A mixed-methods ethnographic approach to participatory budgeting in Scotland

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Scottish local authorities use the Consul digital platform for participatory budgeting, examining citizen engagement and the potential role of NLP tools in analyzing contributions for policy-making.

Contribution

It introduces a mixed-methods ethnographic approach to study the use of digital platforms in participatory budgeting and explores NLP's potential in facilitating citizen engagement and policy analysis.

Findings

Varied use of the Consul platform across authorities

Potential for NLP tools to enhance engagement and analysis

Insights into the transformation of PB from grassroots to policy instrument

Abstract

Participatory budgeting (PB) is already well established in Scotland in the form of community led grant-making yet has recently transformed from a grass-roots activity to a mainstream process or embedded 'policy instrument'. An integral part of this turn is the use of the Consul digital platform as the primary means of citizen participation. Using a mixed method approach, this ongoing research paper explores how each of the 32 local authorities that make up Scotland utilise the Consul platform to engage their citizens in the PB process and how they then make sense of citizens' contributions. In particular, we focus on whether natural language processing (NLP) tools can facilitate both citizen engagement, and the processes by which citizens' contributions are analysed and translated into policies.