For the few and under specific conditions. Participatory budgeting in Milan: evidence from an online survey on PB participants in Italy’s second largest city

ABSTRACT Participatory budgeting (PB) has become one of the most widely employed and extensively debated instruments in the field of participatory democracy. Its supporters have highlighted its ability to increase political participation and the empowerment of citizens. Critics have warned of its (lack of) capacity to be inclusive and to fulfil promises of greater transparency and effective empowerment of citizens. The present article, through the analysis of data collected among participants in the PB process in Milan, draws a picture of the average PB participant in order to understand the extent to which PB succeeds in including a representative cross-section of Milan population. The article finds that PB participants are on average older, richer, better educated, and more politically active than the average Milan resident, highlighting the failure of the city’s PB to engage representative cross-sections of the population. The article concludes by stressing the urgency of the need to reform practices of participatory democracy in order to make them more inclusive and therefore better able to achieve citizen empowerment.