Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

Participatory budgeting at a community level in Porto Alegre: a Bourdieusian

interpretation
Laure Célérier Luis Emilio Cuenca Botey
Article information:
To cite this document:
Laure Célérier Luis Emilio Cuenca Botey , (2015),"Participatory budgeting at a community level in
Porto Alegre: a Bourdieusian interpretation", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 28
Iss 5 pp. 739 - 772
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Permanent link to this document:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-03-2013-1245
Downloaded on: 14 February 2016, At: 07:21 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 131 other documents.
To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 444 times since 2015*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Judy Brown, Jesse Dillard, Trevor Hopper, (2015),"Accounting, accountants and accountability
regimes in pluralistic societies: Taking multiple perspectives seriously", Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 28 Iss 5 pp. 626-650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-03-2015-1996
Sven Modell, (2015),"Making institutional accounting research critical: dead end or new
beginning?", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 28 Iss 5 pp. 773-808 http://
dx.doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-09-2013-1457
Harun Harun, Karen Van-Peursem, Ian R.C Eggleton, (2015),"Indonesian public sector accounting
reforms: dialogic aspirations a step too far?", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol.
28 Iss 5 pp. 706-738 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-12-2012-1182

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-
srm:149425 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald
for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission
guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as
well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and
services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for
digital archive preservation.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm

Participatory budgeting at a Participatory

budgeting
community level in Porto Alegre:
a Bourdieusian interpretation
Laure Célérier and Luis Emilio Cuenca Botey 739
Accounting and Management Control Department, HEC Paris,
Jouy en Josas, France

Abstract
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how accountability practices can enable
sociopolitical emancipation.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors explore the emancipatory potential of accountability
from a Bourdieusian perspective. The study is informed by a two-month socio-ethnographic study of
the participatory budgeting (PB) process in Porto Alegre (Brazil). The field study enabled us to observe
accountability and participatory practices, conduct 18 semi-structured interviews with councillors,
and analyze survey data gathered from budgeting participants.
Findings – The paper demonstrates how PB both strengthened the dominants in the Porto Alegrense
political field and changed the game played in this field; was characterized by accountability practices
favouring the election of councillors with distinctive capitals, who were “dominated-dominants
dominating the dominated”; brought emancipatory perspectives to councillors and, by doing so,
opened the path to social change but also widened the gap with ordinary participants.
Research limitations/implications – The research supports Shenkin and Coulson’s (2007) thesis
by demonstrating that accountability, when associated with participative democracy, can create
substantial social change. Significantly, by investigating the emancipatory potential of accountability,
the authors challenge the often taken-for-granted assumption in critical research that accountability
reinforces asymmetrical power relations, and the authors explore alternative accountability practices.
Doing so enables us to rethink the possibilities of accountability and their practical implications.
Originality/value – The authors study the most emblematic example of participatory democracy
in South America; and the authors use Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to approach accountability at
a community level.
Keywords Brazil, Democracy, Bourdieu, Accountability, Emancipation, Participatory budgeting
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Over the last three decades, accountability mechanisms have been blossoming (Goetz
and Jenkins, 2004, p. 4) in the context of a severe crisis of legitimacy for liberal
democracies (Tinker and Gray, 2003). Among the mechanisms, many shared accounting
dimensions and were backed by emancipatory projects. Yet the emancipatory potential of
accountability has not been well developed in critical accounting literature (Gallhofer,
2002, p. 4; Gallhofer and Haslam, 2004; Goetz, 2005; Moerman, 2006; Shenkin and Coulson,
2007). One reason may lie in the predominant understanding of power (Gray, 1992, p. 415),
in which power is often conceptualized as inherently coercive and “invariably
asymmetrical” (Bryer, 2014a, p. 4), so that accountability mechanisms are most often
regarded as strengthening oppression. Another reason is that accounting research on
Accounting, Auditing &
accountability traditionally takes organizations, especially corporations and their Accountability Journal
stakeholders, as “the focal point for accountability systems, relations and practices” Vol. 28 No. 5, 2015
pp. 739-772
(Shenkin and Coulson, 2007, p. 299), where it is seldom possible to observe emancipatory © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
issues. However, the emancipation made possible by the inclusionary and democratic DOI 10.1108/AAAJ-03-2013-1245
 AAAJ participation of individuals (Molisa, 2011, p. 478; Shenkin and Coulson, 2007, p. 301) may
28,5 be observed in non-traditional managerial settings, such as in third-sector organizations
as analyzed by Bryer (2011, 2014a, b), or in the political space, which tends to be under-
examined in critical accounting literature (Goddard, 2004; Shenkin and Coulson, 2007).
In this paper, we explore the extent to which accountability can lead to emancipation.
We understand accountability as a practice (Roberts, 1996) which implies relationships
740 that involve “the giving and demanding of reasons for conduct” (Roberts and Scapens,
1985, p. 447). Following Inglis (1997, p. 11), we define emancipation as a process that
involves “a continual struggle to reveal the ever-changing nature of power […] [in which
individuals] have sufficient resources to get their own way and do what they want
despite, as Weber says, the resistance of others”. From this perspective, we study how
relationships involving the giving and demanding of reasons for conduct, as well as
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

the practices of giving and demanding such reasons, may help transform the ethos of
individuals who become able to find their own way; consequently, we also study how
individual transformations may facilitate social change by contributing to the breaking
of patterns of domination and to changing power relations. To answer these questions,
we investigate the emancipatory potential of accountability through an analysis of an
accounting and accountability device known as Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre
(PBPOA[1]), which is situated in the political domain.
PBPOA was implemented in 1989 by the left-wing Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido
dos Trabalhadores or PT) with the objectives of “democratizing democracy” (Santos,
2007), eradicating corruption and clientelism, and improving the living conditions of
the most deprived (Sintomer et al., 2012; Utzig, 2000). At a community level, PBPOA has
enabled citizens, through their elected councillors and delegates, to discuss, negotiate
and control the budgetary process. It has encountered worldwide recognition for its
success: it became an integral part of the alter-globalization project behind the World
Social Forum (Biagiotti, 2004; Menser, 2005; Teivainen, 2002; Wasserman, 2004), has
been praised by academics (see e.g. Abers, 2000; Baiocchi, 2002; Cabannes, 2004;
Goldfrank, 2006; Leubolt et al., 2008; Navarro, 2004a, b; Santos, 2007; Sintomer et al.,
2008, 2012; Utzig, 1996, 2000; Wampler, 2007), and named as a “best practice” (Speer,
2012, p. 2379) by international agencies and institutions, many of them belonging to the
neoliberal Washington consensus. Finally, it has inspired 1,500 instances of participatory
budgeting (PB) over the five continents (Ganuza and Baiocchi, 2012).
This consensual endorsement of PBPOA by diverse, even antagonist approaches
has been a key motivation for our investigation. Moreover, we share two Bourdieusian
and, at first sight, contradictory ideas on domination and representation in the political
space, which challenge any prenotions we may have on the introduction of this
participatory process: on the one side, we believe the conditions for successful
participation in the political arena are not equally distributed among citizens (Bourdieu,
1981, 1984a, b, 2000a, b, 2001a), so that the introduction of a new representative
mechanism might only naturalize the domination of a sector of the population without
significantly changing existing inequalities; on the other side, we believe that popular
participation in the political field can be a means to construct “a genuine democracy”
(Bourdieu, 2004, p. 43). With this in mind, we wish to examine PBPOA’s emancipatory
potential. In this research, we will draw from Bourdieu’s works in two further ways: first,
the Bourdieusian conceptual framework (Bourdieu, 1979, 1980a, b, 1992, 1996b, 2000a, b,
2012a, b; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) is used to analyze agents’ practices, to
investigate the logics of domination, and to figure out possibilities for change and
emancipation; then, our research design is constructed using Bourdieusian epistemology
 (Bourdieu et al., 2006; Bourdieu, 1993, 2000d), which emphasizes the importance of Participatory
understanding social agents and explaining social phenomena in succession, through budgeting
the joint use of qualitative and quantitative data. Thus descriptive statistics of the PB
councillors were collected, and 18 semi-structured interviews with PB councillors were
conducted during a two-month ethnographic field study in 2006.
This paper begins by presenting our methodology and research design (Section 2),
followed by an overview of the PB process in the political domain (Section 3); we 741
will study PB participants’ accountability practices and the social characteristics of
councillors in order to explore the possible gap between councillors and their
constituents (Section 4); we will also explore the emancipatory possibilities offered
by PB to councillors (Section 5); and finally, we will discuss our results and we will
conclude (Section 6).
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

2. A socio-ethnographic approach to emancipatory accountability

2.1 Accountability, emancipation and participation in critical accounting literature
From a critical perspective, to associate accountability with emancipation may at first
sight appear difficult: accountability modalities are defined and imposed by those who
are, in a given context, the dominants (Roberts and Scapens, 1985, p. 450); these
dominants may finally use accountability mechanisms as smokescreens that reinforce
their domination (see e.g. Collier, 2005; Cooper and Johnston, 2012; Archel et al., 2011). It
has been shown, however, that accountability can be appropriated by diverse
ideological interests (Arnold and Hammond, 1994; Gray, 1992; Shearer, 2002); that
accountability, together with accounting, can be a constitutive element of democracy
(Rose, 1991, p. 690); and that it can serve emancipatory purposes (Arnold and Hammond,
1994; Gallhofer and Haslam, 2004; Gray, 1992; Moerman, 2006; Shearer, 2002).
In Latin America, the implementation of participatory and accountability devices,
designed to consolidate representative regimes and to improve democracy through the
inclusion of marginalized groups, has been associated with an emancipatory programme
(Goetz and Jenkins, 2004; Mainwaring and Welna, 2003; Popovski et al., 2012). Liberation
theology and the ideas of Paolo Freire have influenced current understanding of
participation as a mode of liberation in the region (Gallhofer, 2002; Gallhofer and Haslam,
2004; Moerman, 2006). While Christian liberation theology recognizes the need for social
change because of the oppressive role of capitalistic structures (Gallhofer and Haslam,
2004, p. 383), Freire’s (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed calls for the concientisaçao
(“conscientization”) of the masses as a process of “inner self liberation” (Moerman, 2006,
p. 176), whereby the oppressed, in understanding their situation and causes of their
oppression, can take action against oppression (Boff, 2011). Both liberation theology and
Freire’s ideas have contributed to the education and increased participation of the
disenfranchised (De Kadt, 1982, p. 574; Bidegain, 1993; Daudelin and Hewitt, 1995). These
projects have been left unexplored in critical accounting literature (Gallhofer, 2002;
Gallhofer and Haslam, 2004; Moerman, 2006) in spite of being very important to critical
accounting research: the study of such projects reveals that community-centred
approaches to accountability can be developed, which would enable the critical researcher
to serve better the interests of the marginalized by engaging him/her with agents in the
political space (Lehman, 2001; Shenkin and Coulson, 2007, p. 309), and would teach
lessons on emancipatory struggles in emerging countries, thus breaking with “the
Eurocentric and neocolonial structures of knowledge production that are dominant in our
world” (Teivainen, 2002, p. 630).
 AAAJ The PB process in Porto Alegre has been inspired by Freirian pedagogy and
28,5 liberation theology (Utzig, 2000, p. 6; Wasserman, 2004, p. 163). Northern countries
have also been inspired by this practice, which Sintomer appropriately termed “the
return of the caravels” (Sintomer et al., 2008). Moreover, PBPOA has often been cited
as a source of inspiration for the French and Brazilian alter-globalization activists who
founded the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2001 (Biagiotti, 2004; Teivainen,
742 2002; Wasserman, 2004). The city, which hosted the forum for three years in
succession, became viewed as the “world capital for hope” (Goldfrank, 2006, p. 15; see
also Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006, p. 15; Sader, 2003), and both the World Social
Forum and PBPOA were praised for concretizing the struggle for a new political
project that could reshape the “global geography of power” (Menser, 2005, p. 107)
and improve democracy through increased political equality, self-development and
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

self-governance (Biagiotti, 2004; Menser, 2005).

2.2 Emancipatory accountability as practice: a Bourdieusian approach

PBPOA creates a participatory arena where budgetary processes and public finance
allocations are discussed, where future city investments are planned and where past
expenses are controlled. Through participation, it offers new possibilities for interactions
between citizens and their municipal government, and for citizens to monitor their local
administration. With the implementation of a new representative mechanism, a new chain
of accountability is introduced in which councillors, who hold the most prestigious
function in PBPOA, occupy a central and pivotal position; they are held accountable by
participants who have elected them, and they are charged with asking the municipal
government for accounts. In this paper, we will focus on the practices, characteristics and
careers of councillors in order to investigate the emancipatory potential of PBPOA
accountability.
Since accountability, as a practice, “does not stand alone” (Dixon et al., 2006, p. 407),
to comprehend it requires consideration of the social and institutional environments in
which agents are embedded (Dixon et al., 2006; Ebrahim, 2005; Goddard, 2004; O’Dwyer
and Unerman, 2008). For this reason, an ethnographic approach is necessary (Bryer,
2014a, p. 4). In order to explore the emancipatory potential of accountability, this
ethnographic approach must be complemented with a sociological one which considers
the social characteristics, backgrounds and becoming of agents.
A Bourdieusian framework enables examination of the emancipatory potential
of an accountability mechanism from a socio-ethnographic perspective. Bourdieu’s
“relational sociology” (Bourdieu, 1996a; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Golsorkhi et al.,
2009, p. 783) assists us to understand ethnographically the embedded practices and
dispositions (Bourdieu, 1977, 1992), and to explain sociologically what guides human
behaviours (Bourdieu, 1996a, b, 2000a, b; Wacquant, 2011), how patterns of domination
are reproduced (see e.g. Bourdieu 1984a, 1996b, 1998, 1999) and how changes are made
possible.
In order to understand Bourdieu’s sociology of domination it is necessary, first, to
understand the whole Bourdieusian framework, with its inter-related concepts of field,
capital, habitus, symbolic violence, illusio, doxa and practice. For Bourdieu, society is
divided into social arenas termed fields, which can be conceptualized as relatively
autonomous systems of social positions. In a field, both conscious and unconscious
struggles occur over desirable resources, named capitals (Bourdieu and Wacquant,
1992). The outcomes of these struggles and, more precisely, the amount and structure
 of capitals held by agents will determine the positions of agents in the field, which is Participatory
structured by objective power relations between such positions (Bourdieu, 1996a). budgeting
Bourdieu distinguishes between different types of capital – principally five – that an
agent may acquire during his/her life. Economic capital comprises financial and
material resources; social capital consists of the network of social relations that agents
can mobilize for their interests (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992); cultural capital refers to
sources of cultural legitimacy and exists as an incorporated form (called habitus), as an 743
objectified form, such as books, and as an institutionalized form, such as academic
qualifications – also called educational capital (Bourdieu, 1979); symbolic capital occurs
as an outcome of field struggles when any other types of capital give rise to esteem and
recognition by other agents in a given field so that power relations become legitimate
domination (Bourdieu, 1992, 1998); political capital is partly material, “objectified in
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

things (and in particular in everything that constitutes the symbolic nature of power –
thrones, specters and crowns)” and partly symbolic as “the product of subjective acts of
recognition [which], insofar as it is credit and credibility, exists only in and through
representation, in and through trust, belief and obedience” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 192).
The desirability of any capital, which determines its value, is both a cause and an
outcome of the struggles occurring in a field. Thus it is specific to, hence characterizes,
a field at any given time. Capitals may be convertible and transferred to different fields
at different rates of exchange, depending on their nature and the considered
field (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Among capitals, cultural capital occupies a
privileged position in Bourdieu’s studies, many of which explain the reproduction of
domination patterns through habitus. Habitus is a socially constituted “system
of lasting, transposable dispositions, which, integrating past experiences, functions at
every moment as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions” (Bourdieu, 1977,
p. 82-83). Habitus is not monolithic (Lahire, 2006) and it is possible to identify and
analyze a localized component of the habitus acquired by agents in a specific social
situation (Wacquant, 2002, 2011). Habitus contributes to the reproduction of
domination patterns because of its resilience and the predominant role of primary
socialization in its constitution; moreover, it provides “the basis of an implicit collusion
among all the agents who are products of similar conditions and conditionings”
(Bourdieu, 1998, p. 145). Habitus should not be confused with practice, which is what
agents carry out in a field (Bourdieu, 1977). Because of the influences of field structures
on practice, “practices in the same field tend to have common patterns” (Golsorkhi et al.,
2009, p. 784).
Bourdieu also devoted substantial research to the specific role of symbolic capital,
whose appropriation legitimates objective power relations (Bourdieu, 1992, 1998) by
giving to dominant groups the “power over capital” (Farjaudon and Morales, 2013,
p. 157), that is, the power to designate the most valuable types of capital. Consequently,
objective power relations are not recognized as such, and the dominated may
“participate in the pursuit of dominant interests, possibly unknowingly or in the belief
that they are pursuing their own interests” (Farjaudon and Morales, 2013, p. 155). This
misrecognized perpetuation of domination, to which the dominated contribute, is called
symbolic violence. Symbolic violence prevents agents from perceiving that the odds
favour the perpetuation of existing domination patterns, and agents take seriously the
game played in the field for the appropriation of capitals. “The adherence to the game
as a game, the acceptance of the fundamental premise that the game […] is worth being
played, being taken seriously” (Bourdieu, 1996a, p. 333) is what Bourdieu refers to as
the illusio. In each field, a distinctive illusio exists. The unquestioned acceptance of the
 AAAJ rules of the game, of the “space of legitimate discussion” relies on a set of
28,5 presuppositions, of pre-reflexive and taken-for-granted schemes of perception produced
by social structures, which are known as doxa (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 100).
Bourdieu’s sociology of domination is useful in an analysis of change – even of
emancipation – which is seldom recognized, including in accounting literature (Boyer,
2003; Cooper and Coulson, 2013; Malsch and Gendron, 2013; Oakes et al., 1998). First,
744 field struggles can change the existing distribution of capital, and hence domination
patterns; in Bourdieusian sociology, the structures of a field determine the conditions
for, and are the result of, collective action (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Ramirez,
2001, p. 412). Second, agents can use capitals in different ways: they can squander their
resources, as well as make them grow; domination patterns can evolve in different
ways, depending on the use of capitals by agents. Finally, the pedagogic dimension of
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

symbolic violence makes change possible; symbolic violence is not only a misrecognized
violence that is based on the exclusion of forms of expression by the dominated, it also
has a pedagogic dimension through the imposition of the language of the dominants
(Bourdieu, 2012b; Oakes et al., 1998). By learning this language, a minority of dominated
agents can acquire new dispositions and resources that enable them to access
social milieus where they would not initially be expected. By doing so, they can become
emancipated and contribute to the diversity of social backgrounds of members of
dominant groups, which can favour social change, especially when these newcomers,
because of their social backgrounds, have critical stances on social hierarchies and can
impose new forms of capitals in the field struggles (Bourdieu, 1996a; Golsorkhi et al., 2009,
p. 784).
In this research, we explore the struggles which took place in the Porto Alegrense
political field and led to the implementation of PBPOA, and in doing so gain
understanding of the possibilities for change in this field. We also analyze the practices
and capitals of councillors who have been elected to the most prestigious position in
PBPOA, so as to comprehend the resources the PB process favours, as well as the
possible gap between representatives and participants. Lastly, we examine how
PBPOA may have changed councillors’ destinies through the acquisition of new
capitals and a participatory habitus, characterized by new perceptions of society
and dispositions. From this perspective, the concept of social trajectory coined by the
Bourdieusian researcher, Passeron (1990), is heuristically relevant. Social trajectory is
both a product and a cause of habitus (Wacquant, 2011); it is defined by Bourdieu
(1996a, b, p. 258) as “the series of positions successively occupied by the same agent or
group of agents in successive spaces”. In studying the positions – and their related
prestige – that were occupied successively by councillors in different spaces, before and
after their mandates, we can explore how PBPOA may have contributed to the
emancipation of these agents, and consequently to the renewal of members of dominant
groups, thus creating possibilities for social change. By doing so, we can explore
the extent to which PB, as an accountability device, represents a viable alternative in
favour of the disenfranchised.

2.3 Research design

Our research relies on primary qualitative data and secondary quantitative data that
are based on two months of ethnographic observation, 18 semi-structured interviews
of PB councillors, and statistics of PBPOA participants. The joint use of qualitative
and quantitative methods in the study of a single social phenomenon, that is, data
 triangulation, is heuristically both relevant and consistent with our Bourdieusian lens. Participatory
Data triangulation helps to understand agents and their representations and also to budgeting
explain social phenomena by identifying the positions of these agents in the social field
(Bourdieu, 2000, 1993). To understand and to explain are two successive steps of a
single research process by which the researcher can explain how people behave, based
not only on how these people describe their actions but also on their objective
characteristics (Bourdieu et al., 2006). Since we wish to study veiled power relations in 745
the political field, data triangulation is particularly relevant. We made this
triangulation by comparing the results obtained from our ethnography, interviews
and statistics. Through an iterative process, we were able to reduce shadow zones and
develop a thorough understanding of our object.
Statistical data were produced by the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Centro de Assesoria e Estudos Urbanos (CIDADE, 2003a, b) and by the sociologist,

Luciano Fedozzi (2007), from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. They
were based on 1,593 questionnaires, distributed on a random basis to participants
at the plenary assemblies of PBPOA in 1995-2002. These statistics have been
complemented by a study of 46 questionnaires given to a sample of 92 councillors,
which were answered between March and May 2003[2]. These data were collected in
order to study how the equality of access to participation could be increased; the
NGO and the researcher published them to inform the wider audience of PBPOA. The
statistics were consulted before and during our ethnographic fieldwork, and provided
key information on the social characteristics of PBPOA councillors, compared to
participants with no representative mandate.
Our ethnography and semi-structured interviews were conducted between July and
September 2006 in Porto Alegre; both focused on PB councillors. It was important for
notes to be taken constantly throughout the field study; a field notebook provided
space to record information, emotions and thoughts relating to our activities and
observations. This notebook assisted us significantly with analysis of data and also
enabled us to keep track of information relating to the PBPOA councillors, whom we
had the opportunity to meet at different gatherings in Porto Alegre, such as markets
and cafés, outside of PBPOA assemblies and meetings. Such gatherings improved our
understanding of the political field of Porto Alegre.
Our initial contact with PB councillors was made at the Porto Alegre City Council,
where we visited the office responsible for organizing PB and soon met the councillors,
who usually spent considerable time there. Matters developed quickly from there; our
presence was immediately noticed by councillors gathered at the NGO, Despertar
Coletivo (“Collective Awakening”), and we were invited to attend their meetings and
PBPOA assemblies. This first contact opened the way for 39 other ethnographic
observations, including 24 PBPOA councillors’ and delegates’ meetings, which lasted
three hours on average. We recorded careful notes at each meeting attended.
This allowed us to keep track of the participants’ language, forms of expression,
appearances, actions, and any other aspect that could assist us to develop a thorough
understanding of the significance of participants’ speeches and more generally of the
PBPOA meetings. Reasons for our presence were publicly announced at the beginning
of each meeting; we were introduced as social scientists, conducting sociological
research on PBPOA councillors.
The ethnography enabled us to identify common patterns of accountability
practices in PBPOA assemblies and also assisted us to identify a participatory habitus.
Our interviews confirmed the acquisition of this habitus. Attendance at PB assemblies
 AAAJ proved fundamental to this study as it also enabled us to request interviews, which
28,5 councillors accepted usually, albeit on the condition that we also participated in some
of their daily activities and/or that we visited their communities. This made possible
the other 15 ethnographic observations, including: visiting a school that had
introduced PB, attending meetings for the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva[3],
and visiting the city parliament, the city council, and the União das Associaçoes de
746 Moradores de Porto Alegre (the Union of Community Associations in Porto Alegre or
UAMPA). We developed close relationships with three councillors, to the extent that
we were invited to their homes, met their families, and attended their community
events. This immersion in councillors’ daily lives, which was not originally planned,
was extremely enriching in that it enabled us to grasp the ties between these
councillors and political activists, unions, church associations, and other local
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

organizations.
Finally, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with past and present PB
councillors. Apart from councillors, we also conducted an interview with the former
director of the Planning Office of Porto Alegre Mayoralty, who had been influential in
the development of the PB process from 1992 to 1996. Interviews lasted between 35 and
170 minutes and were digitally recorded and transcribed. They helped clarify our
interpretation and understanding of our observations made during the assemblies and
meetings, especially the meaning of words, such as participar (“participate”), cobrar
(“claim”), and articular (“articulate”), which recurred in councillors’ public speeches and
interviews. Interviews focused primarily on the councillors’ social trajectories, which
we understood from life narratives (Bertaux, 1996); councillors were asked to describe
their lives from an early age and to participate with us in a reflexive exercise on their
political and participatory commitment[4]. The 2006 Brazilian presidential elections
greatly assisted us in this regard; councillors readily revealed their political ties, which
under other circumstances would probably not have been disclosed. Moreover, in 2004,
the PT lost the municipal elections after 16 years at the head of the municipal
government. This had a lasting effect on councillors and gave rise to serious doubts on
the future of PBPOA, which had been implemented by the PT. Such disappointment
and doubts were conducive to a reflexive stance by most councillors.
Finally, the fieldwork was also informed by a vast literature on the PB process in
Porto Alegre (see, e.g. Abers, 1996; Baierle, 2007; Baiocchi, 2003, 2004; Navarro, 1997;
Utzig, 2000) as well as literature on Brazilian history and politics (Love, 1975) in
order to develop a thorough understanding of the Brazilian and Porto Alegrense
sociopolitical dynamics.
All data were collected in the Portuguese language by one of the authors[5].
We paid careful attention to the sharing – and translation – of these field experiences,
critically reflecting on them throughout the writing process. These exchanges
were extremely enriching and challenged us to examine more carefully potential
themes that may have been omitted and potentially simplistic interpretations of the
field data.
In this paper, we understand the implementation of the PB process as the outcome
of a series of struggles that took place in the Porto Alegrense political field, behind
the veil of the illusio. Common patterns of accountability practice can be observed in
PB assemblies, which are associated with the distinctive capitals of councillors. Finally,
by studying the councillors’ social trajectories, we will explore the emancipatory
potential of PBPOA, using the Bourdieusian concepts of habitus and symbolic violence
to propose explanations for them.
 3. PBPOA and logics of domination in the political field of the city Participatory
3.1 Participation in Brazil budgeting
The implementation of PBPOA has been made possible by changes in the Brazilian
political field.
Several decades before the democratic transition, various left-wing organizations
rejected the Cuban model and adopted the concept of democracy (Fals Borda, 1987,
p. 35). Liberation theology and Freirian pedagogy were common denominators for 747
these groups (Wasserman, 2004), which had borrowed ideas from the Habermasian
philosophies (Filho and Cuenca, 2009) and from theories of participatory democracy
(Pateman, 1970), as well as from Marxist literature and experiences of the Russian
Soviets and the Paris Commune (Genro and Souza, 2000). Many of these organizations,
which belonged to organized Christian communities, radical left-wing and new
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

social movements, had close ties with the Brazilian PT (Bidegain, 1993); created in
1980, the PT had been partly based on the project of emancipatory participation
(Utzig, 2000, p. 6).
During the transition to democracy, various groups from both left and right
sides of the political spectrum lobbied for increased participation by citizens in
political decision-making processes and for more accountability from governments
(Kunrath, 2001). These groups associated popular participation at the local level with a
return to the Brazilian tradition of state decentralization and with the consolidation of
democracy (Domike, 2008; Feinberg et al., 2008), after a dictatorial period of centralization
(Wood and Murray, 2007, p. 20) in the context of weak institutionalization of political
parties (Isbester, 2011, p. 252; Mainwaring, 1999) and of suspicion towards political
institutions, due to clientelism and corruption in public affairs (Utzig, 2000, p. 6). The 1988
Constitution, which was created by all political forces within the country, endorsed the
demands for change. Not only was substantial power transferred from the central
government to states and municipalities (Navarro, 2004b; Wood and Murray, 2007), but a
legal infrastructure was also established for popular participation, which recognized the
exercise of sovereignty through popular initiative and required the participation of civil
society in the development and control of city, health and social security policies
(Avritzer, 2006, p. 2; IADB, 2005). After the 1988 municipal elections, several cities, under
conservative and left-wing governments, “submitted their budgets to public discussion”
(Goldfrank, 2006, p. 5); many of these cities were governed by the PT, which won the
election in 36 municipalities (Goldfrank, 2006, p. 5).

3.2 PB in the Porto Alegrense political field

In Porto Alegre, the implementation of PB can be understood as the outcome of
struggles that took place in the political field, especially during the transition to
democracy (Leubolt et al., 2008). During these struggles, associations and civil society
movements that had strongly supported participation, even under the dictatorship,
played an important role (Baierle, 1998; Biagiotti, 2004; Sintomer et al., 2008, p. 167).
Together with diverse social movements, the UAMPA, which was created in 1983, had
claimed community control over municipal finances as early as 1985 (Avritzer, 2002;
Ganuza and Baiocchi, 2012, p. 2). However, the Partido Democrático Trabalhista (PDT),
which was elected at the first democratic municipal elections in 1985, did not concretize
the participatory promise on which it had campaigned (Leubolt et al., 2008). In this
context, many social movements then rejected the PDT and began to support the PT,
which was committed to establishing a participatory government so as to reinforce
 AAAJ popular participation in the budgetary decision-making process (Leubolt et al., 2008). In
28,5 1988, once elected to the city government among a coalition of left-wing parties, known
as the Popular Front, the PT held to its promise – a participatory process was proposed
in April 1989. It became known as Orçamento Participativo (“Participatory Budgeting”)
in 1990 (Goldfrank, 2006; Baiocchi, 2002).
PB modified the game played in the Porto Alegrense political field by changing
748 decision-making processes at the municipal level: PBPOA councillors are members
of the PBPOA Council (Conselho de Orçamento Participativo or Council of the
Participatory Budget (COP)), which is PBPOA’s most prestigious representative body
and exists in addition to two separately elected bodies holding power in Brazilian cities;
these bodies are the mayoralty or Prefeitura, which assumes executive power and
determines revenues and expenditures, and the parliament or Camara de Vereadores,
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

which encompasses the legislative authority, and has final approval of the budget.
The creation of the COP, which proposes an investment plan to a municipality, enables
the executive power to override the Parliament if necessary. This was of strategic
importance to the PT and its allies, which did not belong to the majority in the
legislative assembly (Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006; Sintomer et al., 2008, 2010; Utzig,
2000, pp. 7-8). Finally, PBPOA increased the political capital of the PT, which was
re-elected in 1992, 1996 and 2000 at the Porto Alegrense municipal elections.
New participatory devices were progressively implemented (Menser, 2005;
World Bank, 2008, pp. 75-78) that coexisted with PBPOA; however, PBPOA became
“the backbone of the [participatory] experience of Porto Alegre from 1990 onwards”
(Menser, 2005, pp. 101-102). It has been a successful and effective device; approximately
20 per cent of the Porto Alegrense population report having participated in PB at least
once in their lives (World Bank, 2008, p. 2). In 2004, the newly elected municipality
privileged a competing process, known as Solidarity in Local Governance Programme
(LGP) and based on the inclusion of the private sector; however, it did not have the
resources to liquidate either PBPOA or other participatory mechanisms that had been
implemented over the years. In 2006, PBPOA was in decline but still dominant.
The implementation of PBPOA, which survived the PT’s electoral defeat, had
permanently changed the game played in the Porto Alegrense political field.

3.3 PBPOA success and its illusio

PBPOA’s longevity can be explained by the veil of the illusio which is cast on the
struggles that take place in the political field, and forms the basis of PBPOA’s
legitimacy. This illusio is the shared belief that participating is worth the effort, since it
has the possibility of changing the lives of ordinary citizens and how politics are
conducted. It is encapsulated by PBPOA’s official slogan “Voce faz a Cidade” (“You
are building the City”), which we interpret as: “You, the people who participate, are
deciding on the investment projects that you see around you”. Councillor 1 related a
sense of her commitment to PBPOA in the following:
When I walk about in Porto Alegre, I look around sometimes and tell myself: “Here, there,
there is my signature – I contributed to the adoption of this project.” And it is a nice feeling.
Endorsement of PBPOA by diverse ideological currents contributed to the
strengthening of the veil of the illusio. The merits of PBPOA have been touted not
only by various left-wing organizations – the World Social Forum contributed
to its worldwide fame – but also by neoliberal international institutions; after the
United Nations Habitat II Conference in Istanbul promoted PB as one of 42
 “best practices” in urban governance, and launched PB in the United Nations in 1996 Participatory
(Navarro, 2004a, b, p. 250), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), budgeting
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Inter
American Bank for Development (IADB), the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the World Bank encouraged cities around the world to
adopt similar participatory devices (Ganuza and Baiocchi, 2012; Navarro, 1997; World
Bank, 2008, pp. 1-2) in order to improve efficiency and transparency in the public sector, 749
even “in combination with budget austerity” (Cleuren, 2008, p. 21).
The illusio is also strengthened by a meritocratic belief. PBPOA has been
characterized since its creation by a strong focus on democratic and egalitarian values.
Several initiatives were taken to reduce inequalities in access to participation: for
example, measures to promote gender equality, such as the Congresso da Cidade and
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

the gender budget, were implemented and parity was attained in the COP (Fedozzi,
2007, p. 15; UNDP, 2002); also, in order to achieve greater inclusivity, the municipality
organized training sessions on the details of PB (Menser, 2005, p. 99), and some
councillors who had low resources, such as Councillors 1, 2, 12, 14 and 18, were elected
at the COP. As Councillor 12 related:
We once had an illiterate councillor […]. It showed that those who have the willingness to
work can become councillors.
The illusio, moreover, relies on concrete investments that have dramatically improved
the city’s infrastructures, which PBPOA has made possible. From 1989 to 1996, “the
share of households with access to water services increased (from 80 to 98 per cent),
and the percentage of the population with access to sanitation almost doubled (from 46
to 85 per cent)” (Santos, 1998; see also UNDP, 2002). Councillor 1’s testimony was
particularly enlightening in this regard:
I feel fulfilled by this. The day the machines came, I was moved. […] I had been waiting ten
years for the streets to be paved. Everybody had been telling me: “You lied, you said they
will pave.” Even friends and relatives from other districts would come to my house and say:
“Look at the mud! Didn’t you say they would pave the roads? You are a liar […].” Only I can
understand the feelings that arouse at this moment. I told myself: “I struggled so much for
that, I did not see my daughters grow up” […] And when you saw the guys pave the road, you
told yourself: “I fought, and now they are doing it.”

When investments halted or decreased, the veil of the illusion began to wane and PB
lost some of its appeal. From the early 2000s, as Porto Alegre coped with a severe
economic crisis, the annual expenditure budget designated for the COP decreased,
while the percentage of implemented projects from the approved investment plan also
declined (World Bank, 2008, pp. 43-47). From 2004, after the PT lost the municipal
elections, the situation deteriorated again. As Councillor 12 explained:

All the demands have been delayed: housing, social assistance, paving, infrastructure,
everything. And these are dreams that people conveyed to councillors and that councillors
had submitted to the PT.
In a context of high discontent, many participants deserted PB assemblies; the number
of participants declined from 17,000 in 2002 to 11,500 in 2006 (World Bank, 2008, p. 22).
Participants’ revenues and levels of education decreased, thus reflecting the decline in
prestige of the PB process in the political field and the growing disaffection of middle
classes with the PT (Cuenca, 2007, pp. 144-150). Trust in the municipal government
 AAAJ started being eroded. Councillor 11, after four years of participation, including one as a
28,5 councillor, during which she could not meet constituents’ demands, stated:
The same things will continue to exist […]. The health center will be there as usual […] it
won’t be improved […] No, we are not the ones who decide, you know. There is a moment
when you realize that we are not deciding at all. We come here only to fight among us.

750 This quote shows how some participants became suspicious of manipulative intentions
by the government.
In this section, we have shown that the implementation of the PB process both
strengthened the newly elected dominants and brought changes to the Porto Alegrense
political field. We have explained the longevity of PBPOA as being a function of the
strength of the illusio, behind which struggles in the field occur. In the next section, we
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

will focus on accountability practices in PB assemblies and on those who, having been
elected as councillors, succeed in gaining a legitimate voice. By doing so, we wish to
gain a better understanding of how the conduct of politics has changed in Porto Alegre
and has accommodated social change and emancipation.

4. Accountability practices in the PBPOA assemblies and the selection of

councillors
Bourdieu’s texts which analyze the political field (1981a, 1984a, b, 1998, 1999, 2001a, b)
denounce the risk of alienation associated with representation. This alienation is due to
the unequal conditions of access to political expression (Bourdieu, 1981; Wacquant,
2004, p. 12), which is particularly the case of the dominated; Bourdieu (1998, p. 188)
explains that there exists a “risk of high jacking, which is contained in the imperfect
correspondence between the interests of the dominated and those of the dominated-
dominants who make themselves the spokesperson of their demands or their revolts”.
In order to explore the emancipatory potential of PBPOA accountability, we needed
to explore this risk of alienation. Thus, we analyzed PBPOA’s rules of procedure as
well as legitimate practices of accountability in PBPOA assemblies, and explored how
these practices favour – and are favoured by – the election of councillors who share
distinctive capitals.

4.1 PBPOA functioning

Compiled in a 50-page document, PBPOA rules reflect the power relations both
between the PT and its allies and within the PT – the latter being intersected by
diverging tendencies (Leubolt et al., 2008). First, a radical ideological current inside
the PT, together with several left-wing parties and neighbouring assemblies in the
UAMPA, supported a practice “inspired by Lenin’s concept of ‘double power’ by which
the Soviets were supposed to replace the bourgeois parliament” (Leubolt et al., 2008,
pp. 6-7); another ideological current can be found in the community associations
and the Catholic Church, which placed budgeting at the local level so as to respect
community deliberation and autonomy from the administration; a third current,
characterized by a Habermasian view of the public sphere with a reduced role of
associations, was promoted by liberal trends inside the PT and other social movements
(Cuenca, 2007); lastly, public managers from the Mayoralty defended the
implementation of technical rules to prioritize budget allocation and to centralize
demands at the city level (Avritzer, 2002). PBPOA rules were inspired by all these
tendencies and were significantly stabilized during the mid-1990s, while remaining
subject to modification every year. In 2006, PBPOA activities were divided into
 participation cycles, beginning in March, and involved 16 regions and six themes. Participatory
We observed the following PBPOA functioning (Figure 1). budgeting
At the beginning of each budget cycle, in March, popular councils and community
leaders organize preparatory meetings. During these meetings, councillors present the
investments that have been decided the previous year; leaders discuss priorities for
the coming year and also make a preliminary selection of delegates. The discussed
priorities are then debated during two rounds of thematic and regional plenary 751
assemblies – known as rodadas – which are open to everyone, and are organized in
every region for every theme from March until July. During the first rodada, in March
and April, the executive presents the investment plan for the current year and accounts
for the previous year’s investment plan: the municipality reports on the progress made
on the most important investments in the region, accounts for delays, and answers
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

participants’ questions; the physical presence of municipal civil servants is viewed as

an extremely important proof of respect. Participants are not permitted to speak to
the audience for more than three minutes, and their demands are accepted only when
precise technical criteria are met. The technical criteria include, for example, the
number of children living in a district where participants have asked for a community
day-care centre; or that water sanitation systems must exist in communities which

March-April:
Preparatory meetings ->
discussion of the
investment plan of the
previous year and of the
claims for the year to
come, preparation of April-May: first thematic
the elections and regional rodadas ->
the executive accounts
for the previous year,
February: break
partial elections of the
delegates, choice of the
regional and thematic
priorities

December-January: May-June: intermediate

discussion and vote of meetings, ranking of the
the modifications of the investments
PBPOA

November-December:
June-July: second
Discussions of the
rodadas of thematic and
internal rules of the
regional assemblies;
PBPOA
elections of the
remaining delegates and
of the councillors

October-November:
presentation of the
investment plan to the
July-September:
fora of delegates, in the
technical analysis of the
presence of the
demands, preparation of
municipality
the budget
August-September:
discussion of the budget
and of the distribution of Figure 1.
resources to the regions
and thematics
The PBPOA cycle
 AAAJ request for their streets to be asphalted. By requiring compliance with criteria by
28,5 participants who formulate the demands, the PB process educates people about the
requirements of public investments.
Between the rodadas, intermediate preparatory meetings take place, during which
four investment priorities are decided for the coming year in each region. During the
second rodada, in June and July, the investment plan for the coming year is discussed,
752 the remaining delegates are elected, and every region chooses two councillors and two
substitutes. After the two rodadas, the 22 Forums of Delegates –one forum exists
per region and theme – and the COP work on the budget and investment plan. From
July to September, the COP votes on the budget; from September to December, the
negotiation process focuses on the investment plan.
Delegates and councillors are elected for a one-year mandate, with limited
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

possibilities of re-election. For every election, registered inhabitants of a region, more

than 16 years of age, have the right to vote. Ten votes are required to be a delegate, and
between 250 and 500 votes are required to become a councillor. Delegates provide
the role of intermediaries between councillors and citizens, co-ordinate the rounds of
plenary assemblies with members of the municipality and councillors, and once the
amount of investment per region and theme have been determined they supervise
the implementation of the budget in their own communities. The COP comprises 46
members: two councillors and two substitutes for each region and theme, plus one
councillor and one substitute represent the union of the municipal employees (SIMPA),
one councillor and one substitute represent the UAMPA; two councillors, with no
voting rights, represent the city government. The COP supervises the investment
budget for the coming year. The budget is decided on the basis of priorities established
during the intermediate meetings and rodadas, and also on an allocation formula which
can change annually. COP councillors give accounts of their actions through discussion
with their constituents, and collect participants’ demands at regional forums, which
take place every two weeks.
Our ethnography was conducted between July and September 2006, during which
we attended seven thematic meetings, seven Forums of Delegate assemblies, nine COP
meetings, and an investiture of newly elected councillors.

4.2 Common patterns of practices in PBPOA assemblies

During our ethnographic fieldwork, we identified common patterns of accountability
practice in PBPOA assemblies. Three core elements stood out, which also recurred in
our interviews: participar (“participate”), articular (“articulate”) and cobrar (“claim”).
Participar is a moral and political imperative, corresponding to a long-lasting, time-
consuming activity with no predetermined end; to be participativo means to be present
at all assemblies without receiving remuneration, and apologizing when it was not
possible, for any reason, to attend a meeting. Participar is substantially different from
traditional clientelistic practices. As Councillor 7 explained:
We have to work with the people so that they become aware of the necessity to participate.
Even if I can’t have one of my demands satisfied, I have to continue participating in order
to help those who have needs. In my community, they ask me: “Why do you continue
participating, even if you have nothing for us?” And I answer: “Because there are serious
problems to be solved, and if I don’t participate, they would be worse, wouldn’t they?”.
As Councillor 12 repeated to participants who complained about not having their
demands satisfied: “Participatory Budgeting is not demanding, it is participating”.
 Articular refers to building and mobilizing alliances; participants who wish to gain Participatory
votes for their demands need to align themselves with other demands to be supported budgeting
in return. Thus the mobilization of a network of actors is necessary. Councillor 2
explained:
Then I did this one that I told you […] the articulação [articulation] […] I went to find ten or
fifteen people from my community […]. I arrived at the Morro and said: “You have one
hundred and I have fifteen.” They answered: “This is not enough” […] and I said: “Think 753
about it, it is better than nothing. What will you ask for?” “We are asking for tar-seal” “Well,
I am asking for sanitation.” “So, we can exchange; you have thirty of your people vote for my
demand and my fifteen votes will go for your demand.” And surprise! I succeeded in my
demand!
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Articular requires of councillors that they participate in community activities and

build alliances. When they succeed in the social operation of articular, agents become
accountable to other participants and communities; they are expected to meet their
commitments to support the demands of other councillors and communities.
The verb cobrar refers to this chain of accountability in the PBPOA arena. Cobrar
means to claim, to demand. Councillors have to cobrar to the administration, delegates
have to cobrar to councillors, and citizens have to cobrar to all of them. It is an implicit
obligation, as Councillor 1 explained to us:
Well, if the Mayor comes here and he belongs to my party I will tell him: “Hey Mister
So-and-so, you didn’t do this and that.” It is not because he belongs to my party that I’m not
going to cobrar to him. I will cobrar him, you understand me? You must cobrar, you have
to fight!
Councillor 11 also emphasized the importance of cobrar:
They [the city administration] make you know that you always have to cobrar; otherwise,
things do not progress.
These common patterns of practice correspond to PBPOA’s doxa; once incorporated,
an agent can find his/her place immediately “without having to deliberate, and [he/she]
brings out, without even thinking about it, ‘things to be done’ (business, pragmata)
and to be done ‘the right way’” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 143). Thus, those who succeed in
participar, cobrar and articular have the greatest chance of being elected; once elected,
they gain symbolic capital and can impose their patterns of accountability practices.
These patterns have the greatest likelihood of being similar to pre-existing ones, since
the adoption of the old patterns enabled councillors to be elected.

4.3 Councillors’ distinctive capitals

The selection of councillors is both a cause and an outcome of the emergence of
common patterns of practice in PBPOA assemblies. In order to understand how
PBPOA may create social change, we discuss below the selection of councillors and
analyze their capitals, using our statistics and interviews.
Economic capital is required at first by participar. In 2006, 28.57 per cent of the
minimum wage was necessary to cover the transportation fees associated with
attendance at all the monthly councillors’ meetings; moreover, councillors sometimes
paid the transportation costs of their voters in order to be elected (Cuenca, 2007).
Our statistics show unsurprisingly that revenues are higher for councillors than for
participants: for example, in 2005, 37.1 per cent of PBPOA participants did not have
 AAAJ paid work compared to 28.2 per cent of councillors (CIDADE, 2003b, p. 20; Fedozzi,
28,5 2007, p. 22).
Those who have the highest chances of being elected must also have important
cultural resources; PBPOA requires that councillors write meeting reviews, understand
and discuss the investment plans and accounts presented by the executive. Also,
participar and cobrar require compliance with explicit rules; Councillor 13 stressed the
754 importance of understanding these rules:
Arriving at the COP was a big challenge for me. I told myself: “Here, I cannot talk anymore
about culture only; here we are at the city’s council.” […] And gradually I started
appropriating new symbols and information. At that moment, I understood that a very
important thing in the COP was to understand the rules of procedure.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Moreover, to have one’s own demands understood as priorities requires competencies,

so as to be considered legitimate and to gain satisfaction. As Councillor 6 described, not
all participants have these competencies:
Most participants are simple people who are prisoners of their desires, which are, in reality,
needs. And people who have more information, knowledge and culture, can help give meaning
to the expression of these needs.
Cultural capital may be understood by diplomas; according to CIDADE (2003b, p. 23)
people who have received higher education are over-represented among councillors; as
of 2002, 12 per cent of participants had university training compared to 29.5 per cent
of councillors.
Social capital is also essential to articular and cobrar. It refers to the possibility
of mobilizing networks within associations and political parties. The centrality of
associations and political parties in the creation of individual social capital can of
course be attributed to the role these organizations have played in the constitution and
functioning of the device. As Councillor 9 explained:
The situation was as follows: the government was not supporting me because: “This man has
no party, he doesn’t disturb us.” And the opposition said: “This man is not with them, he
doesn’t disturb us.” So I had ‘no father and no mother’, as the saying goes, and I told myself:
“I have to choose a political party that supports me.”
The construction of social capital requires time (Bourdieu, 2007). In Porto Alegre,
to convince entire neighbourhoods that commitment to PBPOA warrants the effort
requires participation in different organizations, such as neighbourhood associations,
NGOs, political parties, child-care facilities, schools and unions. Councillor 1 described
the time required to construct a network:
And then, we created an association […] . […] I went door to door, saying to people: “Listen,
we will bring the tar”. So I was able to bring dozens of people to the rodada. And this year
I was invited to become a PBPOA councilor.
Our interviews enabled collection of information on councillors’ social capital. Of the
people we interviewed, seven councillors entered a union or political party when they
began participating (Councillor 1, 2, 4, 9, 12, 14, 13), six entered PBPOA after having
registered with a party (Councillor 5, 7, 8, 16, 15, 18); also, 14 of the 18 interviewed
councillors had previous experience of commitment to charities, communities and/or
political parties. Moreover, only three of the 18 councillors interviewed had no
relations with the PT or Communist Party, which has close relations with the PT.
The importance of social capital to become elected, together with the socialization to
 political struggles under the dictatorships, and the importance of sufficient time to Participatory
participate also explains, according to us, why the population of those who were more budgeting
than 50 years of age was over-represented among councillors; 24.5 per cent of
participants and 44 per cent of councillors were in that age-group in 2005 (Fedozzi,
2007, p. 20).
In the PB assemblies, we observed common patterns of accountability practice –
participar, articular and cobrar – that were both the cause of and resulted from 755
the election of councillors. Analysis of councillors’ social capitals confirms the above-
mentioned “risk of high jacking due to the imperfect correspondence” between
representatives and their constituents (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 188); those who are elected
are dominated-dominants, dominating the dominated. On one level, PBPOA could
illustrate that the representation process is unavoidably faced by an alienation issue.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

But such a conclusion would be premature. In order to explore the emancipatory

potential of PBPOA accountability, we must also explore what PBPOA brought to
councillors.

5. Analyzing councillors’ social trajectories: the unavoidable tension

between councillors’ emancipation and participants’ alienation
The background of Councillor 9 provides an example of the motives and outcomes of
PBPOA participation. He was raised in a Brazilian middle-class family with no political
awareness, and began engineering studies which he gave up after encountering
professional success as a sales representative for German industrial machinery.
However, Councillor 9 later lost his job, friends, and family after suffering a heart
attack and a lengthy battle with illness. During his hospitalization he met disabled
people and became committed to their cause. He then took leadership of the Porto
Alegrense disability rights movement and created a company which manufactured
traffic lights for blind pedestrians. His associative activities led him to PBPOA and to
other Porto Alegrense participatory processes. He was not politicized until he realized
that party membership was a condition if his demands were to be considered.
Councillor 9 was finally hired by the Popular Socialist Party (Partido Popular Socialista
or PPS), which won against the PT in 2004. In 2006, he was planning to launch a formal
political career for the PPS. Councillor 9 is an example among many whose characteristics
and trajectories are summarized in Table AI, from which we can understand the factors
that may have motivated participation, what PB brought to councillors and how it
changed their perceptions, thus making emancipation possible – by enabling upward,
unexpected social trajectories – while also widening the gap between them and ordinary
participants.

5.1 Councillors’ acquisition of new skills

In addition to Councillor 9, nine other councillors related their experiences of
demotion that appeared to play a triggering role in their participatory commitment.
Displacements in social and urban spaces formed the basis of many councillors’
commitment. This was the case for Councillor 3, who worked as a management
accounting teacher in a vocational high school. His job did not provide sufficient
income for him to buy a home in his former city-center district, so he moved with his
family to the suburbs – “I was evicted from the city”, he declared, which was a spatial
consequence of his social demotion. Also, Councillor 2 had lived in the same place
all her life, but important changes in her neighbourhood triggered her political
 AAAJ commitment; she was born in a rural location, which was originally restricted to
28,5 firemen’s families but gradually became one of the most dangerous suburbs in Porto
Alegre. Lastly, Councillor 4 became involved in politics after marginal groups occupied
land next to his house; in order to prevent this settlement, neighbours organized
themselves to occupy the land; Councillor 4 eventually came to fight for the poorest
who were seeking a place to live. Political demotion could also play a positive role in
756 councillors’ commitment. Commitment to PBPOA was thus seen as a possibility for the
return from a position of political degradation for Councillor 18. He had been an
important unionist and political prisoner during the military dictatorship; in 1988 he
was placed in charge of controlling street vendors, which he considered a very
degrading position. He regarded committing himself to PBPOA as a – second best –
possibility for returning to militant and political activism, thus resurging from a
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

position of political degradation. For many participants and councillors, participation

was certainly triggered by the possibility offered by PBPOA to express their discontent
associated with social demotion.
PBPOA channels criticisms and imposes particular ways for expressing discontent,
which favour the dominants in the political field. We can conceptualize this as
participants being victims of symbolic violence. Demands have to comply with the
above-mentioned rules of procedure and participatory norms in order to be considered
admissible. Moreover, budgeting – focused on short-term investments that concern
basic needs – is the main topic discussed in participatory assemblies, so that political
debates may be marginalized. As Councillor 7 explained:
Which party the mayor belongs to does not matter. What matters is that [PBPOA]
can solve the people’s problems. We always participate so as to have our problems
solved.
PBPOA also gives people awareness of being responsible for their own destiny.
As Councillor 1 described:
When I had just arrived here, in the Lomba do Pinheiro […] in 1992 […] at that time the street
was not paved and sewers were just in front of my place – I told myself: “This is not possible!”
Because you have just arrived from downtown, you don’t understand, you don’t know how it
works in the suburbs. Thus, I asked for an interview with Olivio Dutra, the mayor at that time.
And he told me: “I cannot help you. You have to help yourself now that we are implementing
the Participatory Budget.”
But symbolic violence also has pedagogic benefits; the imposition on participants
of given ways of expressing themselves, in given settings, enables them to acquire new
skills. PBPOA participants – and councillors even more – deepen their budgeting
knowledge, develop a network in the city administration, and learn how to discuss with
members from the city government and associations. Elected councillors have better
access to the city’s political institutions which enables them to understand their
operation. Several councillors stressed the political culture that PBPOA gave them.
As Councillor 9 stated:

PBPOA was a training school. Now I have a small amount of political experience and an
overview of political issues.

Participants can gain new skills by working on their election campaigns and
articulating their points of view, thereby strengthening their cultural and social
capitals.
 5.2 The acquisition of a participatory habitus Participatory
PBPOA can lead to new perceptions. Participants acquire a sense of empowerment budgeting
as they problem-solve, which enables conscientization (Freire, 2000). Councillor 15
explained his experience of this aspect:
The most important satisfaction I gained from participatory budgeting happened when
I was a delegate – a delegate, not a councillor! I proposed to asphalt a street, and although
uncertain, I proposed it. The street was then asphalted. Well, for me it was great. I realized my 757
self-esteem had improved because I had participated in the decision to upgrade the street.
When the government complies with commitments made in PBPOA, the level of dignity and
conscience of the people increases.
Thus, the above-mentioned risk of de-politicization does not concern all participants;
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

participation, especially when it leads to achievements, widens actors’ perspectives

and can trigger new initiatives. To widen perspectives and trigger new initiatives are
regarded as principal purposes of PBPOA. Councillor 9 confirmed this:
We want PB to be more than a space for claims; we want it to be a place for
proposals. We have to create mentalities, disseminate ideas, and propose inclusive
initiatives.
As Councillor 7 also stated:
Our purpose was to work with consciousness […] and we started with it. […] A woman once
asked me: “Why are we poor?” and we began discussing it: “Why? We work all day and we
can’t get rich.” And we explained about the existence of exploitation in society.
The acquisition of new perceptions of oppression and new perspectives for action is
accompanied by a greater commitment to the public interest that extends well beyond
PBPOA assemblies. Menser (2005, p. 102) explains:
The success and growth of PB inspired the formation of more associations and cooperatives
throughout the city. That is, not only did it further democratize the city in regard to legislation
and administration-delivery of services, it stimulated the further democratization of society
through the creation of more associations in civil society – not all of which were expressly
politics-oriented.
For example, Baiocchi (2001, p. 55) reported that the number of neighbourhood
associations multiplied by three between 1986 and 1998, from 180 to 540, while there
were 51 housing cooperatives, up from almost zero in 1988. This reflects what Baierle
(1998) describes as the “emergence of a new ethical-political principle in popular
movements in Porto Alegre.” In other words, the blossoming of initiatives is certainly
not only due to the Brazilian transition to democracy, but also to the development of a
participatory habitus. This habitus results from the adaptation of agents to their
participatory environment and from their socialization with the ideas of liberation
theology; it has led to an increased commitment to participatory processes and
to general interest organizations. For councillors, this habitus has led to careers in all
public and political organizations that share the principles of participatory democracy,
whose increased numbers, in turn, have strengthened the participatory habitus.
A beneficial participatory circle was triggered.

5.3 Councillors’ emancipation and participants’ alienation: two sides of the same coin?
Councillors widen their perspectives and develop a strong commitment to public
interest as they acquire new skills and a participatory habitus. These acquisitions
 AAAJ enable them to access more prestigious positions than those occupied before their
28,5 elections, all the more so, as political parties have tended to recruit and train staff
members from the COP, and the PT municipality has then used PBPOA as a means
to professionalize and recruit community-relations managers and civil servants, whom
they often send to university. By experiencing upward shifts in their social trajectories,
that is, by entering milieus where they were not expected, due to their background,
758 councillors became emancipated. Finally, of the 18 councillors interviewed, 15
experienced a significant upward shift in their social trajectories after their mandates
[6]. Councillor 15 explained how a councillor would come to work for the municipality
or political parties:
Many former councillors now work for the government. [Councillor X], who was a councillor
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

three months ago, now works for the government. And we consider this normal. What does a
political party sell? What is its most valuable thing? Politics, isn’t it? […] Who could be
a better advisor in community relations than a former PBPOA councillor? This person knows
everybody, she knows whom to talk to, which is why it is, technically and politically speaking,
a correct decision.
Four councillors were hired or promoted as civil servants by the municipality
or the state government (Councillors 1, 7, 16 and 17). For example, Councillor 1 was
hired by the municipality to manage community relationships and passed
the examination to become a municipal civil servant, while Councillor 7, who was
already a civil servant before being elected a councillor, moved to a higher level
after her mandate. Others began working for general-interest organizations.
Councillor 2 thus obtained a position as group leader of a cell of the famous
Fome Zero programme in Porto Alegre. Also, five of the interviewed councillors
(Councillors 8, 9, 10, 11, and 14) began working for NGOs and general-interest
organizations. Councillor 10, after a previous career as a mechanical engineer in the
metallurgic industry, and while a councillor, founded a computer-support company that
developed a computer-training programme for a deprived community in the city. She also
created an NGO, helping homeless people, promoting culture and defending a feminist
ethos. Lastly, to serve as a councillor triggered the beginning of – or the return to –
political careers for seven of the 18 interviewed councillors. A few were elected to
prestigious representative positions; Councillor 15 was elected Tutelary Councillor[7],
while Councillor 18 was elected as a substitute City Deputy in 1992 and as a City Deputy
in 1996.
To begin a political career, former councillors must convert acquired cultural and
social capitals into political ones. Such a conversion is by no means straightforward
and the chances of success are limited; elections are very challenging, and former
councillors require strong support from institutions, such as political parties and the
Church, as well as the mobilization of many people on election day. According to our
interviewees (Councillors 1, 10, 15, 18): 500 votes are often necessary to be elected as a
participatory councillor, 1,000 votes to be elected as a tutelary councillor, 3,000 votes as
a city councillor, and 25,000 votes as a State Deputy. Councillor 1 explained that to run
for the Tutelary Council was a difficult process:
The campaign is very hard. If you have the money to mobilize voters – it is not a compulsory
vote – you will win the election. Because you can mobilize people, you can take them to the
ballot box and tell them to vote for you. Despite my incapacity to mobilize people, I received
300 votes. I didn’t give them transportation, I didn’t pay them, I didn’t feed them, I didn’t
buy anybody.
 By emancipating themselves, agents can contribute to social change; that is, by Participatory
entering dominant groups, they gain power over capital and can impose new rules on budgeting
the political game. We consider political careers as especially important because social
problems are defined and programmes for their solution are formulated in the political
field (Bourdieu, 1981, p. 4). By accessing dominant groups in the political field,
newcomers can present new ideas that are more likely than anywhere else to generate
wider social change. 759
At the same time, these careers are a symptom – and a growing factor – of the gap
between councillors and participants. They are not always viewed positively by
participants and some councillors, who fear disempowerment and alienation due to
the increased distance between councillors and their electors. Councillor 10 described
the loss of local leaders, which can disarm grassroots movements:
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

That was a big mistake by the previous government; with this PB thing – what happened?
They started identifying a group of leaders, to know them […], there were many co-options of
these leaders and they were absent by the end of the cycle. During these 16 years, these
leaders have been taken from their communities to gain a position […] but there were no
replacements for these people.
PBPOA risks destabilizing grassroots movements by offering community leaders the
possibility of social promotion, which requires these movements to reorganize and find
new leaders. Councillor 10’s assertion also highlights the risk of alienation; the
perspectives offered to councillors widen the existing gap between representatives and
ordinary PBPOA participants. Councillor 2 deplored the process, as described below:
As a Councillor, you become ambitious, you want an association in your district […] you
know it will cost plenty of money […] so you articular something with them and they give you
your association. But then, you must do everything they want, not what you want, not what
the people want, and you have to do what the government wants you to do.
When participants suspect their councillors of betraying them, PBPOA’s legitimacy is
undermined and the “mystery of ministry” (Bourdieu, 2004, 1999) dissipates. This mystery
is defined as the “alchemy of representation […], through which the representative creates
the group which creates him”. It enables electors to offer a “blank cheque” (Bourdieu, 1999,
p. 106) to their delegate, “if only because they are frequently unaware of the questions to
which their delegate will have to respond, they put themselves in his hands” (Bourdieu,
1999, p. 206), so that the delegate can impose his/her own political discourse on the
electors. The dissipation of the mystery of the ministry, where participants feel alienated
from their councillors is, in our study, a consequence of the emancipation achieved by
councillors through PBPOA.

6. Concluding discussion
6.1 PBPOA, emancipation and social change
This paper has examined how accountability and accounting practices are implicated
in the PB process in Porto Alegre. PB has become a means to improve democracy, reduce
corruption and clientelism, and to improve living conditions for the most deprived. It has
also been recognized by a wide range of actors, from neoliberal institutions to left-wing
social movements, as one of the most successful accountability initiatives in Latin
America in the last 30 years. Through this study, we have addressed calls in
accounting and accountability literature to examine some of the broader aspects
and experiences of accountability (Roberts, 1991; Roberts and Scapens, 1985; Shenkin and
 AAAJ Coulson, 2007). We have also explored how accountability may provide opportunities
28,5 for sociopolitical emancipation. Analysis of PBPOA has focused on the individuals
who request accounts. Existing critical accounting literature, which is characterized by
“corpora-centrism” (Shenkin and Coulson, 2007, p. 299), tends to ignore these individuals.
PBPOA has contributed to the perpetuation of the power relations that presided
over its creation, while also revising the game by enabling participation in the Porto
760 Alegrense political field. In PBPOA assemblies, common patterns of accountability
practices could be identified that were both the cause and outcome of the distinctive
capitals of councillors; these distinctive capitals support Bourdieu’s thesis on the
alienation entailed in representation, due to the imperfect correspondence between
representatives and their constituents. However, to councillors, PBPOA has brought
new skills and dispositions so that they could experience an upward – and
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

emancipatory – shift in their social trajectories. Councillors’ emancipation can both

facilitate social change – since agents enter new dominant groups where they may
impose new rules and stakes – and cause alienation, since the gap between councillors
and their electors is widened.
PB entails what Bourdieu (2012b, p. 565), using the words of Max Weber, terms the
“domestication of the dominated”: it tames the dominated by imposing forms of
expression; it integrates the dominated, who, by raising their voices, stay in the game
being played; but it also assists the dominated and rescues them from their poverty.
This domestication effect of PBPOA may explain its endorsement by neoliberal
institutions. At the same time, in addition to these characteristics, and because of its
inclusionary dimension, PBPOA makes emancipation possible for some individuals,
and can open a path to wider social change. In the following section, we elaborate
on how this finding provides some unique insights into how accounting and
accountability devices can facilitate social change – particularly regarding participation
and emancipation.

6.2 Another accountability is possible[8]

Our paper confirms that when combined with accountability, accounting can enrich
citizens’ perceptions (Bryer, 2011, 2014a) and provide them with a “pedagogy of
reasoning” (Rose, 1991) that can eventually strengthen democracy. Contrary to what is
often deplored in critical accounting literature (see e.g. Burchell et al., 1980; Farjaudon
and Morales, 2013), accounting may not necessarily be associated with the
reproduction of the dominant order, although there may be some “manufacturing of
consent” (Burawoy, 1979) and de-politicization of stakes. We demonstrate that
accountability is not always an “opiate” (Cooper and Johnston, 2012) that merely
contributes to the reproduction of the established order. We refuse to reject
accountability mechanisms on the pretext that they would form part of a neoliberal
“planetary vulgate” (Cooper and Johnston, 2012, p. 603); we agree with Shenkin and
Coulson (2007, p. 301) that “the central problem with liberal positions on accountability
is not their liberalism per se, but the fact that they are often associated with a relatively
weak reading of the idea of participative democracy”. All accountability mechanisms
do not share the same effects; their impacts are different, depending not only on the
context and actors involved, but also on the ideologies that inspired them and the
purposes to which they have been put. We are convinced, along with Molisa (2011,
p. 478), that accountability devices should be encouraged when backed by
emancipatory projects that seek inclusionary participation.
 In a participatory arena characterized by inclusionary participation, it is, more than Participatory
anywhere else, possible “to work towards creating the social conditions for the budgeting
establishment of a mode of fabrication of the ‘general will’ (or of the collective opinion)
that is genuinely collective […] and capable of transforming the contents
communicated as well as those who communicate” (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 43). In giving
voice and asking for accounts, citizens not only discipline power-holders, but they also,
and foremost, constitute themselves as citizens. We agree with Goetz and Jenkins (2004, 761
p. 32), who state that “it is in the process of demanding accountability that we find
the most impressive kind of constructive voice issuing forth: the questioning voice, in
which standards are ultimately set”. Accountability devices can enhance citizens’
involvement in public matters and change objective power relations; they can affect the
entire society, well beyond the frontiers of participatory arenas.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Of course, we have highlighted that emancipation may concern only a minority of

participants. But the emancipation of a few can open the path to wider social change.
Moreover, the PBPOA example shows that it is possible to reduce inequalities in the access
to representative positions, so as to increase the possibilities for emancipation. We defined
emancipation as the process involving “a continual struggle to reveal the ever-changing
nature of power” (Inglis, 1997, p. 11) and, together with Bourdieu (2004) and Wacquant
(2004), we consider emancipatory participation as an ongoing project, which requires
constant vigilance and activism so as to equalize socio-economic conditions, to “universalize
the ability and the propensity to act and think politically” (Wacquant, 2004, p. 12) and to
avoid the tragedy of the dominated, who are “isolated, silent, voiceless individuals, without
either the capacity or the power of making themselves heard and understood, [and] are faced
with the alternative of keeping quiet or of being spoken for by someone else” (Bourdieu,
1999, p. 206). Thus, we affirm the necessity to target not only institutions, but also
dispositions and skills – that is, habitus and capitals – in order to achieve “genuine and
lasting change” (Wacquant, 2004, p. 12). Finally, because participation is a time-consuming
activity, emancipation requires an increase in free time, as already underlined by Gorz (1985,
1999, 2011). In this regard, future critical accounting scholars may wish to explore further
the importance of free time in the pursuit of emancipation.
Together with Moerman (2006, p. 181), we observe that critical accountants most often
“act to expose those areas where accounting is used not in the public interest”, while their
role must also explore further how accounting and accountability devices may contribute
to sociopolitical emancipation and make a new world possible (Cooper and Coulson, 2013;
Gallhofer and Haslam, 2004; Moerman, 2006). By focusing on the perspectives of the poor,
by developing “a community-centred approach to accountability” (Shenkin and Coulson,
2007, p. 311), critical accounting researchers can create the “epistemological shift that
could have real world effect” (Moerman, 2006, p. 181) and “direct critical research at points
of engagement between agents in the political space” (Shenkin and Coulson, 2007, p. 311).
By shedding light on PBPOA and by exploring how it has brought emancipation and
social change, we hope to have contributed to the building of concrete alternatives in
favour of the marginalized and oppressed.

Acknowledgements
The authors’ names are listed in alphabetical order.
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article, for having
brought us through a very exciting intellectual journey. Also, we want to show
appreciation to the guest editors of this issue, Professors Judy Brown, Jesse Dillard and
Trevor Hopper, for their constant support.
 AAAJ An earlier version of this article was presented at the APIRA Conference in Kobe,
28,5 Japan, in July 2013, where it was awarded the Broadbent and Laughlin emerging
scholar award. We would like to thank Professors Jane Broadbent and Richard
Laughlin for their confidence and for the energy this award gave us.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Professor Daniel Martinez for his
intellectual contributions as well as for his moral and material support. We also thank
762 Professor Sebastian Becker for his moral and material help, and Professors Alan Lowe and
Afshin Mehrpuya for having discussed this paper respectively at the APIRA Conference
and at the 3rd Global Conference on Transparency Research, in September 2013.
This work would not have been possible without the support given, during our
fieldwork and the initial period of formulation of this research, in France by Professor
Afrânio Garcia and the Centre for the studies of Colonial and Contemporary Brazil, from
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris), and in Brazil by
members of the NGO CIDADE and Professors Arlei Damo and Odaci Coradini, from the
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).
This article also benefitted from the financial support of the HEC Foundation and of
the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Glossary
PB Participatory budgeting
PBPOA Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre
PT Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores)
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
CIDADE Centre for Urban Studies and Expertise
Centro de
Assesoria e
Estudos Urbanos
UAMPA Union of Community Associations in Porto Alegre (União das
Associações de Moradores de Porto Alegre)
PDT Democratic Labour Party (Partido Democrático Trabalhista)
COP PBPOA Council (Conselho de Orçamento Participativo)
LGP Solidarity in Local Governance Programme (Governança Solidária Local)
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
IADP Inter American Bank for Development
USAID United States Agency for International Development

Notes
1. See table of acronyms in Glossary.
2. The rigour of the NGO CIDADE is such that we think we can use its statistics. Of course,
we deplore that we could not use more recent data. Yet, we do believe that the social
determinants to become a councillor have remained the same over the years, all the more as
the proportion of reelected councillors has become more and more important.
3. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, was a founding member of the PT and the 35th
President of Brazil, who served from 2003 to 2011, after having achieved victory at two
successive presidential elections, in 2002 and 2006.
 4. See, in the Appendix, a brief presentation of councillors’ resources and trajectories. Participatory
5. For purposes of stylistic harmony, we use the first person plural in the presentation of this budgeting
data collection.
6. Only three councillors did not experience this shift: Councillors 4 and 6 continued their
voluntary work in associations and communities, while Councillor 3 retired. Councillor 3
nevertheless benefitted from his participatory commitment: he explained how PBPOA helped
him understand the rules of the Porto Alegrense real estate, so that he could carry out a real 763
estate project that he had started before his election.
7. The Tutelary Council is an institution created in 1990 by the Child and Youth Statute. The
institution is in charge of helping children and teenagers when their rights are disrespected.
Tutelary councillors are elected at the community level; they advise local governments about
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

child and teenager policies and most importantly, act at the community level in favour of
children and teenagers rights (Scheinvar, 2012).
8. This title comes from the World Social Forum’s official slogan, which is: “Another world is
possible”.

References
Abers, R. (1996), “From ideas to practice: the Partido dos Trabalhadores and participatory
governance in Brazil”, Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 35-53.
Abers, R. (2000), Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics in Brazil, Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Archel, P., Husillos, J. and Spence, C. (2011), “The institutionalisation of unaccountability: loading
the dice of corporate social responsibility discourse”, Accounting, Organizations and
Society, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 327-343.
Arnold, P. and Hammond, T. (1994), “The role of accounting in ideological conflict: lessons from
the South African divestment movement”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 19
No. 2, pp. 111-126.
Avritzer, L. (2002), “Sociedade civil, espaço publico e poder local: uma analise do orçamento
participativo em Belo Horizonte e Porto Alegre”, Sociedade Civil e Espaços Publicos no
Brasil, Paz e Terra, Rio de Janeiro.
Avritzer, L. (2006), “New public spheres in Brazil: local democracy and deliberative politics”,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 623-637.
Baierle (1998), “The explosion of experience: the emergence of a new ethical-political
principle in popular movements in Porto Alegre, Brazil”, in Alvarez, S.E., Dagnino, E. and
Escobar, A. (Eds), Cultures of Politics/Politics of Cultures, Westview Press, Boulder, CO,
pp. 195-222.
Baierle, S. (2007), Urban Struggles in Porto Alegre: Between Political Revolution and
Transformism, CIDADE, Porto Alegre.
Baiocchi, G. (2001), “Participation, activism, and politics: the porto alegre experiment”, Politics &
Society, Vol. 29, pp. 43-72.
Baiocchi, G. (2002), “Synergizing civil society: state-civil society regimes in Porto Alegre, Brazil”,
Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 15, pp. 3-52.
Baiocchi, G. (2003), “Participation, activism, and politics: the porto alegre experiment I,
deliberative democratic theory”, in Archon, F. and Olin, W.E. (Eds), Deepening Democracy.
Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance.
Baiocchi, G. (2004), “Porto alegre: the dynamism of the unorganized”, Chavez, Daniel; Goldfrank,
Benjamin. The Left in the City: Participatory Local Governments in Latin America, Latin
America Bureau, London.
 AAAJ Bertaux, D. (1996), Les récits de vie: Perspective Ethnosociologique, Nathan Université, Paris.
28,5 Biagiotti, I. (2004), “Les forums sociaux mondiaux: une application paradoxale de la
doctrine de la participation”, Revue Internationale des Sciences Sociales, Vol. 182 No. 4,
pp. 591-602.
Bidegain, M. (1993), “Las comunidades eclesiales de base (CEBs) en la formación del Partido dos
Trabalhadores (P.T.)”, No. 7, pp. 92-109.
764 Boff, L. (2011), Church, Charism and Power: Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church,
SCM Press, London.
Bourdieu, P. (1977), Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bourdieu, P. (1979), “Les trois états du capital culturel”, Actes de la recherche en sciences Sociales,
Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 3-6.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Bourdieu, P. (1980a), Le sens pratique, É ditions de Minuit, Paris.

Bourdieu, P. (1980b), “Le capital social”, Actes de la recherche en Sciences Sociales, Vol. 31 No. 1,
pp. 2-3.
Bourdieu, P. (1981), “La représentation politique”, Actes de la recherche en Sciences Sociales,
Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 3-24.
Bourdieu, P. (1984a), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bourdieu, P. (1984b), “La délégation et le fétichisme politique”, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences
Sociales, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 49-55.
Bourdieu, P. (1991), Language and Symbolic Power, Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1992), The Logic of Practice, 1st ed. (Trans by Nice, R.), Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996a), The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996b), Raisons pratiques: Sur la théorie de l’action, Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (1996c), The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Stanford
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1998), Pascalian Meditations, Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1999), Language and Symbolic Power, in Thompson, J. (Ed.) (Trans by Raymond, G.
and Adamson, M.), Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2000a), Pascalian Meditations, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Bourdieu, P. (2000b), Esquisse d’une theorie de la pratique, Seuil, Paris.
Bourdieu, P. (2001a), Langage et pouvoir symbolique, Ed. rev. et augm Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (2001b), “Le mystère du ministère”, Actes de la recherche en Sciences Sociales, Vol. 140
No. 1, pp. 7-11.
Bourdieu, P. (2004), “The mystery of the ministry”, Constellations, Vol. 11 No. 1, available at:
http://istifhane.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/bourdieu-the-mystery-of-the-ministry-from-
particular-wills-to-the-general-will.pdf (accessed 14 February 2013).
Bourdieu, P. (2007), “Postface - la noblesse: capital social et capital symbolique”, in Monique de, S.M.
and Didier, L. (Eds), Anciennes et nouvelles aristocraties de 1880 à nos jours, Maison des
sciences de l’homme, Paris, pp. 385-397.
Bourdieu, P. (2012a), Sur l’État, Raisons d’Agir, Seuil.
Bourdieu, P. (2012b), “Cours du 12 décembre 1991”, Sur l’Etat - Cours au Collège de France - 1989-
1992, Raisons d’agir, Seuil, Cours et Travaux, p. 656.
Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. (1992), An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 1st ed, University of
Chicago Press.
 Bourdieu, P. et al. (2000), The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society Participatory
(Trans by Ferguson, P.P.), 1st ed., Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
budgeting
Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J.-C. and Passeron, J.-C. (2006), Le métier de sociologue: Préalables
épistémologiques, 5th ed., Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
New York, NY and Berlin.
Bourdieu, P.P. (1993), Sociology in Question, Sage.
Boyer, R. (2003), “L’anthropologie économique de Pierre Bourdieu”, Actes de la recherche en 765
Sciences Sociales, Vol. 150 No. 1, pp. 65-78.
Bryer, A.R. (2011), “Accounting as learnt social practice: the case of the empresas recuperadas in
Argentina”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 36 No. 8, pp. 478-493.
Bryer, A.R. (2014a), “Participation in budgeting: a critical anthropological approach”, Accounting,
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Organizations and Society, Vol 39 No. 7, pp. 511-530, available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.aos.2014.07.001
Bryer, A.R. (2014b), “Conscious practices and purposive action: a qualitative study of accounting
and social change”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 93-103.
Burawoy, M. (1979), Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process Under Monopoly
Capitalism, University of Chicago Press.
Burchell, S., Clubb, C., Hopwood, A., Hughes, J. and Nahapiet, J. (1980), “The roles of accounting
in organizations and society”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 5 No. 1,
pp. 5-27.
Cabannes, Y. (2004), “Participatory budgeting: a significant contribution to participatory
democracy”, Environment and Urbanization, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 27-46.
CIDADE (2003a), Fazendo politica: perfil das conselheiras e conselheiros do Orçamento
Participativo, 2002/2003, CIDADE, Porto Alegre, p. 35.
CIDADE (2003b), Quem é o Público do Orçamento Participativo 1998, 2000 e 2002, CIDADE,
Porto Alegre, p. 80.
Cleuren, H. (2008), “La administración de los Presupuestos Participativos en Porto Alegre: a nivel
de calle, los funcionarios y las condiciones previas de organización”, Revista Chilena de
Administración Pública, No. 12, pp. 19-41.
Collier, P.M. (2005), “Governance and the quasi-public organization: a case study of social
housing”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 16 No. 7, pp. 929-949.
Cooper, C. and Coulson, A.B. (2013), “Accounting activism and Bourdieu’s ‘collective
intellectual’ – reflections on the ICL case”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting Vol. 25
No. 3, pp. 237-254.
Cooper, C. and Johnston, J. (2012), “Vulgate accountability: insights from the field of football”,
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 602-634.
Cuenca, L.E. (2007), “Participando, articulando, cobrando […]”: Une compréhension du Budget
Participatif de Porto Alegre au travers des trajectoires des dirigeants. (Cahier de recherche),
Alternative Management Observatory, Paris, p. 195.
Daniel Filho, B. and Cuenca, L.E. (2009), “Brésil réel: Les limites du budget Participatif
local, entre légalité, informel et illégalité”, Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain, Nos 73-74,
pp. 9-68.
Daudelin, J. and Hewitt, W.E. (1995), “Churches and politics in Latin America: catholicism at the
crossroads”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 221-236.
De Kadt, E. (1982), “Community participation for health: the case of Latin America”, World
Development, Vol. 10 No. 7, pp. 573-584.
 AAAJ Dixon, R., Ritchie, J. and Siwale, J. (2006), “Microfinance: accountability from the grassroots”,
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 405-427.
28,5
Domike, A. (2008), Civil Society and Social Movements, Inter-American Development Bank,
Washington, DC.
Ebrahim, A. (2005), “Accountability myopia: losing sight of organizational learning”, Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 56-87.
766 Fals Borda, O. (1987), “Democracia y Participación: algunas reflexiones”, Revista Colombiana de
Sociología, Vol. 5 No. 1.
Farjaudon, A.-L. and Morales, J. (2013), “In search of consensus: the role of accounting in the
definition and reproduction of dominant interests”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting,
Vol. 24, pp. 154-171.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Fedozzi, L. (2007), Observando o Orçamento Participativo de Porto Alegre. Análise histórica de

dados: perfil social e associativo, avaliação e expectativas, Porto Alegre, Tomo.
Feinberg, R., Waisman, C.H. and Zamosc, L. (2008), Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America,
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, available at: http://pdfs.postprefix.com/venezuela/
1403972281.pdf
Freire, P. (2000), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary ed. (Trans by Ramos, M.B.),
Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY.
Gallhofer, S. (2002), Accounting and Emancipation: Some Critical Interventions, Routledge,
London and New York, NY.
Gallhofer, S. and Haslam, J. (2004), “Accounting and liberation theology: some insights for the
project of emancipatory accounting”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal,
Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 382-407.
Ganuza, E. and Baiocchi, G. (2012), “The power of ambiguity: how participatory budgeting
travels the Globe”, The Journal of Public Deliberation, Vol. 8 No. 2, available at: www.
publicdeliberation.net/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article ¼ 1229&context ¼ jpd
Genro, T. and Souza (2000), Quand les habitants gèrent vraiment leur ville, Fondation Ch. l, Mayer.
Goddard, A. (2004), “Budgetary practices and accountability habitus: a grounded theory”,
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 543-577.
Goetz, A.-M. (2005), Reinventing Accountability: Making Democracy Work for
Human Development, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire,
New York, NY.
Goetz, A.-M. and Jenkins, R. (2004), “Accountability”, in Kuper, A. and Kuper, J. (Eds), The Social
Science Encyclopedia, Routledge, New York, NY, available at: www.hunter.cuny.edu/polsci/
faculty/Jenkins/repository/files/2004-%20Social%20Science%20Encyclopedia-%
20Accountability.pdf
Goldfrank, B. (2006), “Lessons from Latin American experlience in participatory
budgeting”, presented at the Latin American Studies Association Meeting, San Juan,
Puerto Rico, available at: www.internationalbudget.org/themes/PB/LatinAmerica.pdf
(accessed 13 December 2012).
Goldfrank, B. and Schneider, A. (2006), “Competitive institution building: the PT and
participatory budgeting in Rio Grande do Sul”, Latin American Politics & Society, Vol. 48
No. 3, pp. 1-31.
Golsorkhi, D., Leca, B., Lounsbury, M. and Ramirez, C. (2009), “Analysing, accounting for and
unmasking domination: on our role as scholars of practice, practitioners of social science
and public intellectuals”, Organization, Vol. 16 No. 6, pp. 779-797.
Gorz, A. (1985), Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work, Pluto Press, London.
 Gorz, A. (1999), Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage-Based Society, 1st ed., Polity, Cambridge and Participatory
Malden, MA.
budgeting
Gorz, A. (2011), Critique of Economic Reason, 2nd ed., Verso.
Gray, R. (1992), “Accounting and environmentalism: an exploration of the challenge of gently
accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability”, Accounting,
Organizations and Society, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 399-425.
IADB (2005), Assessment of Participatory Budgeting in Brazil, Center for Urban Development 767
Studies, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
Inglis, T. (1997), “Empowerment and emancipation”, Adult Education Quarterly, Vol. 48 No. 1,
pp. 3-17.
Isbester, K. (2011), The Paradox of Democracy in Latin America: Ten Country Studies of Division
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

and Resilience, University of Toronto Press.

Kunrath, M. (2001), Construção da Participação Popular: Analise comparativa de processos de
participação na discussão publica do orçamento em municipios da Região Metropolitana de
Porto Alegre (PhD), UFRGS, Porto Alegre.
Lahire, B. (2006), La culture des individus: Dissonances culturelles et distinction de soi, Editions
La Découverte, Paris.
Lehman, G. (2001), “Reclaiming the Public Sphere: Problems and Prospects for Corporate Social
and Environmental Accounting”, SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 268713, Social Science
Research Network, Rochester, NY, available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract ¼ 268713
(accessed 19 September 2014).
Leubolt, B., Novy, A. and Becker, J. (2008), “Changing patterns of participation in Porto Alegre”,
International Social Science Journal, pp. 435-448.
Love, J.L. (1975), “O regionalismo gaúcho e as origens da revolução de 1930”, Coll. Coleção
Estudos: História Perspectiva Sao Paolo, Brazil, p. 282.
Mainwaring, S. (1999), Rethinking Party Systems In The Third Wave of Democratization: The
Case of Brazil, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.
Mainwaring, S. and Welna, C. (2003), Democratic Accountability in Latin America, Oxford
University Press, Oxford and New York, NY.
Malsch, B. and Gendron, Y. (2013), “Re-theorizing change: institutional experimentation and the
struggle for domination in the field of public accounting”, Journal of Management Studies,
Vol. 50 No. 5, pp. 870-899.
Menser, M. (2005), “The Global Social Forum Movement, Porto Alegre’s ‘Participatory Budget,’
and the Maximization of Democracy”, Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination, Vol. 1
No. 1, pp. 87-109.
Moerman, L. (2006), “People as prophets: liberation theology as a radical perspective on accounting”,
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 169-185.
Molisa, P. (2011), “A spiritual reflection on emancipation and accounting”, Critical Perspectives on
Accounting, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 453-484.
Navarro, Z. (1997), Affirmative Democracy and Redistributive Development: The Case of
Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre, Mimeo, Porto Alegre.
Navarro, Z. (2004a), “Chapter 10 – participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil”, in Licha, I.
(Eds), Citizens in Charge: Managing Local Budgets in East Asia and Latin America,
Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, pp. 247-290.
Navarro, Z. (2004b), “Participatory budgeting in Latin America”, in Licha, I. (Eds), Citizens in
Charge: Managing Local Budgets in East Asia and Latin America, Inter-American
Development Bank, Washington, DC, p. 355.
 AAAJ O’Dwyer, B. and Unerman, J. (2008), “The paradox of greater NGO accountability: a case
study of amnesty Ireland”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 33 Nos 7-8,
28,5 pp. 801-824.
Oakes, L.S., Townley, B. and Cooper, D.J. (1998), “Business planning as pedagogy: language and
control in a changing institutional field”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 43 No. 2,
p. 257.
768 Passeron, J.-C. (1990), “Biographies, flux, itinéraires, trajectoires”, Revue française de Sociologie,
Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 3-22.
Pateman, C. (1970), Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge University Press.
Popovski, V. and Serrano, M. (Eds.) (2012), After Oppression: Transitional Justice in Latin
America and Eastern Europe – United Nations University, United Nations University Press,
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

available at: http://unu.edu/publications/books/after-oppression-transitional-justice-in-

latin-america-and-eastern-europe.html#overview (accessed 27 August 2014).
Ramirez, C. (2001), “Understanding social closure in its cultural context: accounting
practitioners in France (1920-1939)”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 26
Nos 4-5, pp. 391-418.
Roberts, J. (1991), “The possibilities of accountability”, Accounting, Organizations and Society,
Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 355-368.
Roberts, J. (1996), “From discipline to dialogue: individualizing and socializing forms of
accountability”, in Munro, R. and Mouritsen, J. (Eds), Accountability: Power, Ethos and The
Technologies of Managing, Thompson Business Press, London.
Roberts, J. and Scapens, R. (1985), “Accounting systems and systems of accountability –
understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts”, Accounting,
Organizations and Society, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 443-456.
Rose, N. (1991), “Governing by numbers: figuring out democracy”, Accounting, Organizations and
Society, Vol. 16 No. 7, pp. 673-692.
Sader, E. (2003), Porto Alegre, Ate Logo!, Zero Hora, Porto Alegre.
Santos, B. de S. (1998), “Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre: toward a redistributive
democracy”, Politics & Society, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 461-510.
Santos, B. de S. (Ed.) (2007), Democratizing Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Democratic
Canon, Verso.
Scheinvar, E. (2012), “Tutelary council and school: the potency of penal logic in every-day work”,
Psicologia & Sociedade, Vol. 24 No. SPE, pp. 45-51.
Shearer, T. (2002), “Ethics and accountability: from the for-itself to the for-the-other”, Accounting,
Organizations and Society, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 541-573.
Shenkin, M. and Coulson, A.B. (2007), “Accountability through activism: learning
from Bourdieu”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 20 No. 2,
pp. 297-317.
Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C. and Allegretti, G. (2010), “Learning from the South:
participatory budgeting worldwide – an invitation to global cooperation”, Dialog Global,
No. 25, pp. 7-83.
Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C. and Röcke, A. (2008), “Participatory budgeting in Europe: potentials
and challenges”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 32 No. 1,
pp. 164-178.
Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C., Röcke, A. and Allegretti, G. (2012), “Transnational models of citizen
participation: the case of participatory budgeting”, Journal of Public Deliberation, Vol. 8
No. 2, available at: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol8/iss2/art9
 Sintomer, Y., Röcke, A. and Herzberg, C. (2008), “Les budgets participatifs en Europe. Des Participatory
services publics au service du public, Recherche, La Découverte”, available at:
www.decitre.fr/livres/les-budgets-participatifs-en-europe-9782707156488.html (accessed
budgeting
2 September 2014).
Speer, J. (2012), “Participatory governance reform: a good strategy for increasing government
responsiveness and improving public services?”, World Development, Vol. 40 No. 12,
pp. 2379-2398. 769
Teivainen, T. (2002), “The world social forum and global democratisation: learning from Porto
Alegre”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 621-632.
Tinker, T. and Gray, R. (2003), “Beyond a critique of pure reason: from policy to politics to praxis
in environmental and social research”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal,
Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 727-761.
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

UNDP (2002), Human Development Report 2002, United Nations Development Program,
New York, NY, p. 277.
Utzig, J.E. (1996), “Notas Sobre o Governo do PT em Porto Alegre”, Novos Estudos Cebrap, Vol. 45
No. 6, pp. 209-222.
Utzig, J.E. (2000), “Participatory budgeting of Porto Alegre: a discussion in the light of the
principle of democratic legitimacy and of the criterion of governance performance”, World
Bank, available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPCENG/214578-1116506912206/
20553242/Utzigpaper.pdf (accessed 5 November 2012).
Wacquant, L. (2002), Corps et âmes: carnets ethnographiques d’un apprenti boxeur, Agone,
Marseille., Vol. 43 Nos 43-3, pp. 614-617.
Wacquant, L. (2004), “Pointers on pierre bourdieu and democratic politics”, Constellations, Vol. 11
No. 1, pp. 3-15.
Wacquant, L. (2011), “Habitus as topic and tool: reflections on becoming a prizefighter”,
Qualitative Research in Psychology, No. 8, pp. 81-92.
Wampler, B. (2007), “A guide to participatory budgeting”, Participatory Budgeting, Public
Sector Governance and Accountability Series, World Bank, Washington, DC,
pp. 21-54.
Wasserman, G. (2004), “De la théologie de la libération au forum social mondial”, Mouvements,
Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 161-169.
Wood, T. and Murray, W. (2007), “Participatory democracy in Brazil and local geographies:
Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte compared”, European Review of Latin American and
Caribbean Studies, No. 83, pp. 19-41.
World Bank (2008), “Brazil – toward a more inclusive and effective participatory budget in
Porto Alegre”, Main Report, World Bank Washington, DC, Vol. 1, p. 122.

Corresponding author
Laure Célérier can be contacted at: laure.celerier@hec.edu

(The Appendix follows overleaf.)

 Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

28,5

770
AAAJ

Table AI.

trajectories
Councillors’
characteristics and
Councillor no. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Appendix

Gender Female Female Male Male Male Male Female Male Male
Age 46 40 65-70 52 55-60 50-60 79 50 55
Identified Strengthened Strengthened Maintained Maintained High Maintained Maintained Strengthened Strengthened Maintained
evolution of B.PB:
Before PB (B.PB): fifth Graduate from school and University University B.PB: university B.PB: high University
cultural grade of primary incomplete university technical trainee in (incomplete, degree in degree in school (incomplete faculty
capital school. After PB (A. secondary (accounting) civil construction faculty of economic Education. A.PB: of mechanical
PB): primary and school literature) sciences A.PB: master’s university engineering)
secondary school A.PB: A.PB: none degree in degree in
completed thanks to returned to education political science
the funding of a Stateschool,
Deputy supported
by a City
Deputy
Approximate 4 minimum wages 2 minimum More than 8 4-6 minimum 6-8 minimum More than 8 6-8 minimum ND More than 8
Income wages, paid minimum wages wages minimum wages minimum wages
from a city wages wages
deputy
cabinet
Identified President of a President of Member of the President of a President of a Member of a Communitarian Communitarian Association for the
social capital community association parent – Democratic community community Chess movement movement. defence of people
in the social – member of the teacher Labor Party association. association in Association. (UAMPA). Member of the with disabilities.
trajectory Workers’ Party (PT) association (PDT) member of the the past. Member of an Member of an Communist Member of the
(community president of a Workers’ Party member of the association for association for Party (PCdoB) – Popular Socialist
school) community (PT) Workers’ the defence of popular member of a Party (PPS)
member of association. Party (PT) the education. Union of Steel
the Workers’ Member of the Farroupilha Member of the Workers in his
Party (PT) Christian Parc (Central Workers’ Party youth
Family Park of POA) (PT)
Movement

(continued )
 Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

Has the Candidate without None None None None None None Vice President None
councillor success to the Tutelary of UAMPA
obtained a Council (remunerated
position position). Member of
requiring many regional councils
political (health, culture, etc. –
capital? non remunerate
positions)
Occupations Receptionist in a Salesperson, Teacher in a Boxer, worker in Salesperson, Owner of a Teacher, Steel worker, Salesperson for
(in medical cabinet, catechism vocational high civil construction, participatory local professor for construction industrial material.
chronological salesperson, in charge teacher, school. Retired owner of his small budgeting commerce. teachers, worker, and entrepreneur
order) of community relations, charity, in but he was firm for coordinator, in Reticent to engaged teacher professional of developing his own
civil servant in the charge of developing a installation of steel charge of give this (pedagogy of politics invention: a traffic
Municipality Health community project of grills community information the oppressed), light for blind
Department (requiring relations for working-class relations for a manager in the people,
to pass a competitive a city deputy housing State Deputy, education professionalization
exam) former Major department of in politics
of POA the State

Councillor no. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Gender Female Female Female Male Male Male Male Male Male
Age 45-50 19 54 53 50-60 60-70 40-45 43 72
Identified Maintained Strengthened Strengthened Maintained Maintained Maintained Maintained Strengthened Maintained
evolution of Mechanical engineer B.PB: B.PB: primary High school Incomplete High school High school and University High school
cultural secondary school primary technical degree in completed as a
capital school A.PB: high school training psychology political prisoner
A.PB: school,
university preparation for
(beginning) University
admission
exams
Approximate More than 8 minimum ND 2-4 minimum ND 2-4 minimum ND 6-8 minimum More than 8 2-4 minimum wages
Income wages wages wages wages minimum
wages

(continued )
budgeting

Table AI.
771
Participatory
 Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)

28,5

772
AAAJ

Table AI.
Identified President of an NGO Member of President of a Militant in the President of a Engaged in Unionist. Member of a He is one of the
social capital helping indigent people an community black movement of community associations Former member community founders of the
in the social association association. Brazil, association, defending of the Workers’ association Workers’ Party in
trajectory for the Member of participation in the engagement in access to Party, member RGS. Before he was
creation of a regional community the popular water since of the PSOL member of the
cultural council for promoting cultural council of his 1960. Member (Socialism and communist party
centre in her health. events. Member of region of the freedom party) (PCB). Committed
area Member of the the Workers’ Party Workers’ with the
Workers’ Party (PT), member of Party communitarian
(PT) the CUT movement
Has the Councillor in the None None Was planning to None Candidate Representative None City deputy. He had
councillor Council for Health be candidate for with success positions in run without success
obtained a policies of the City city deputy to the unions (banking to State Deputy
position Tutelary and local
requiring Council government
political (remunerated unions)
capital? position) Was
planning to
run for local
Deputy in the
future
Occupations Mechanical engineer, Works for a Worker since Worker in the steel Worker in Small firm in Technician in Civil servant in Skilled worker in
(in Owner of a small firm NGO helping she was 14 sector, official in construction, photography, banking, civil the justice the textile, unionist,
chronological (computer services), indigent years old. the public railroad works with a sport referee, servant for the department of professional
order) NGO management people (cf. Retired. company, unionist catholic school professional local the City militant and
councilor 10), and professional in charge of militant. government of politician
newcomer militant, popular maintenance POA
actress educator, small and
entrepreneur in the community
cultural sector relations
 This article has been cited by:

1. Jan van Helden, Shahzad Uddin. 2016. Public sector management accounting in emerging
economies: A literature review. Critical Perspectives on Accounting . [CrossRef]
2. Chamara Kuruppu, Pawan Adhikari, Vijitha Gunarathna, Dayananda Ambalangodage, Priyanga
Perera, Chaminda Karunarathna. 2016. Participatory budgeting in a Sri Lankan urban council: A
practice of power and domination. Critical Perspectives on Accounting . [CrossRef]
3. Judy Brown, Jesse Dillard, Trevor Hopper. 2015. Accounting, accountants and accountability
regimes in pluralistic societies. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 28:5, 626-650.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
Downloaded by Chinese University of Hong Kong At 07:21 14 February 2016 (PT)