The different designs of public participation in Brazil: deliberation, power sharing and public ratification

The emergence of participatory institutions in Latin America is today an established phenomenon and has generated a vast corpus of literature. Among all the participatory mechanisms that have recently been incorporated, participatory budgeting appears to be the one that has received the greatest attention. Since its introduction in Porto Alegre, participatory budgeting has become world famous and has been exported to other parts of Brazil, Latin America and Europe. Participatory budgeting, however, is not the only available form of institutionalized participation in Latin America. Policy councils in the areas of health and social assistance have thrived in Brazil and today involve tens of thousands of participants. Participatory planning in cities was greatly enhanced after the creation of the Ministry of Cities and today takes place in more than a 1000 cities in Brazil. This article analyzes participation in Brazil in the light of its different designs. Our aim is to de-center the debate on participation from participatory budgeting and argue for the relevance of context in decision-making and participation.