Reasons for low Participation in German Participatory Budgeting: A Public Administration Perspective

Berlin, New York, Paris and thousands of other cities worldwide use participatory budgeting to give their citizens a voice in the political decision-making process of municipal budgeting and to establish more transparency in governmental activities. In Germany, participatory budgeting is also an Open Government instrument, which is most frequently used by public administrations and numerous surveys suggest a high demand for it by citizens. Surprisingly, the actual number of participants in participatory budgeting does often not fulfil the expectations of politics and the public administration. In some cases, not even one percent of the German population, entitled to vote in a municipality, were willing to participate. Moreover, various cities show decreasing participation over the past years. As a result, some cities have already cancelled their projects. Through interviews with the German cities of Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg, Hamburg, Jena, Cologne, Oldenburg, Potsdam, Solingen and Unterschleißheim we aimed to address the following research question: What are the reasons for low participation in German participatory budgeting from a public administration perspective? In total, we identified twelve individual barriers to access and usage that our interviewees assumed as main reasons for low participation in their participation budgeting projects. Apart of a theoretical contribution to the research of participatory budgeting, Open Government and e-Participation in general, our research also seeks to create a practical benefit in order to share the experiences of municipalities with a broader audience. This might help to create a basis to refine the management of participatory budgeting with regards to the user requirements.     «

Berlin, New York, Paris and thousands of other cities worldwide use participatory budgeting to give their citizens a voice in the political decision-making process of municipal budgeting and to establish more transparency in governmental activities. In Germany, participatory budgeting is also an Open Government instrument, which is most frequently used by public administrations and numerous surveys suggest a high demand for it by citizens. Surprisingly, the actual number of participants in parti...     »