Participatory democracies: a slow march toward new paradigms from Brazil to Europe?

For many cities of different sizes, in different geographical contexts, both in the South as well as in the North of the world, this represents a crucial “bet” on which to invest human energies and creativity as well as intellectual and financial resources. So this challenge has been addressed worldwide by innovations in public policies, seeking to develop participatory mechanisms allowing citizens to share public actors’ responsibilities in decision making. One of them is Participatory Budgeting (PB).