Participatory budgeting in COVID-19 times: a perspective from local public administration

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the daily lives of populations around the world, affected household economies, forced national and subnational governments to manage declining revenues, and transformed patterns of behavior, practices, and processes. In this context of uncertainty, the barriers imposed by the pandemic have somehow affected the implementation of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in several countries. Brazil was a pioneer in the elaboration and adoption of the mechanism in its municipalities, and Portugal is currently the country with the highest rates of PB implementation worldwide. The goal of the paper is to explore the barriers imposed by the global COVID-19 pandemic on PB, considering the perspective of Brazilian and Portuguese Local Public Administration. The research applied an online survey using a Likert-type scale to assess the perception of municipalities about the barriers imposed by COVID-19 pandemic on PB. Public administration officials responsible for carrying out PB, in both the municipalities of the state of Paraná (Brazil) and the municipalities of Portugal, indicated that the crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the carrying out of the processes. There is a sign that the pandemic imposed the alteration of PB processes. As for the possible restrictive consequences of the crisis on the implementation of the mechanism in the future, they are apparently not entirely clear, according to the municipalities analyzed in the two countries. The perception of public administration officials from Portuguese municipalities and cities in the state of Paraná (Brazil) about the obstacles imposed on PB by COVID-19 pandemic can contribute to the ongoing debate about the barriers caused by the crisis.