Plebiscite model of participatory budgeting and public values in Poland

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to conduct an axiological and legal analysis of the most popular model of participatory budgeting in Poland (the plebiscite model), being a special form of public consultation that allows the residents to decide each year on a part of the commune’s budget expenditure by direct voting. According to the paper’s hypothesis, both the PB legal rules as well as the practice of its application in Poland are not axiologically neutral, which means that they have a positive or negative impact on certain public values, appropriately strengthening or violating them. In the research, the combination of three coherent methods was used: (i) a literature analysis, (ii) the dogmatic and legal method, and (iii) interviews conducted with three groups of PB participants, i.e. municipal officials responsible for the organization of PB procedure, municipal councillors, and residents. The research covers six Polish cities and bases on a catalogue of nodal public values including: human dignity, sustainability, citizen involvement, openness, secrecy, compromise, integrity, and robustness. The research leads to the conclusion that the plebiscite BP in Poland is not axiologically neutral, its rules have both a positive and negative impact on particular nodal public values, however the scale of negative impact is greater than the scale of the positive one.

Keywords

• public values
• integrity
• public participation
• legal norms
• axiology
• participatory budgeting