How Can You Participate in Democracy Beyond Elections? Participatory Budgeting is an Inspiring - and Growing - Option.

What can the United States learn from Brazil about participating in democracy?

In the United States, we spend an enormous amount of time talking about elections.

Who can vote in a primary election? Who can vote in a general election? Can they vote by mail or only in person? Should they need to present a government identification to be able to cast their voteHow long will it take to count the ballots? Will there be a recount?

These are important questions. Free and fair elections are the foundation of democracy.

At the same time, elections should be only a few moments in a much longer relationship between citizens and their government.

What’s the role of a citizen beyond regularly casting a ballot?

For many Americans, the answer really is unclear. We elect representatives, follow the news, perhaps contact an elected official when something goes wrong, and then wait until the next election.

Unfortunately, even those forms of limited participation aren’t universal: less than 65% of the voting age population in the United States actually voted in the 2024 general election, and only about one in four (around 21%!) of Americans report contacting a government official in a given year.

Brazil offers a different idea worth exploring.

A Brazilian Experiment: Participatory Budgeting

In 1989, as Brazil was rebuilding its democracy after more than two decades of military dictatorship, the city of Porto Alegre launched an experiment called participatory budgeting.

Rather than leaving every spending decision exclusively to elected officials, the city invited ordinary residents to help decide how a portion of the municipal budget would be spent.

Neighbors came together to identify priorities, debate ideas and recommend investments in projects like parks, schools, sidewalks, sanitation and public transportation.

The idea was remarkably simple:

The people most affected by public spending should have a voice in how that money is spent.

Participatory budgeting did not replace representative government. Elected officials still made policy, and city staff still determined what was feasible. But it created another doorway into democracy. Citizens weren't simply choosing leaders every few years. They were helping solve problems together.

The idea became internationally recognized and has since inspired communities around the world. One such community is in my own city of Chicago.

In 2009, Chicago's 49th Ward became the first jurisdiction in the United States to implement participatory budgeting. Residents were invited to propose neighborhood improvements and vote on how a portion of the ward's infrastructure funds would be invested.

The story of Chicago’s 49th Ward captures what excites me most about the Brazilian Blueprint.

International learning isn't about finding a country that has everything figured out.

It's about collaboration and discovering new ways to implement sound democratic principles.

Brazil developed an innovative way to involve citizens in public decision-making.

Chicago adapted it to our own local context - as other places have begun to do across the United States.

Both countries can continue learning from each other about what works, and what doesn't.

Is There One Magical Solution?

Participatory budgeting hasn't solved all of Brazil's political challenges.

These programs require committed leadership, public trust and resources to succeed. In some places, participation has grown; in others it has declined. Like any democratic innovation, participatory budgeting depends on people continuing to invest in it. But perhaps that's the point:

Democracy isn't something we perfect once and for all.

Stories Change Power is among an increasing number of organizations to recognize that democracy is a verb, not a noun, and it’s something we practice.

As our delegation prepares to travel to Brazil this October, we're not going because Brazil has “solved democracy.”

We're going because both of our countries are wrestling with polarization, declining trust, inequality and questions about how citizens can meaningfully shape public life.

Brazil's experiment with participatory budgeting models for us ways that democracy can be more than voting every few years. That feels like a lesson worth exploring.

Sheila Maloney

Brazilian Blueprint Director

Read about what’s been called “revolutionary civics in action” and see the dozens of cities who have worked with the Participatory Budgeting Process.

For more on international PB efforts, see this article from the Brennan Center.