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The "third wave" of democratization has been accompanied by the spread of new institutions that allow citizens to deliberate and decide policy outcomes. Leading international organizations, such as the World Bank and the United Nations, have disseminated "best practice" programs identified with "good government" policy reform efforts. One of the most well-known programs, Participatory Budgeting (PB), was first adopted by Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) in 1989 as a means to promote social justice, accountability, and transparency. There has been widespread adoption of PB in Brazil, led by the PT. Yet, by 2001, nearly half of PB programs had been adopted by non-PT governments. What explains why municipal governments in Brazil, especially non-PT governments, would adopt PB programs? This article estimates the probability that a municipality would adopt PB using logistic regression analysis to test a model that included electoral, economic, regional, and policy network variables. This article concludes by briefly analyzing whether governments that adopt PB are able to produce policy outcomes similar to the initial results that inspired the "best practice" label. This introduces the question: When should best practice programs be promoted for possible adoption? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do civil society organizations have a didactic role in instructing its members about politics that extrapolates the immediate issues of interest of that organization? Most of the literature, especially that on the role of the participatory budgeting process of the Workers´ Party in Brazil, claims that such meetings are an opportunity structure for individuals to come together and not only debate their local problems, but also discuss politics more broadly. The same logic applies to other forms of activism, such as participation in Labor Unions, political parties, neighborhood associations and even church groups. This paper attempts to test, using a unique public opinion panel dataset of Brazilian voters collected in the 2002 elections, if activists are, in fact, better informed about politics, specifically, about campaign issues. In addition, the paper also tests if potential informational gaps caused by gender, race and class are attenuated by participation in civil society organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the growing interest about alternative forms of political participation, among which the participatory budget (OP), we know little about how this form of involvement is affecting the structuring of a more efficient social contract. Such situation, perhaps, is due to the fact that the payment of taxes is considered a legal obligation; therefore, the argument is that there would be little to be studied on this field. This article argues that how citizens position themselves about the payment of taxes influences other domains of politics, such as institutional trust and levels of political involvement. Through a survey with porto-alegrenses, the results indicate that the existence of a negative structural dimension insofar as payment of taxes is concerned undermines the actual social contract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]