Review: De Vries, M. S., Nemec, J., and Špaček, D. (2022) International Trends in Participatory Budgeting: Between Trivial Pursuits and Best Practices, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, ISBN 978-3-030-79929-8.

Abstract

A decade ago, when many European countries were only commencing with participatory budgeting (PB), research literature remained fragmented and rather scarce. The book International Trends in Participatory Budgeting: Between Trivial Pursuits and Best Practices provides a unique report on the state of PB in Europe. In particular, it has a focus on Central Eastern European (CEE) cases in a comparative perspective. The book unveils to the reader the beginnings and first steps of PB implementation, and it opens a discussion on its development and durability. In the first chapter of the book, the authors emphasize the specific nature of the spread of PB. “When the innovative practice spread [...] something strange happened. The main intended effects and the unintended sideeffects of PB changed places. The main effects became secondary, and the unintended side-effects became major goals of PB” (p. 16). The book then in-depth details the practices and expected and unexpected results of PB implementation. The reader is invited to set out on a discovery through thirteen countries: Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Slovakia. As acknowledged by the authors, these countries were still a “black box” (p. 21), where hardly anything was known regarding PB developments. The authors naturally identified some countries as “old democracies” (Germany, Italy, Sweden) and used them as benchmarks for analysing the PB in the CEE region. They opened this black box, with each chapter dedicated to one country. The book also provides reasons for implementing the PB in each country, information on the stage of its implementation, and concludes with a statement of outcomes, their acceptance, and overall satisfaction with PB among decisionmakers and other participants in its implementation and sustention. The editors of the book are well-known authors in terms of local government, public administration, and budgeting innovations in and outside the CEE region. Following the previously published book Performancebased Budgeting in the Public Sector (2019), the editors Michiel de Vries,