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Mainstreaming deliberative democracy, starting from school
Participatory budget practices are not in any way a western practice, they should be, like deliberative practices of which they are part, a universal approach to really democratize democracy.
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Financing the future: Students of SD 3 Kalicari state elementary school in Semarang, Central Java attend a class on Nov. 2, 2023. (Antara/Makna Zaezar)
H
ow can democracies truly benefit people and offer them the best options to lead “good” lives comparative to authoritarian and one-party systems?
Under pressure from multiple fronts, democratic societies struggle to deliver. The authoritarian way looks like being able to deliver, promising a top-down, fast-track development that can uplift people out of poverty.
One of the best ways to strengthen democracy is instead working from the bottom, unleashing people’s energies and creativity through deliberative practices.
I have the hope that such democratic innovations, where people at local level meet and decide based on reasoned dialogue, could offer a powerful remedy not only to strengthen democracy but actually to reinvent it.
What about starting from schools? Imagine giving kids a voice, a say on how to allocate the budget or giving them a voice in monitoring how school budgets are spent. What about allowing young students to be in charge of some key aspects of their schools’ management like budgeting and the allocation of resources?
In a recent online seminar organized by PeoplePowered, a global not for profit, I came to know about some interesting initiatives in participatory budgeting at school level. Educating for Democracy, The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Schools is a new interesting resource that was presented and discussed over the event.
Edited by Daniel Schugurensky and Tara Bartlett, respectively, the director and associate director at Participatory Governance Initiative at Arizona State University, in the United States, the publication provides not only insights but also pathways to involve and engage students through budget-centered decision making.
