ABSTRACT

The paper investigates two Brazilian legislative innovations called Participatory Amendments to analyse their effects on electoral connection and on the social accountability of public budgeting. Previous studies have focused on participatory mechanisms in local governments and mainly on the formulation phase of public budgeting. Thus, we aim to fill this theoretical gap by exploring the case of two initiatives designed by congressmen that use direct participation to modify the current modus operandi of deciding and monitoring individual parliamentary amendments to the budget bill. Our results showed that these initiatives changed the decision-making process in terms of power of actors and quality of projects, while increasing the electoral connection, and can mitigate some accountability traps by amplifying voice and by sharpening teeth, especially if associated with capacity-building programmes and monitoring mechanisms.

摘要

本文调查了两项称为参与性修正案的巴西立法创新，以分析它们对选举关系和公共预算的社会责任的影响。先前的研究集中于地方政府的参与机制，主要集中在公共预算的制定阶段。因此，我们旨在通过探讨国会议员设计的两项倡议的情况来填补这一理论空白，这些倡议利用直接参与来修改目前决定和监督议会对预算法案的修正案的作法。我们的结果表明，这些举措改变了参与者的力量和项目质量，同时也增强了选举联系，并且可以通过扩大声音和尖锐的牙齿减轻某些问责制陷阱，从而改变了决策过程，