Testing the Empowerment Thesis: The Participatory Budget in Belo Horizonte and Betim,

Brazil
Author(s): William R. Nylen
Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jan., 2002), pp. 127-145
Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York
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 Testingthe EmpowermentThesis

The ParticipatoryBudget in Belo Horizonte and Betim, Brazil

William R. Nylen

Numerous political theorists and practitionerssuggest participatoryor deliberative

democracy as a remedy to the ills of contemporary representative democracy:
declining voter turnouts,increasing distrustin democraticpoliticians and processes,
and declining levels of participationin organizedcivil society.1They arguethat these
problems diminish when citizens become directly involved in public policymaking
processes, especially at the local or grass-roots level where such processes seem
more relevant to people's day-to-day lives. Empowermentis said to occur as initial
involvementin one arena of democracy spills over into furtherparticipationin other
arenas.2
Can institutionalinnovations designed to increase citizen participationin public
policymaking generate increased participation in organized civil society and/or in
democraticparty politics? Can participatoryinstitutionalreform revitalize represen-
tativedemocracyby empoweringthe disengaged?
The empowermentthesis can be tested in two case studies of local participatory
policymaking in Brazil: the participatorybudget (orCamentoparticipativo, OP) in
Belo Horizonte and Betim, Minas Gerais. The OP is a participatoryprocess of bud-
getary planning promoted by Brazil's largest Leftist party, the Workers' Party
(Partido dos Trabalhadores,PT), in the cities and states it governs. Citizens are
encouragedto attend neighborhoodmeetings to propose, discuss, and vote on bud-
getary priorities in the areas of public works and social services and to elect dele-
gates to subsequentmunicipal forums where the sum of neighborhood priorities is
debated and put to a final vote. The results are incorporatedinto the administration's
budget proposal and submittedto the city council. An elected council of OP dele-
gates follows subsequent deliberations, as well as the implementation of approved
OP projects. An analysis of surveys of 1,998 OP delegates in Belo Horizonte and
Betim suggest that the OP, and by implication comparable participatory reforms,
may be more efficacious in sustaining and developing existing nonelite political
activism than in empoweringdisengaged or alienatedcitizens.

127
ComparativePolitics January2002

The Problem: Civic Disengagement

According to Putnam's description of contemporary civic disengagement in the

United States, Americansvote less, trusttheir governmentless, and are less involved
in community affairs and community-affirming organized group activities than in
the past.3The U.S. shares these traits with many more countries:Canada,Germany,
Switzerland, the emerging democracies in the former Soviet Union and eastern
Europe, and many of the reemerging democracies of Latin America, especially
Venezuela (since 1973), Colombia, Ecuador,Guatemala,and Brazil.4
Brazil is a representativecase. Its index of voter alienation (the sum of absten-
tions and blank and invalid votes) rose from 17.6 percent of eligible voters in 1989
to 33.39 percent in 1994 and 40.19 percent in 1998.5 While voting is mandatoryin
Brazil, 49 percent of respondentsin a 1998 poll said they would not vote if they had
the choice. In the same year 75 percent of respondents could not remember for
whom they had voted in the previous congressional elections less than four years
earlier.6In anotherpoll from 1998 respondents were asked which institutionscon-
tributedmost and least to the good of the country;congressmen and senatorsscored
last, far behind bankers,businessmen, and even the armed forces.7 In a 1999 poll of
voting age residents of the state of Sdo Paulo, 60 percent of respondentssaid they
did not trust the national congress; another36 percent said they trustedit only a lit-
tle; 43 percent said they could not trust the president;and another 49 percent said
they trusted him only a little.8 Meanwhile, union membership and participationin
the grass-rootsorganizationsand social movements that had played a significantpart
in democratizationprocesses in the mid to late 1970s and early 1980s declined in the
1980s and 1990s. Finally, civic disengagement in Brazil is reinforced by common
practices of vote buying, and much of the participation of political campaigns is
bought and paid for by the candidatesor parties themselves.
Civic disengagement is a problem because, in Jelin's words, "representative
democracies quickly stop being democracies when they do not concern themselves
from the outset with creating institutions through which citizen participationand
control can function."9Formal democratic institutions, such as political parties and
elections, may foster supposedly stability-enhancing intraelite bargaining.10But
when they coexist with widespreadnonelite insecurity and disillusionment,they are
in fact weak and unstable.In LatinAmerica they are particularlyvulnerableto politi-
cal and economic elites' historically instrumental commitment to democracy, to
volatile internationaleconomic dynamics, and to the contemporary"social polariza-
tion" generated by neoliberal economics, growing poverty, and increasinglyviolent
crime."ITo the extent that certain groups (for example, the poor and ethnic minori-
ties) are overrepresented among the insecure and disengaged, then democracy
becomes correspondinglyunrepresentativeand undemocratic.Thus, Dominguez and
Kinney Giraldo spoke of a "crisis of representation"among Latin America'sdemoc-

128
 WilliamR. Nylen

ratic regimes in the 1990s due in no small part to "the inattentionto the troubles of
the unempowered" and "the failure to improve the quality of democratic gover-
nance."12
The crisis of representationin Latin America and elsewhere can be seen in the
rise of virulent and sometimes violent neopopulist politicians (for example, Pat
Buchanan,Jean Marie Le Pen, Alberto Fujimori,and Hugo Chavez), "uncivil move-
ments," and other militant antidemocratic organizations.13 They often invoke a
benevolent dictatorialsavior of the people to clean up dirty democraticpolitics, sim-
ilar to argumentshistorically associated with military interventionsand totalitarian
regimes. Such appeals are often accompanied by a crusade to exclude or eradicate
impure scapegoats, such as foreigners, ethnic minorities, and economic elites. In
their desire to avoid politics, the disengaged provide space for neopopulists to gain a
foothold in the political arena.
Some analysts reject the problematicnature of civic disengagement.They argue
that it actually representscontentmentwith the status quo or that it is functional to
effective governance.14Such argumentsapply an overly static legal-proceduraldefini-
tion of democracythat emphasizeselectoralrules and institutionsand the competition
of elites for elected office within those rules and institutions.15This understandingof
democracy,however, destroys the true core of its meaning as a dynamic process of
continuous political activism on behalf of greater freedom and equity for nonelite
individuals and groups vis-a-vis the state and the already incorporated.In Dryzek's
words, "a democraticpolity that ceases its search for furtherdemocratizationis likely
to witness the gradualentrenchmentof 'new classes' of various sorts that profit from
their stable occupancyof key points in the system, and an impoverishmentof political
life throughits focus on relativelymundaneissues of public administration."16 Indeed,
nonelite political activism could be seen as a necessary check against inevitable ten-
dencies towardsexclusionaryelitism in representativedemocracies.
Democratic reformists throughoutthe world have shown that they can not accept
the antidemocraticand citizen-demobilizing implications of neoliberalism, neopop-
ulism, and academic apologists of civic disengagement. Like neopopulists, they
attribute civic disengagement to exploitative and demobilizing traditional power
structures,well characterizedin the Brazilian case by Hagopian as "closed circles of
power holders that dominate a range of state institutionsand political processes, and
that concentratepolitical as well as economic power within a limited numberof fam-
ilies."l7 Unlike neopopulists, however, they conclude that democratic politics, no
matter how flawed in practice, allow for the possibility of exposing these power
structuresto the electorate and of implementingpolicies aimed at diminishing elites'
power and privileges in favor of the poor and politically excluded majority.At the
core of such policies are participatoryinstitutional innovations such as the OP in
Brazil. In Latin America, comparablecases can be found elsewhere in Brazil and in
Bolivia, Uruguay,Chile, Argentina,Ecuador,and Colombia.18

129
ComparativePolitics January2002

The Participatory Democratic Prescription

Alexis de Tocqueville's well-known arguments for political decentralization and

democraticcivic consciousness raising throughlocal participationhave traditionally
appealed to liberal and neoliberal thinkersunhappy with big government.19Today,
however, New Left and communitarianthinkersecho his basic insight: citizens feel
most connected with the political system in local secondary institutions, and this
sense of connectedness can combat civic disengagement.20Unlike most of their lib-
eral and neoliberal counterparts,however, new Tocquevilliansrecognize that politi-
cal and administrativedecentralizationis insufficient in itself to foster solidarityand
empowermentamong disengaged citizens. In such contexts as rural Latin America
and much of the developing world, decentralizationcan lead to demobilizing forms
of local tyrannyby local elites and their political machines.21It is especially prob-
lematic in the political cultures of subservience inculcated among Latin America's
poor by five centuries of patrimonialdominance.22Decentralizationcan also gener-
ate an insidious form of modern local tyranny: an exclusionary technocracy of
bureaucratsand neoliberal politicians unified under such banners as "total quality"
and "bestpractices."
Some new Tocquevillians argue that nongovernmental organizations, social
movements, and citizens' lobbies-what Habermas called "public spheres" and
Avritzer calls "participatorypublics"-can bring about empowering institutional
restructuringfrom the bottom up by consolidating community identities and inter-
ests, by raising the social and political consciousness of their members by making
the connection between those identities and interestsand the largersocial and politi-
cal system, and by exercising this consciousness vis-a-vis elected officials through
grass-roots activism.23Others argue that leadership from political parties and even
sympathetic government leaders (that is, from the top down) is essential if grass-
roots-based consciousness raising and activism are to move beyond their typically
issue-specific origins.24In this latter argument(essentially that of the PT in Brazil
and most of the New Left in Latin America), representativedemocracy is essential
because only through political parties and elections can people committed to such
ideals come together, gain public office, and attempt to implement an empowering
participatorymodel of democracy.25Rather than attempt to replace representative
democracy or to ignore its contemporaryfailings, the PT's participatorydemocratic
model proposes a gradualistic democratizationof democracy through decentraliza-
tion and the expansion of opportunitiesfor meaningfulcitizen participation.
All versions of the participatorydemocraticmodel, however,assume that partici-
pation empowers nonelites, that it strengthenscivil society. But while citizens may
be led to the waters of political consciousness and activism by way of participatory
democraticpractices,will they drink?

130
 WilliamR. Nylen

Brazilian Democratization, the Workers' Party, and the OrqamentoParticipativo

The Workers'Party was founded in 1982 towards the end of the twenty-one year
bureaucratic-authoritarian regime that had come to power in 1964 in a coup against
the populist Left governmentof Joao Goulart.In the mid 1970s the military initiated
a gradualliberalization/democratizationin the context of economic problems, grad-
ual withdrawalof elite support,and dissension within its ranks. In 1988 a popularly
elected congress promulgateda new constitution.Direct elections for presidentwere
held in 1989. Vibrant popular organizing and activism contributedgreatly to these
events and ultimately to the formation and growth of the PT.26But while Brazil's
democratic regime was consolidated in legal-procedural terms by the end of the
1990s, it continued to have problematic elements, including a weakly institutional-
ized party system, fragmented social structuresand institutions, and the continued
dominanceof clientelistic and paternalisticpolitical elites.27
The PT emerged from these events as the largest opposition party in Brazil and
the largest party of the Left in Latin America.28Early on, party leaders embraced
participatorydemocracy, first, as a mobilizational strategy to attain and hold on to
power and, later, for its potential in building democratic citizenship and changing
Brazil's clientelistic political culture.29Municipal and state PT administrationscreat-
ed issue-specific participatorypopularcouncils so that citizens could meet in famil-
iar local settings (for example, neighborhood meeting halls and school buildings),
express opinions on issues they deemed important,and channel their opinions into
the formal decision-makingprocesses.30
Arguing in 1989 that nothing was more importantto Brazil's average citizens than
infrastructuraldevelopment and neighborhoodimprovementprojects, the PT-admin-
istered city of PortoAlegre in Rio Grandedo Sul createda popularcouncil called the
participatorybudget.31Tavaresdescribes the way PortoAlegre's OP functioned in its
first years.

Popularassemblies in 16 city zones bring together 10,000 people and 600 grassroots organizations
to debate and vote on municipal expenditurepriorities [sent by the administrationto the city coun-
cil for approvaland revisions]. From a general budget of approximately$465 million, about 31% is
divided up in an open, public process involving large numbers of people and interests.As a result
of this process, the city's residents decided the city should concentrateits resources on legalizing
land titles, providing water and sewage to poor communities..., transportation,and environmental
clean-up.32

The success of PortoAlegre's OP in terms of growing levels of citizen participa-

tion, reelection of the PT in PortoAlegre in 1992 and 1996, and ascension of the PT
to the state governorshipof Rio Grandedo Sul in 1998 generatedgreat interestwith-
in the party.PortoAlegre's PT seemed to have discovered a means of balancing ideo-

131
ComparativePolitics January2002

logical concerns for promoting empowermentwith pragmatic demands that voters

perceive governmentprogramsto be in their vital interests.While other experiments
with the OP were not always so successful, it became a cornerstonepolicy in virtual-
ly every PT-runcity and state by the early 1990s.
The PT is the only party in Brazil that has systematically embracedthe participa-
tory democratic model. Porto Alegre's model has been extensively researchedand
discussed within the party.33While differing in the details, most if not all PT-admin-
istered cities and states, including Betim and Belo Horizonte,have followed the gen-
eral guidelines of PortoAlegre's model.34

Testing the Empowerment Thesis

The thesis that local popularparticipationempowers traditionallyexcluded sectors

of the population and thereby democratizes representativedemocracycan be tested
using data from a survey distributedto OP delegates in Belo Horizonte and Betim,
Minas Gerais, during their 1998 OP proceedings. The analysis is based on the
responses of 54.77 percent of Belo Horizonte's OP delegates (1,068 of 1,950) and
44.85 percent of Betim's (222 of 495).35
Basic characteristics of the respondents-sex, level of education, and employ-
ment-illustrate the OP's popular composition. Women constituted44.2 percent of
Belo Horizonte's and 39.6 percent of Betim's delegates; 69 percent of Belo
Horizonte'sand 81.1 percentof Betim's delegates had less than a high school educa-
tion; salaried workers, housewives, the retired,and the unemployedconstituted59.9
percent of Belo Horizonte'sand 64 percentof Betim's delegates.36
In a country where 75 percent of the population lives in cities, Belo Horizonte
and Betim representtwo common types: a large capital and a medium size interior
city. Both are located in Minas Gerais, Brazil's second most populous state, with a
geographic area (588,384 square kilometers) slightly smaller than Alaska.37Belo
Horizonte is Brazil's third largest city, with close to three million residents. Only
thirty kilometers away,Betim is a medium size city of 300,000; it mushroomedfrom
its small town origins when industrybegan to locate there in the early 1970s.38Both
cities were notable in the 1980s and 1990s for their relatively vibrant economies
(first and second in the state measuredby tax revenues), but also for their alarming
social problems rooted since the 1950s in a sustained rapid influx of poor rural
immigrantsand a series of income-concentratingeconomic developmentmodels ini-
tiated by the federal government.
Traditional patron-client relations have long dominated politics in Minas
Gerais.39Belo Horizonte and Betim are, therefore, excellent challenging examples
of the effects of participatoryreforms within antidemocratic institutions and cul-

132
 WilliamR. Nylen

tures. They are perhaps better than the much heralded example of Porto Alegre
because of the latter'smix of positivist, Europeanimmigrant,and Left-populisttradi-
tions.40
Belo Horizonte was governed by the PT from 1992 until 1996, when it disagreed
with its own mayor's choice for successor, Vice Mayor C6lio de Castro of the
Brazilian Socialist Party (PartidoSocialista Brasileiro). Castrowon the election, but
the PT retained important posts in his government, including the Secretaria de
Planejamento, the agency responsible for the OP.In 1998 Belo Horizonte carriedout
its sixth OrgamentoParticipativo.Administrationofficials claimed that 160,667 citi-
zens had participatedin the first five OPs, though this figure no doubt counts those
who participatedin more than one OP meeting more than once.41In 1996 $36.5 mil-
lion, 7 percent of Belo Horizonte'sbudget, was decided underthe OP process.
By 1998 Betim had been governed by the PT for seven years and was also under-
taking its sixth OP process. Official figures indicate that 36,000 Betinense partici-
pated in the first three OP processes, although,again, multiple counting was likely.42
In 1996 the OP's portion of Betim's budget was $23.26 million, or 15.15 percent of
the total.43
To operationalizethe concept of delegates' empowermentas stimulatedby partic-
ipation in the OP process, delegates indicated their participationin civil society and
political society both at the time of the survey (September 1998) and prior to their
election as OP delegates. While causation can not be proven, a significant increase
in participationindicates a correlationbetween participants'experience as OP dele-
gates and subsequentor concomitantspillover participationin other social and polit-
ical organizations(that is, empowerment).This correlationat least suggests a causal
relationship between OP involvement and empowerment. Similarly, a significant
decline in the numberof delegates not participatingin organizedcivil society and/or
a decline in those declaring no interest in party politics suggest a movement from
political passivity to activism.44
Table 1 illustratesthe participationof Belo Horizonte's and Betim's delegates in
civil society.45Many Belo Horizonte delegates participated,both prior to their OP
experience and at the time of the survey, in neighborhood organizations (52.2 and
64.5 percent), in religious groups (40 and 40.1 percent), and to a more limited
degree in philanthropicand charity organizations (12.4 and 13.8 percent). Among
Belo Horizonte delegates 19.7 percent prior to their OP involvement and 12.2 per-
cent at the time of the survey indicated no participationin organized civil society.
The direction of change in Belo Horizonte delegates' levels of participationin civil
society fits the hypothesis in almost all categories, with the exception of labor union
activities. The hypothesis was confirmed by significant increases in other participa-
tory municipal councils in the areas of health, education, and culture (25.3 percent)
and in neighborhoodassociations (23.6 percent) and by a decrease in the "none"cat-
egory (37.9 percent).46

133
ComparativePolitics January2002

Table 1 Civil Society Participation

BELO Neighborhood Labor Religious Cultural Philanthropic Municipal Other None
HORIZONTE Organizations Unions OrganizationEntities & Charity Councils
Pre-OP 504 (52.17%) 98 (10.14%) 386 (39.96%) j97(10.04%) 120 (12.42%) 95(9.83%) 101(10.46%) 190 (19.67%)
Time of Survey 623 (64.49%) 8418.70%.) 387(40,06%) 103 (10.66%) 133 (13 77%) 119(12,32%) 108(6.93%) 118 (12.22%)
%Change 23.6% 0.3% 6.2% 10.8% 25.3% 6 9% -37.9%
-14.3%
n = 966(%= of total)

BETIM Neighborhood Labor Religious Cultural Philanthropic Municipal Other None

Organizations Unions Organizations Entities & Charity Councils
Pre-OP 90(48.39%) 28 (15.05%) 75 (40.32%) 20 (10.75%) 19 (10.22%) 14 (7.53%) 19(10.22%) 35 (18,82%)
Time of Survey 113 (60.75%) 15 (8.06%) 72(38.71%) 23 (12.37%) 21 (11.29%) 32 (17.20%) 19(10.22%) 17 (9.14%)
% Change 25.6% -46.4% -4.0% 15.0% 10.5% 128.6% .0.0% .-51.4%
n = 186(%= of total)

The data for Betim also show that a large percentage of delegates participated,
both prior to their OP experience and at the time of the survey, in neighborhood
organizations (48.4 and 60.8 percent) and in religious groups (40.3 and 38.7 per-
cent). Smaller but still significant rates of participation are shown in
philanthropic/charitable organizations (10.2 and 11.3 percent) and in municipal
councils (7.5 and 17.2 percent). Indices of "none" among Betim's delegates (18.8
and 9.1 percent) are slightly lower compared with Belo Horizonte. As in Belo
Horizonte, the direction of change in levels of participationin Betim fits the hypoth-
esis in most, but not all, categories. Most notable are significant increasesin neigh-
borhood associations (25.6 percent) and in municipal councils (128.6 percent).
Similarly,delegates claiming no participationin civil society organizationsfell 51.4
percent. A significant drop in union participation (46.4 percent) likely reflects a
nationwide decline in union membershipin the 1980s and 1990s resultingfrom eco-
nomic crises and adjustmentproblemsthat plagued Brazil from the late 1970s.47
The data in Table 1, however, basically support the hypothesized spillover
between OP participationand greater participationin organized civil society. Most
of this spillover occurred in neighborhood organizations and other local, govern-
ment-sponsored,participatoryprocesses.
The majorityof delegates in both cases were alreadyactive in civil society before
becoming OP delegates (80.3 percent Belo Horizonte and 81.2 percent in Betim).
Relatively few delegates were disengaged from civil society prior to their involve-
ment in the OP.These data challenge claims made by proponentsof the OP and the
empowermentthesis that participatoryprocesses like the OP addressthe problemsof
civic disengagement. Indeed, it would appearthat the OP to a great extent preaches
to the choir, to the already empowered,and fosters comparativelylittle new empow-
erment.
This hypothesis-challengingconclusion is bolstered by the fact that the majority
of delegates who were inactive in civil society prior to their involvementin the OP
were first-time participantsin the OP: 82.3 percent in Belo Horizonte and 73.3 per-

134
 WilliamR. Nylen

cent in Betim. Only 17.7 percent in Belo Horizonte and 26.7 percent in Betim
became veterans by participatingfor two or more years. If it is assumed that longer
participationin the OP resulted in more exposure to democratic political learning,
disproportionatelyfewer pre-OPnonactivist delegates exposed themselves to longer-
term political learning. Those most in need of empowermentwere the least likely to
pursue it.
In spite of the relatively small number of delegates who were inactive in civil
society priorto their involvementin the OP,and despite their tendency not to remain
active in the OP beyond the first year, might not their involvement in the OP still
generate higher levels of participationin at least some arenasof organizedcivil soci-
ety, as seen in the general population? Did empowerment, defined as a spillover
from the OP into civil society activism, in this case, first-time activism, increase?
Table 2 reformulatesthe data from Table 1 by controlling for previous civil society
activism. The results do not strengthenthe empowermentthesis. First, many dele-
gates inactive in civil society before they participatedin the OP remained inactive:
53.7 percent in Belo Horizonte and 40 percent in Betim. There are only two signifi-
cant increases in participation:sixty-two Belo Horizonte delegates (32.6 percent of
those previously inactive in civil society) and fifteen Betim delegates (42.9 percent)
became active in neighborhoodorganizationsuponjoining the OP,and fourteen Belo
Horizonte delegates (7.4 percent) and three Betim delegates (8.6 percent) became
active in religious organizations.
The data show that the lion's share of the spillover effect from OP participationto
participation in organized civil society took place among individuals previously
active in civil society. This same group is also the most likely to continue to partici-

Table 2 Civil Society Participationby pre-OP Civil Society Activism

BELIO Neighborhood Organiations Labor Unions Religious Organizations Cultural Entities
HORIZONTE Active inactive Active Inactive Active Inactive Active inacutive
Pe-OP 5(64.9) 0
98(1.2.6%) 0
386(49.7%) 0
97(12.5%)
Timeof Survey 561(72.3%) 62 (326%) 83 (10.7%) 1 (05%) 373 (48.1%) 114(7.4%) 101 (13.0%) 2 (1.1%)

Philanthirop Councils
'&CharityMuniciE Other1 None
Active Inactive Active I hactive AVye Iactive Active Inactive
Pre-OP 120 (15.5%) 95(1 2%)
111
(13.) 0 0 190 (10%)
Timeof Survey 131 12(11 18 (15.2%
(5%) 3 2.9%)
001 84.22 ) 11 l(2.1%) 102(53.7%)
(16.9%)
N = 966 1(t0
(%is ofActiveorlXactive)

BETIM NeighborhoA Organizaions Labor Unions tus anatis Culral Entities

Pre-OP 90(59.6%) 128(18.5.) 0 (75(497%) 0 20(13.2%) 0

Timeof Survey
8t(649%)
15 (429.5 14(939 11(295) 6(45,7%)1 3(8g.6) 23(15.2%)

Philant c & Chalit Muiipal Counc'is Other None

Acty
_______jActv nci Ate Itv ivAye I Ae i ti ve Inactinve
Pre-OP 19(12 6%) 0 114(9,3) 10 t19(12,6%) 10 35(tOO%)
TimeofSurvey 119(12.6%) 2 (57%) 3019 9)
, 7(5.7 17(11,3';,1,) .) 7)%14 I 2. 401.
0%)
n = 18 (%is Aof
,Anive orinwfve)

135
ComparativePolitics January2002

pate in the OP beyond the first year. Roughly half of the delegates who were inactive
in civil society priorto their involvementin the OP remainedinactive in civil society
despite their OP activism. The data generally do not show much empowermentof
previously disengaged citizens, although this conclusion is qualified by significant
increases in their participation in neighborhood associations. The implications of
these findings will be discussed following analysis of the data on participationin
political society (partypolitics).
Is participationin the OP associated with an increase in delegates' participationin
political society?48Table 3 presents the data for both Belo Horizonte and Betim.
Belo Horizonte delegates both prior to the OP and at the time of the survey showed
relatively low party membership (18.9 and 23.5 percent), party militancy (9.2 and
10.2 percent),and candidatemilitancy (5.9 and 8.6 percent)and only moderateparty
sympathy(25.8 and 27.9 percent). Disinterestedvoting was relatively high (38.8 and
34.5 percent), and there were even a few isolated cases of disinterestednonvoting
(3.8 and 2.9 percent).49Despite these data, the direction of change in all categories
indicates supportfor the empowermentthesis. Increases of 24 percent in partymem-
bership, 11 percent in party militancy, 44.7 percent in candidatemilitancy,8.3 per-
cent in party sympathy,and 15.1 percent in interested nonpartisanshipall indicate
increases in political participationor, in the lattertwo, increasedpolitical conscious-
ness in the arena of political society. These results are reflected in the 11.1 percent
decrease in disinterestedvoting and the 23.3 percent decrease in disinterestednon-
voting among Belo Horizontedelegates.
Betim's delegates indicate a higher degree of activism and greater increases in
participation/consciousness in political society. Membership in political parties
increased 36.2 percent, from 28.8 percent before the OP to 39.3 percent at the time
of the survey. Party militancy increased 52 percent, from 15.3 to 23.3 percent.
Candidatemilitancy increased 26.7 percent, from 9.2 to 11.7 percent. Sympathyfor
one or another political party and interested nonpartisanship were steady. These
results are reflected in the 36.1 percent decline in disinterestedvoters (22.1 to 14.1

Table 3 Political PartyParticipation

BELO Member Party Candidate
Party Interested Disinterested
HORIZONTE Militant Militant
SympathizerNon-PartisanVoter Non-Voter
Pre-OP 1150(18.9%73(9.2%) 47(5.9%1) 204(25.8%) 119(15%) 307(38.8%) 30(3.8%)
Timeof Survey 186(23.5%81 (10.2%) 68(8.6%) 221 (27.9%) 137(17.3%) 273(34.5%) 23 (2.9%)
%Change 24.0m 11.0% 44.7%d 8.3% = 15.1% -11.1% -23.3%
n = 792 (%= of total)

BETIM Member
Party Candidate Party Interested Disinterested
Disinterested
Militant Militant Voter
Non-Partisan Non-Voter
Sympathizer
0
Pre-OP 47 (28.8%) 25 (15.3%) 15 (9.2%)
(47,9%)
78 18 (11%) 36 (22.1%)
Timeof Survey (393%) 38 (23.3%) 19 (11.7%)78 (479%) 18(11%) 23 (14.1%) 0
%Change 36.2% 52.0% 26.7% 0.0% 0.0% -36.1% 0.0%
n= 163(%= of total)

136
 WilliamR. Nylen

percent) and in the complete lack of delegates who claimed to be disinterested in

partypolitics to the point of never voting.
Given attitudes in the general population, it is not surprising that a majority of
delegates in both cases were disengaged from party politics. Nonetheless, for a sig-
nificant minority in both cities the data supportthe hypothesized relationshipof the
empowermentthesis between OP participationand greater participationin political
society.
Once again, however, are these observationsthe result, not of OP-inducedpoliti-
cal learning and empowerment,but ratherof prior political activism, in this case in
the arena of party politics? Slightly more than half of the delegates in Belo
Horizonte (57.4 percent) and an overwhelming 77.9 percent of Betim's delegates
were active in political society prior to their OP experience.50As with the data on
civil society, the prevalence of previously active participantschallenges the claim of
the empowermentthesis that participatoryprocesses like the OP address the prob-
lems of civic disengagement.In Betim few delegates were disengaged from political
society prior to becoming involved in the OP.In Belo Horizonte, however, 337 dele-
gates were previously inactive in political society. Does Belo Horizonte provide a
more suitabletest for the empowermentthesis? Did its delegates become empowered
with their OP participation?
The association between veteran delegates and previous activism that was found
with respect to civil society activism also pertains to political society. The majority
of delegates who were inactive in political society prior to their involvement in the
OP (71.9 percent in Belo Horizonte and 79.4 percent in Betim) were first-time par-
ticipants in the OP. Only 28.1 percent in Belo Horizonte and 20.6 percent in Betim
were veteranparticipants.Pre-OPpolitical society activists were not only more like-
ly than nonactiviststo take advantageof the opportunityto participatein the OP,but
they were also more likely to participatebeyond the first year. As in civil society
participation,those most in need of empowerment,the politically disengaged, were
the least likely to pursue it in government-sponsoredparticipatoryprocesses like the
OP.
In spite of their relatively smaller numbers, and despite their tendency not to
remain active in the OP beyond the first year, might not the OP involvement of dele-
gates previously inactive in political society still generate higher levels of participa-
tion in political society (as observed for the general population)? Was there still
empowermentfor this group?Table4 reformulatesthe data from Table 3 by control-
ling for previous political society activism. In Belo Horizonte 72.4 percent of dele-
gates previously inactive in political society still considered themselves disinterested
voters at the time of the survey, while 5.9% placed themselves in the disinterested
nonvoter category. In Betim, 58.3 percent called themselves disinterested voters
(there were no disinterestednonvoters).In the mild activism category of party sym-
pathy were 11.3 percent of Belo Horizonte's and 38.9 percent of Betim's delegates,

137
ComparativePolitics January2002

and 9.2 percent of Belo Horizonte'sdelegates came to identify themselves as inter-

ested nonpartisans.In general, however, Table 4 supports the results seen for civil
society: the lion's share of the hypothesized spillover effect from participationin the
OP to participationin organized political society came primarilyfrom individuals
who were previously active in political society. This same group was also the most
likely to continue to participatein the OP beyond the first year. At the same time,
between 60 and 80 percent of the delegates who were inactive in political society
prior to their involvement in the OP remained inactive in political society despite
their OP activism. They were also the most likely not to participatein the OP beyond
one year. Once again, the data do not show much empowermentof previouslydisen-
gaged citizens.

Assessing the Evidence

The empowermentthesis implies that new arenasof popularparticipationsuch as the

OrgamentoParticipativo can engage historically excluded sectors of the population,
therebyencouraginggreaterparticipationand pluralismin other arenasof democrat-
ic politics. Evidence that the OP in Belo Horizonte and Betim tended not to engage
previously disengaged citizens clearly challenges this thesis. Instead,most OP dele-
gates were already engaged civil and/or political society activists. These same pre-
OP activists also accounted for a disproportionateshare of the spillover effects of
new participationin civil and political society, and they tended to participatelonger

Table 4 Political Society Participationby Pre-OPPolitical Society Activism

BELO Member Party Militant Candidate Militant Party Sympathizer

HORIZONTEActive Inactive Active Inactive Active ctive active
Pre-OP 150(33%)0 73(16%) 0 ] 47(10.3%) 0 192(42.2%12(316%)
Timeof Survey7175(38.5% 11(3.3%) 79(17.4%) 12(0.6%) 56(12.3%) 12 (3.6%) 183(40.2% 38 (11.3%)

Voter
Disinterested
Non-Partisan
Interested Non-Voter
Disinterested
Active Inactive Active Inactive Active Inactive
Pre-OP 119(26.2%0 0 307(91.1%)j0 30(8.9%)
Timeof Survey 106(23.3% 31 (9.2%) P29(6.4%) 244 (72.4%)3(0.7%) 20(5.9%)
n = 792(%= of ActiveorInactive
delegates)

BETIM Member Party Militant Candidate Militant Part Sympatbizer

Active Inactiiv e Inactive lActive Inactive Active iactive
Pre-OP 47(37%) 0 [25(19.7%) 15(1i.8%) 73(57.5%) (13.9%)
Timeof Survey63 (49.6%) 1 (2.8%) 37 (29.1%) 1 (2.8%) 117(13.4%) 12(5.6%) 64 (50.4% 4 (38.9%)j
DisinterestedVoter
InterestedNon-Partisan DisinterestedNon-Voter
Active tive Active Active Inactive
Pre-OP
18(14.2%)0 36(100%)
Timeof Survey16(12.6%)2(5,6%%)
21(58.3%)0
active

n = 163(%= of Activeor inactivedelegates)

138
 WilliamR. Nylen

in the OP,thereby gaining disproportionatelyfrom the democraticlearning assumed

to accrue to veteranparticipants.
Nevertheless, the OP and by implication similar experiments in participatory
democracyhave not been failures. First, sustainingpopularpolitical activism is itself
an importantchallenge to countriesundergoingdemocratic consolidation.51The ten-
dency of previously active delegates to become even more active during their OP
experience, although it does not conform precisely to the prediction (and hope) of
the empowermentthesis, should not be dismissed. The Brazilian women's movement
can serve as an example.

Therestorationof Braziliandemocracyremovedsomeof themotivationforunityamongdisparate

wingsof thewomen'smovementandpresentedthemwithnewchallenges.As middle-classwomen
activistsbecamemoreinvolvedwithpoliticalpartiesin the new democraticorder,theytendedto
lose theircontactswith communitygroupsrepresenting the urbanpoor.Indeed,in manyLatin
Americannationstherestoration hadtheironiceffectof demobilizing
of democracy women.52

In the context of diminishing space for grass-rootspolitical activism in Brazil's new

democracy, the OP provided an importantspace for sustaining nonelite grass-roots
activism. It kept community activists from either moving up or being coopted into
party politics and public administrationor succumbing to political disillusionment
and apathy.The OP constituted a meeting ground for popular sector activists from
different geographical areas and causes and provided them an opportunityto build
and maintainhorizontal solidarities and networks and to learn how to compete and
negotiate democraticallyfor scarce public resources.
Second, the OP stimulated a revitalizing democratizationof local nonelite com-
munity groups and organizations,therebyfostering the civic consciousness (or social
capital) so centralto recent analyses of democraticdisengagement.Many communi-
ty organizationsin Brazil and Latin America are far from being popular, and many
more are characterizedby an actively clientelistic engagement in political machine
politics that demobilizes and disempowersthe membership.53However, Gay's work
on Rio de Janeirofavela organizations,Abers's work on the OP-inducedrenovation
of neighborhoodorganizationsin Porto Alegre, Somarriba'swork on neighborhood
organizations in Belo Horizonte in the 1980s, and the works of Cardoso and
Hochstetler on Brazilian social movements in general emphasize that such results
are not necessary.54In Belo Horizonte one regional administratordescribed how the
OP had stimulateddemocraticchanges in many of his region's neighborhoodassoci-
ations.

associationsperceivetheirrole....People
TheOPhas changedthe wayneighborhood in
participate
the OP to benefit the community and they work to get the neighborhood association to do the
type.But manymorehavebeen renovated,
same.Manyexist thatare still of the traditional with
newactivemembers
anda newleadership.55

139
ComparativePolitics January2002

In repeated visits to neighborhoods in Belo Horizonte and Betim that had actively
participated in the OP, I observed such processes of renovation and contestation
between mobilized OP delegates and long-time leaders of the more traditionalneigh-
borhood associations. Although previously inactive OP delegates in Belo Horizonte
and Betim tended to remain inactive outside of their brief foray into participatory
decision making in the OP,they were much less likely to remain inactive in neigh-
borhood associations. In line with Abers's similar conclusion about Porto Alegre,
well-designed institutionalinnovationsprovidingmeaningful opportunitiesfor polit-
ically active nonelites to participateat the level of the neighborhoodsin which they
live can be effective in transformingformerinstrumentsof neighborhoodclientelism
and citizen demobilization into instrumentsof grass-roots participationand repre-
sentation.56
Finally, OP delegates were overwhelminglypopular or nonelite and thus had the
potential to enhance and pluralize democratic representation.Clearly, OP activism
coincided with neighborhoodrepresentation;in being elected by their neighborsand
in setting collective budgetarypriorities and distributingcollective resources,dele-
gates' efficacious activism translated into efficacious representation.To the extent
that their neighbors perceived delegates to be defending and promoting collective
interests (made more likely by the open natureof OP deliberations),they may have
come to feel better representedin the political process as a whole even if they did
not desire to participatethemselves.

Conclusion

Has the OP empowered?Does participationbeget even more participation?The data

on Belo Horizonte and Betim focus on the alreadydisengaged and are mostly nega-
tive. Nevertheless, the OP sustainedand even developed democraticactivism among
nonelite activists and those who had been active in the past. It is just as importantto
make more effective use of existing supplies of a precious resource, such as nonelite
democratic activism, as it is to find new supplies of the resource. Moreover,the
essentially nonelite composition of the OP's participantscontrastedwith the normal-
ly elite membershipof the formal institutionsof representativedemocracy.
Belo Horizonte and Betim clearly demonstrate that participatory institutional
innovations like the OP can effect this qualified form of empowerment among
nonelite activists and former activists. Theoretically,this qualified empowermentby
means of (re)constructingsecondary institutional,representativelinkages to the state
can be beneficial in the process of democraticdevelopment.57Whetherparticipatory
institutionalinnovationslike the OP will effect this qualified form of empowerment
depends, above all, on the motivations of OP designers and administrators.Analysis
of this point falls outside the purview of this article. However, it seems safe to say

140
 WilliamR. Nylen

that,to the extent thatparticipatoryinstitutionalinnovationsare designed and admin-

istered by government leaders and administrativepersonnel with a commitment to
democracy and social justice, as opposed to clientelistic mobilization and rhetorical
showcasing, then the qualified form of empowerment seen in Belo Horizonte and
Betim shows how participatorydemocracy can resurrect the promise (and maybe
even the appeal) of representativedemocracy.

NOTES

The authorwishes to thank respondentsand administrativepersonnel from Betim and Belo Horizonte, as
well as members of the faculty, administration,and staff of the Escola de Governo of the FundagdoJodo
Pinheiro in Belo Horizonte. I would also like to thank Anne Hallum, Phil Mauceri, Robert Gay, Donna
Vann Cott, and two anonymous readers for ComparativePolitics for comments on earlier drafts and to
John Schorrfor help in the statisticalanalysis.
1. For participatoryand deliberative democracy,see Carole Pateman,Participation and Democratic
Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy:
Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Don Eberly,
Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century (Lanham: University Press of
America, 1994); Michael Kaufman and Haraldo Dilla Alfonso, eds., CommunityPower and Grassroots
Democracy: The Transformationof Social Life (London: Zed Books, 1997); Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative
Democracy (New York:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998); RichardA. Couto, Making Democracy Work
Better: Mediating Structures,Social Capital, and the Democratic Prospect (Chapel Hill: University of
North CarolinaPress, 1999); Brian O'Connell, Civil Society: The UnderpinningsofAmerican Democracy
(Medford:Tufts University Press, 1999); BarbaraCruikshank,The Willto Empower:Democratic Citizens
and Other Subjects (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999); and Rebecca Abers, Inventing Local
Democracy: GrassrootsPolitics in Brazil (Bolder: Lynne Rienner,2000). For the adoptionof participatory
practices within the internationaldevelopment community, see Matthias Stiefel and Marshall Wolfe, A
Voicefor the Excluded: Popular Participation in Development: Utopia or Necessity? (London: Zed
Books, 1994); and Mike Douglass and John Friedmann,eds., Citiesfor Citizens: Planning and the Rise of
Civil Society in a GlobalAge (New York:JohnWiley, 1998). For the post-cold-warLeft's adoptionof par-
ticipatory democracy,see Marcelo Cavarozzi,"The Left in Latin America: The Decline of Socialism and
the Rise of Political Democracy,"in Augusto Varas, Lars G. Schoultz, and JonathynHartlyn, eds., The
United States and Latin America in the 1990s: Beyond the Cold War(Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1992), pp. 101-27; and Jorge G. Castafieda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left
after the Cold War(New York:Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
2. The concept of empowermentas a process of democratic learning by doing with spillover effects
into furtherdemocraticparticipationis similar to the concept of civil society "thickening."See Jonathan
Fox, "How Does Civil Society Thicken? The Political Constructionof Social Capital in Rural Mexico,"
WorldDevelopment,24 (1996), 1089-1103.
3. RobertD. Putnam,"Bowling Alone: America'sDeclining Social Capital,"Journal ofDemocracy, 6
(January1995), 66-70.
4. Voter Turnoutfrom 1945 to 1997: A Global Report on Political Participation (Stockholm:
InternationalInstitutefor Democracy and ElectoralAssistance, 1997).
5. Folha de Sdo Paulo, Sept. 13, 1998; also, Ler 1998, Sept. 10, 1998.
6. Estado de Minas, July 28, 1998; Andre Petry, "AtenQio Com Eles," Veja, 566 (September 30,
1998), 38.

141
ComparativePolitics January 2002

7. Ibid.
8. Folha de Sdo Paulo, Apr. 9, 1999.
9. Elizabeth Jelin, "Building Citizenship: A Balance between Solidarity and Responsibility," in
Joseph S. Tulchinand Bernice Romero, eds., The Consolidationof Democracy in LatinAmerica(Boulder:
LynneRienner/WoodrowWilson Center, 1995), p. 87.
10. John Higley and Richard Gunther,eds., Elites and Democratic Consolidation in LatinAmerica
and SouthernEurope (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992).
11. See Douglas A. Chalmers, "The Politicized State in Latin America," in James M. Malloy, ed.,
Authoritarianismand Corporatismin Latin America (Pittsburgh:University of PittsburghPress, 1977),
pp. 23-45; Frances Hagopian, "Traditional Power Structures and Democratic Governance in Latin
America,"in Jorge I. Dominguez and AbrahamE Lowenthal,eds., ConstructingDemocratic Governance:
Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s-Themes and Issues (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996), pp. 64-86; Carlos M. Vilas, "Participation,Inequality,and the Whereaboutsof
Democracy,"in Douglas A. Chalmers,Carlos M. Vilas, KatherineHite, Scott B. Martin,KeriannePiester,
and Monique Segarra,eds., TheNew Politics of Inequalityin LatinAmerica: RethinkingParticipationand
Representation(New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1997), pp. 15-17, 20-26.
12. Jorge I. Dominguez and Jeanne Kinney Giraldo, "Conclusion: Parties, Institutions,and Market
Reforms in ConstructingDemocracies,"in Dominguez and Lowenthal,eds., pp. 5, 18, and 21.
13. See Leigh A. Payne, Uncivil Movements:TheArmedRight Wingand Democracy in LatinAmerica
(Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Aldo Panfichi, "The AuthoritarianAlternative:
'Anti-Politics'in the PopularSectors in Lima,"in Chalmers,Vilas, Hite, Martin,Piester,and Segarra,eds.,
pp. 225-32.
14. On Brazil, see B61livarLamounier,A Democracia Brasileira no Limiar do Siculo 21 (Sao Paulo:
Fundadio Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung/Pesquisas No 5, 1996), pp. 34-35; Kurt Weyland,Democracywith-
out Equity:Failures of Reformin Brazil (Pittsburgh:University of PittsburghPress, 1996).
15. See Jelin, pp. 83-87; John Markoff, Wavesof Democracy:Social Movementsand Political Change
(Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 1996); and John S. Dryzek, Democracy in Capitalist Times:Ideals,
Limits,and Struggles (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1996).
16. Dryzek, p. 4.
17. Hagopian, p. 68; also, Amanda Sives, "Elite Behaviour and Corruption in the Consolidationof
Democracy in Brazil,"ParliamentaryAffairs, 46 (1993), 549-62; Eliza Reis and Ziro Cheibub,"Elites'
Political Values and Democratic Consolidation in Brazil,"in Eva Etzioni-Halevy,ed., Classes and Elites
in Democracyand Democratization(New York:Garland,1997), pp. 222-29.
18. See Abers; MargaretHollis Peirce, "Bolivia's PopularParticipationLaw: A Case of Decentralized
Decision Making," (Ph.D. diss., University of Miami, 1998), pp. 14-16. Peter Winn and Lilia Ferro-
Clerico, "Can a Leftist Government Make a Difference? The Frente Amplio Administration of
Montevideo, 1990-1994," in Chalmers,Vilas, Hite, Martin,Piester,and Segarra,eds., pp. 447-68.
19. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracyin America(GardenCity: Doubleday,1969).
20. New Tocquevillians include Amitai Etzioni, ed., Rights and the Common Good: The
Communitarian Perspective (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995); Putnam; Couto; Cruikshank;and
Eberly.
21. See Alfred P. Montero, "Devolving Democracy? Political Decentralizationand the New Brazilian
Federalism,"in Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, eds., Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions,
and Processes (Pittsburgh:University of PittsburghPress, 2000), pp. 58-76.
22. See Tereza Sales, "Raizes da Desigualdade Social na Cultura Politica Brasileira," in Revista
Brasileiradas Ciencias Sociais, 25 (June 1994), 26-37.
23. Jiirgen Habermas,Structural Transformationof the Public Sphere:An Inquiry into a Category of
Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989); LeonardoAvritzer, cited in Brian Wampler,
"ParticipatoryPublics and the Executive: ParticipatoryBudgeting Programsin Recife and PortoAlegre,"

142
 WilliamR. Nylen

paper preparedfor the 2000 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, March 16-18,
2000. Such argumentscan be found in Albert Hirschman,"The Principleof Conservationand Mutationof
Social Energy,"in Sheldon Annis and Peter Hakim, eds., Direct to the Poor: GrassrootsDevelopment in
Latin America (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1988), pp. 7-14; and Michael Walzer, "The Civil Society
Argument,"in Ronald Beiner, ed., TheorizingCitizenship(Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), pp. 153-74.
24. Proponents include Hagopian; Dominguez and Kinney Giraldo; and Bryan R. Roberts, "A
Dimensdo Social da Cidadania,"Revista Brasileira das CidnciasSociais, 33 (February1997), 5-22.
25. See William R. Nylen, "Reconstructing the Workers' Party (PT): Lessons from North-Eastern
Brazil,"in Chalmers,Vilas, Hite, Martin,Piester, and Segarra,eds., 421-46.
26. See PedroJacobi and fEdisonNunes, "Movimentossociais urbanosna decada de 80: Mudanqasna
teoria e na pritica," Espago and Debates, 10 (1983), 61-77; Kathryn Hochstetler, "Democratizing
Pressures from Below? Social Movements in the New Brazilian Democracy,"in Kingstone and Power,
eds., pp. 167-82.
27. See Kingstone and Power,eds.
28. The definitive work on the early years of the PT is Margaret Keck, The Workers'Party and
Democratizationin Brazil (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1992).
29. See Keck; MartaHarnecker,O Sonho Era Possivel: A hist6ria do Partido dos Trabalhadoresnar-
rada por seus protagonistas (Havana: MEPLA/Casa America Livre, 1994); Ladislau Dowbor,
"Decentralizationand Governance,"Latin American Perspectives, 25 (January 1998), 51-52; Rebecca
Abers, "FromIdeas to Practice:The Partido dos Trabalhadoresand ParticipatoryGovernancein Brazil,"
Latin American Perspectives, 23 (1996), 35-53; and William R. Nylen, "The Making of a Loyal
Opposition:The Workers'Party (PT) and the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil," in Kingstone and
Power,eds., pp. 126-43.
30. Maria Helena Moreira Alves, "Something Old, Something New: Brazil's Partido dos
Trabalhadores,"in Barry Carrand Steve Ellner, eds., TheLatinAmericanLeft: From the Fall ofAllende to
Perestroika(Boulder:Westview, 1993), pp. 225-42.
31. Vilas, p. 24, identifies public works spending as one of four "basic public institutions"through
which the always tenuioussocial contractbetween the state and popular classes in Latin America has his-
torically been expressed. The others are the school, the hospital, and employment. He argues that neolib-
eralism in the 1980s and 1990s inflicted heavy damage on these institutions.
32. RicardoTavares,"The PT Experience in PortoAlegre,"NACLAReport on the Americas, 29 (July-
August 1995), 29. For the Porto Alegre experience, see Abers; Tarso Genro and Ubiratan de Souza,
OrgamentoParticipativo:A experiencia de Porto Alegre, 2nd ed. (Sdo Paulo: Editora Fundaqio Perseu
Abramo, 1997). A crucial contextualvariable is the relative financial security and autonomy of Brazilian
municipalities following the 1988 constitution (and preceding ongoing recentralizingreforms that began
in 1997): 36 percent of total tax revenues went to the federal government,42 percent to the states, and 21
percent to municipalities.Meanwhile, in 1991 63.44 percent of all taxes were collected by the federal gov-
ernment, 31.15 percent by the states, and 5.41 percent by municipalities. See Gil Shidlo, "Local Urban
Elections in Democratic Brazil,"in Henry A. Dietz and Gil Shidlo, eds., Urban Elections in Democratic
Latin America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1998), pp. 63-90; and Pedro Luiz Barros Silva, "A
Natureza do Conflito Federativono Brasil,"in Eli Diniz and Sergio de Azevedo, eds., Reforma do Estado
e Democracia no Brasil (Brasilia: EditoraUniversidade de Brasilia, 1997), p. 357; also, David Samuels,
"ReinventingLocal Government?Municipalities and IntergovernmentalRelations in Democratic Brazil,"
in Kingstone and Power,eds., pp. 77-98.
33. See Jorge Bittar, ed., O Modo Petista de Governar (Sdo Paulo: Teoria and Debate, 1992); Ines
Magalhdes, Luiz Barreto, and Vicente Trevas, eds., Governo e Cidadania: Balango e Reflex5es Sobre o
Modo Petista de Governar (Sdo Paulo: FundagqoPerseu Abramo, 2000); Cidadania e Democracia-O
que acontece nas cidades em que o PT Governo(Sdo Paulo: FundaqgoFlorestanFernandes,2000).
34. For a more detailed discussion of Betim's OP, see William R. Nylen, "PopularParticipation in

143
ComparativePolitics January2002

Brazil's Workers'Party: 'Democratizing Democracy' in Municipal Politics,"Political Chronicle,Journal

of the Florida Political Science Association, 8 (1996), 1-9.
35. This sample of OP delegates was not randomlyselected from a randomlyselected sample of PT-
administeredOP processes. Sampling errors such as self-selection and literacy (only partiallyoffset by
the use of paid assistantsto help illiteratedelegates fill out the questionnaire)must be taken into consider-
ation. As with any exploratory analysis, results should be taken as suggestive. They do not necessarily
reflect all participantsin PT-administeredOP processes.
36. While men constituted the majority in both cases, women are far more underrepresentedin
Brazil's formal political institutions. For example, only two of Betim's twenty city council members in
1997 (10 percent) were women; six of Belo Horizonte'sthirty-seven council members in 1998 (16 per-
cent) were women; five of the seventy-seven state deputies in the legislative assembly of Minas Gerais
elected in 1998 (6 percent)were women.
37. CBMM/FJP,Perfil de Minas Gerais/Guide to the Economy of Minas Gerais (Cia. Brasileira de
Metalurgiae Mineraqdo/Fundagqo Jodo Pinheiro, 1998), p. 150.
38. Estado de Minas, Mar. 13, 1998; Diario da Tarde,Dec. 12, 1997.
39. See Frances Hagopian, TraditionalPolitics and Regime Change in Brazil (New York:Cambridge
University Press, 1996).
40. See Joseph L. Love, "Federalismo y Regionalismo en Brasil, 1889-1937" in Marcello
Carmagnani, ed., Federalismos latinoamericanos: MVxico/Brasil/Argentina(Mexico: El Colegio de
Mexico), pp. 196-98, 204-13; Aspisia Camargo,"La Federaci6nSometida:Nacionalismo Desarrollistay
InestabilidadDemocritica," in Carmagnani,eds., pp. 300-57.
41. SecretariaMunicipal de Planejamento/PBH,"Numeros de ParticipaCdonos OP 94, 95, 96, 97 e
98" (mimeo, 1987).
42. Projetos do PTpara o HabitatII (Sdo Paulo: Diret6rioNacional do PT, 1996), p. 18.
43. Forboth Belo Horizonteand Betim these OP figures representedincreases from previousyears. In
1998 both Betim and Belo Horizontebegan to incorporatemore of their budgets within the 1999-2000
OP processes.
44. The lack of a before and after comparison is a problemwith Merces Somarribaand Otavio Dulci,
"PrimeiroRelat6rio de Atividades da Pesquisa 'Avalicaqdoda Experiencia de Implantagqoe Atuaqdode
Foruns de ParticipaqgoPopularna AdministragqoMunicipal de Belo Horizonte-Periodo 1993-1996"'
(mimeo, July 1995).
45. I includedonly the responses of delegates who indicatedboth currentand pre-OPcivil society par-
ticipation. In Belo Horizonte valid responses numbered966 of 1,086 respondents(89 percent).In Betim
valid responses numbered186 among 222 respondents(85 percent).
46. Significance is measured by a two-tailed comparison of means, with scores less than .05 deter-
mined to be practicallysignificant.
47. The index of unionization throughout Brazil fell from 27.2 percent in 1989 to 16.2 percent by
1995.
48. If "no responses"are excluded from the data, the numberof valid responses in this section is 792
delegates for Belo Horizonte and 163 delegates for Betim. The large percentageof delegates in both cases
(25.8 percent of Belo Horizonte'srespondentsand 26.6 percentof Betim's) who either did not answerthe
questions on political society activism or who answeredonly the pre-OP or time-of-surveyportionor who
registered contradictory answers is likely to include more nonactivists than activists, thereby skewing
these results to some extent.
49. Partymilitancyrefers to active membershipin a politicalparty.Many Braziliansstatethatthey vote
for or arc active on behalf of individuals,not parties.Candidatemilitancytriesto capturethis antipartybutnot
antipoliticalsentiment.Partysympathyis commonly used in Brazil to express a less committedmeasureof
partyidentification.Disinterestedvoters are those claimingto have no interestin partypolitics but who still
vote in elections.Disinterestednonvotersrepresentthe extremeof disengagementfrompartypolitics.

144
 WilliamR. Nylen

50. Inactive refers to delegates who indicated they were either disinterested voters or disinterested
nonvoters.All others are regardedas active in political society, ranging from interestednonpartisanvoters
to party activists. A few disinterestedvoters indicated sympathy for a political party. Rather than score
this response as a contradiction,I consideredit a reasonableresponse.
51. See Philip Oxhorn, Organizing Civil Society: The Popular Sectors and the Strugglefor Democracy
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); also Kenneth M. Roberts, Deepening
Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru (Stanford: StanfordUniversity
Press, 1999).
52. Howard Handelman, The Challenge of Third WorldDevelopment, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River:
PrenticeHall, 2000), p. 92. For critical analysis of Brazil, see Hochstetler.
53. Ibid., p. 175.
54. Robert Gay, Popular Organizations and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: A Tale of Two Favelas
(Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1994); Abers; Merces Somarriba,"Movimento Reivindicat6rio
Urbano e Politica em Belo Horizonte: Balango de uma Decada," Textos:Sociologia e Antropologia, 43
(July-September1993), 1-25; Ruth Cardoso, "Os Movimentos Populares no Contexto da Consolidagio
Democritica," in Guillermo O'Donnell and Fabio W. Reis, eds., A Democracia no Brasil: Dilemas e
Perspectivas(Rio de Janeiro:VWrtice,1988), pp. 368-82; and Hochstetler.
55. Interviewwith Adonis Pereira,Regional Administratorfor the Northern Zone of Belo Horizonte,
November 11, 1998.
56. Abers.
57. In the words of one anonymous reader of an earlier draft of this article, "the central logic of the
participation/empowermentthesis is one about the quality of democracy that results, and so a summary
argumentthat turns on the quality of the participationof some is at least as relevant as one that turns on
the quantityof people mobilized and the numberof ways they participate."

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