2018 Dataset of Participatory Budgeting in Italy

The mapping procedure departed from the existing literature on PB. Using existing documentation (APP 2015, 2017, 2019; Bassoli 2012; BiPart 2019; Emilia Romagna 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019; Sintomer and Allegretti 2009; Stortone and Allegretti, 2018), it was possible to identify some PB in Italy, mainly in Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Tuscany. Sicilian PB required particular attention because of the 5/2014 regional law (assigning at least 2% of Municipal budget to PB), thus we interviewed a key informant from the regional administration. During the period May 1 – June 30, 2019, we also apply a web search. According to the 4/2004 law, every municipality has to implement its own website; moreover, PB is a policy which needs to be advertised in all possible form (Bassoli 2010, Bassoli and Amura 2003), therefore we could assume that every recent PB was advertised online. We gathered information on the presence of PB using a standard mapping protocol using specific keywords (“Bilancio Partecipativo” and “Bilancio Partecipato”). We opted for the Google™ search-engine because it is the most widely used search engine and the one with a stronger user-led learning algorithm. We limited the research to the first 10 pages.