The Quest for Efficient Deliberation and Proximity Democracy: The Case of Participatory Budgeting in Helsinki
All over the world, citizens have a say on how their hometowns focus parts of their budgets. Participatory budgeting is a democratic innovation for urban development also in Helsinki, where the process is called OmaStadi. With direct democracy, online democracy and co-creation as their assets, the local people had a chance to debate, discuss and vote for the allocation of 4,4, million euros in 2018-2020. In our academic evaluation report, we analyse the OmaStadi process using versatile methods and sources. The end result is an overall evaluation of success, lessons learned and recommendations.
Read the article by Pekka Tuominen, Mikko Rask and Titiana Ertiö in EuropeNow
https://www.europenowjournal.org/issues/issue-41-may-2021/
Final evaluation report:
https://bibu.fi/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BIBU_OmaStadi_English.pdf