Introduction

Without a doubt, participatory budgeting (PB) is the most frequently used democratic innovation and the most popular tool for directly involving citizens in the process of public funds distribution. According to the PB World Atlas, there were roughly 11,690– 11,825 PBs worldwide in 2019, though the actual number is certainly much higher (Dias et al, 2019). Though PBs are something of a calling card for democratic innovation and radical democracy, they are a double-edged sword. Over the last 30 years, they have undergone dramatic evolution. In their infancy in Brazil, they were strongly leftist and even class-centric in orientation. The ambition of their initiators was to shake up the local political landscape, radically democratize it, change the rules of the political game, and empower the lower classes. PB aimed to break up the system in which the political elite, surrounded by a wreath of interest groups, made up the decision-making core (Baiocchi, 2005; Avritzer, 2006, pp 623– 37; Wampler, 2007; Baiocchi et al, 2011). Brazilian PBs were successful in pushing through the process of power redistribution and democratization. There, the leading example was Porto Alegre. A participatory revolution such as that had to meet a number of criteria. Firstly, it had to be holistic, not partial. The key to success was making public funds acquisition impossible outside of PB (Baiocchi, 2005). If not for that, it would have been impossible to eliminate the behind-the-scenes games of interests and political corruption.