Participatory budget: reconciling social rights of citizenship and government legitimacy

Abstract

The paper analyses the Participatory Budget implemented by the Popular Front in Porto Alegre, following a double sense of approach: as a possible political opportunity for social sectors trying to assure the acquisition of social rights of citizenship through legal ways, and as political instrument of governors searching legitimacy in an adverse context. In both approaches it will be verified how the agents need to solve the question of tension among legitimacy and legality of their aspirations and actions. It will be argued that the way tried out in Porto Alegre can be seen as a process of local citizenship, understood as constitution of a network of relations in the context of a struggle among groups and social classes, in which rights and duties of citizenship are socially defined and their implementation disputed. Key words: Citizenship rights; social movements; participatory budget; democracy