Participatory budgets in Portugal: searching for a closer democracy or a functional rationality

Abstract

Participatory budgets represent a possible evolutionary trend of democracy in modern societies. This new democratic experimentalism is present today in all continents, with a greater emphasis on South America, Europe and Africa, assuming configurations and local senses that are very different, sometimes contradictory. In Portugal, the Participatory Budget has gained a growing visibility and has paved a very interesting and significant expansion path. As it is a recent reality in our country, it is important to understand the forms of insertion of the OP in the local political-administrative context, the participation models that it incorporates, the institutional design that it acquires, as well as the organizational cuts in which it fits. In this article, the authors seek to reflect on the limits, challenges and possible evolutions of this phenomenon in Portugal.