Between bureaucracy and local politics: Participatory budgeting in the Peruvian Andes

In 2004, Peru implemented a citizen participation mechanism called “participatory budgeting”. The government’s objective was to ensure the needs of citizens are considered in decision-making about public investment in their localities. Through this mechanism, community groups participate in prioritizing the sectors and projects to which the local government’s budget will be allocated. In practice, while there are strict central state regulations, participatory budgeting is carried out differently in each jurisdiction. This article seeks to understand how participatory budgeting interacts with local logics of public budget use. The analysis is based on ethnographic data from a rural region in the Peruvian Andes. It sheds light on how municipal authorities reappropriate participatory budgets as a way of formalizing their budgeting processes vis-à-vis the central state, allowing them to secure the continuity of fiscal transfers through compliance with strict public regulations. This article will contribute to the study of traveling models, particularly since it examines a South-South transfer of a policy model in Latin America.