechanisms in India generally, I found political will at the highest level to be the sine qua non for success. Without it, no mechanism could last very long (Blair 2018).

  23. 23.

    West Bengal (also under a CPM government from 1977 to 2011) has made notable progress in decentralization and has undertaken serious efforts at poverty reduction, but it has not taken up PB as such. See Crook and Sverisson (2001), also Robinson (2007: 15) and Maiti and de Faria (2017: 21).

  24. 24.

    This paragraph and the next two are based on Menon et al. (2013) and Jobst and Malherbe (2017).

  25. 25.

    This paragraph draws mainly on Samy (2017).

  26. 26.

    The World Bank (2008) also reported a poverty reduction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Asian Studies Council, Yale University, PO Box 208206, New Haven, CT, 06520-8206, USA

    Harry Blair

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Correspondence to Harry Blair .

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  1. Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Shabbir Cheema

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Blair, H. (2020). Accountability Through Participatory Budgeting in India: Only in Kerala?. In: Cheema, S. (eds) Governance for Urban Services. Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2973-3_3

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