The emergence of new forms of popular input in decision-making at the local level in Latin America over the last half-century has important implications from a variety of perspectives. In the first place, the practice runs counter to the more pessimistic assessments of democracy in the continent put forward at the time of democratic consolidation in the 1990s by political scientists such as Guillermo O'Donnell and Philip Oxhorn. In the second place, the Left has been in the forefront of these experiments in an effort to devise a new model that corrects the shortcomings of Soviet-style socialism and vanguard strategies. The main challenge that leftist movements have faced since the collapse of the Soviet Union is whether or not the institutions they create are viable, and thus the effectiveness of participatory bodies reflects upon the Left's credibility. Finally, decentralisation of power has the potential to check the homogenising influence of globalisation and the erosion of national identities. For these reasons, Benjamin Goldfrank's proposal to compare various leftist-sponsored experiments in collective participation in local decision-making represents a valuable contribution.
Goldfrank presents a meticulous, systematic analysis of participatory experiences promoted by municipal governments in Caracas, Montevideo and Porto Alegre. One half of the book consists of individual chapters each on one of the three cities. Goldfrank chose these three because they were all governed by leftist parties that were ‘prominent advocates of increasing citizen participation in local government’ (p. 35) and assumed municipal power in the same period, between 1989 and 1993. He reaches the conclusion that Porto Alegre was the most successful case, followed by Montevideo and in sharp contrast with the more unfavourable results in Caracas, where the leftists failed ‘to consolidate their participation program’ (p. 84). In Porto Alegre and Montevideo, unlike Caracas, the leftist-controlled municipal government carried out redistributive spending policies in favour of the popular sectors.
Goldfrank points to two overriding factors explaining the different outcomes of the participatory mechanisms that were created in the three municipalities. Both factors worked to the advantage of Porto Alegre and to the disadvantage of Caracas, while Montevideo lay in between the two extremes. In the first place, the resources available to make local participation meaningful depended on the nation's progress in implementing decentralisation. Brazil was at an advantage because its tradition in decentralised power dated to the late nineteenth century, in contrast to the centralised structure of the Venezuelan state throughout the twentieth century. The municipal governments in Brazil and Uruguay were thus blessed with ‘a relatively large budget’ (p. 73) in comparison to the Venezuelan case.
In the second place, the strength of pro-establishment parties and their institutionalisation influenced negatively the outcome of leftist efforts to promote local-level participation. Goldfrank points out that the role of opposition parties has been largely ignored by scholars who have examined participatory policies at the local level. In contrast to the recently created parties of the opposition in Porto Alegre, which lacked a consistent policy toward the participatory budgeting programme, the pro-establishment parties in Caracas and Montevideo dated back half a century and nearly two centuries respectively. In the case of Caracas, the ‘sabotage’ (p. 8) by opposition parties undermined the Left's participatory programme particularly because they used their control of the labour movement to go on strike ‘constantly, motivated partially by political reasons and partially by [the mayor's] attempts to restructure the bureaucracy’ (p. 93). Goldfrank's discussion of the attempts by strong parties to block avenues of popular participation is in line with theories of over-institutionalisation developed in the 1990s as a reaction to political scientists who saw well-institutionalised parties as a panacea for instability in Latin America.
As a result of its more secure political position, the leftist-controlled municipal government in Porto Alegre was able to fashion a radical ‘open design of participatory budgeting’ (p. 261). Progress and success were measured by the increased ‘scope’ of decision-making ‘beyond the neighbourhood or district level’ (pp. 187–8), the ruling that made certain decisions reached in assemblies binding, greater ‘transparency and accountability’ (p. 236), the reduced ‘space for corruption and government waste of resources’ (p. 221), the enhanced role for and democratisation of neighbourhood organisations and the disproportionately high participation of underprivileged sectors. In contrast, in Montevideo, the traditional parties forced Mayor Tabaré Vázquez to ‘negotiate the design of his participatory decentralisation program’ (p. 127) in favour of greater regulation. Caracas’ mayor Aristóbulo Istúriz was an even greater victim of opposition resistance in that his participatory scheme became ‘restrictive’ (p. 83). As a result of the concessions granted to the opposition, participation declined in Montevideo and, to an even greater extent, in Caracas.
Goldfrank's overall conclusion is optimistic, even though participatory experiments proved to be a resounding success in only one of the three case studies. In the concluding chapter, he affirms that ‘the first and most promising lesson is that deepening local democracy is possible’. Goldfrank shows that in all three cities the participatory programmes had a major impact on national politics. The leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) received an increasingly large vote in municipal elections at the same time as it held up Vázquez's record as mayor to promote his unsuccessful candidacy in the presidential elections of 1999 and his successful bid in 2004. In the case of Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez ‘has taken up the mantle of participatory democracy’ (p. 246) and ‘several of [his] participatory initiatives were based on those promoted by Istúriz’ (p. 250).
Goldfrank's findings regarding the potential of participatory democracy lead him to refute the claim of political scientists such as Samuel Huntington regarding the danger that direct popular participation in government leads to (in the words of Fareed Zakaria) ‘tyranny or chaos’ (p. 248). Goldfrank also discusses the implications of the participatory experiments for leftist strategy. He explores the debate between those leftists who favour a ‘dual power’ approach that pits the grassroots against the state, even when the Left is in power, and what Peter Evans calls ‘state–society synergy’ (p. 24). In short, this book is an example of exceptional scholarship. It is well focused, explores the theoretical and practical implications of its findings and draws on extensive fieldwork and considerable secondary literature.
