Between Collective Action and Individual Appropriation

Françoise Montambeault and Camille Goirand
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Françoise Montambeault: Université de Montréal, Montréal
Camille Goirand: Institut des Hautes Études de l’Amérique latine, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle: Paris 3, and Centre d’études et de recherches administratives, politiques et sociales, Université Lille 2

Politics & Society, 2016, vol. 44, issue 1, 143-171

Abstract: Examining the concept of clientelism in analysis of participatory processes, we investigate how collective and individual action are articulated in practices in the case of participatory budgeting (PB) in Recife, Brazil. We use ethnographic work to look how collective actors mobilize within the PB process in Recife and show that PB’s territorial and redistributive nature provides fertile ground for informal exchanges to be entrenched in institutional processes at the micro level. Microsocial interactions between political entrepreneurs, intermediaries, and ordinary participants in Recife participatory practice are shaped by two processes: individualization of political loyalties and territorialization of politics. These, we argue, allow informal exchanges to coexist with institutionalized forms of collective action. PB presupposes that participants engage in local struggles and introduces competition and inequalities among them, as access to resources is conditioned by their ability to mobilize and enter into informal interactions that underlie political exchanges within PB.

Keywords: clientelism; collective action; participatory budgeting; informal politics; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:44:y:2016:i:1:p:143-171

DOI: 10.1177/0032329215617467

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