Testing the Empowerment Thesis: The Participatory Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil

Numerous political theorists and practitioners suggest participatory or deliberative democracy as a remedy to the ills of contemporary representative democracy: declining voter turnouts, increasing distrust in democratic politicians and processes, and declining levels of participation in organized civil society.1 They argue that these problems diminish when citizens become directly involved in public policymaking processes, especially at the local or grass-roots level where such processes seem more relevant to people's day-to-day lives. Empowerment is said to occur as initial involvement in one arena of democracy spills over into further participation in other arenas.2