Local Government
56
Large Cities
2
Capital Cities
5
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
7
Local Government
56
Large Cities
2
Capital Cities
5
Regional or State Governments
0
National Government
0
Other Institutions
7
Community
Capital
Rome
Population
60 431 280
Language
Italian
Currency
Euro
Indexes
Democracy
33
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
33
Flawed Democracy
Democracy
Corruption Perception
53/180
Corruption Perception
Corruption Perception
53/180
Corruption Perception
Human Development
28
Very High
Human Development
Human Development
28
Very High
Human Development
World Happiness
36/156
World Happiness
World Happiness
36/156
World Happiness
Legislation Regarding the Regulation of Participatory Budgeting Experiences
We have several Regional Laws focused on promoting participatory processes at a local scale. We only have a Regional law in Sicily focused on participation on a budget: it just subordinates (a small amount of) the money transfer from the Region to the Municipality to the implementation of a participatory process. It does not specify the methodology which can therefore be (and it is) extremely vague.
Outstanding Innovation
There is a quite important innovation which is about the introduction of the crowdfunding in the narrative of PB: a small city (Vigolzone) asked the citizens for a small percentage of co-founding to award a project; then, there is an ongoing PB developed in a prison which is aiming to get the total amount of budget from the bottom-up through a crowdfunding process and the search for sponsorship. This was quite obvious since the same PB process is organized free of charge by an NGO in order to build a civic-based participatory process. The second innovation is about the introduction of the PB in the high schools: the students are entitled to decide over a small budget provided by the school administration.
Principal Tendencies Detected
There are not real tendencies detected: few municipalities are moving towards youth PBs, some municipalities are now approaching online voting tools by using internal or external platforms. There is a general collapse of PB process (and interest in participation), due also to the so called “populist” wave occurring at the national level which is bringing many right-wing parties to the city government. The fact that PB has never become an initiative to promote social justice, remaining a tool in the hands of well-off people, made it less and less attractive to the rising political forces.
Participatory Budgeting Processes Promoted by Other Type of Institution
1 PB was promoted by Airbnb in conjunction with (and for the citizens of) the Municipality of Palermo;5 PB were promoted by and performed in high schools; 1 PB was promoted by an NGO within a prison (in crowdfunding); Total 7.
