Problems and Purpose

With China's rapid development, new situations and problems have emerged, with the level of social development lagging behind the level of economic development and the incongruity between the two causing some trouble (Yan 2012). The old management system and concepts can no longer fully cope with these changes and the government urgently needs to strengthen itself. The introduction of participatory budgeting was a response to this problem and expectation. The city of Harbin, located in northeastern China, was one of the first major cities to develop in China. The old administrative system is deeply rooted here and its drawbacks are obvious. Firstly, the structure of public expenditure is not balanced, the use of financial resources is inefficient, and there is financial waste and uneven distribution of resources. Secondly, the government does not function efficiently and administrative efficiency needs to be improved. The last is the low level of democratic participation of citizens, with most things being decided by the government, while citizens lack the motivation to participate democratically. These problems in Harbin are reflected in the city's rate of development which lags behind that of similarly sized coastal cities.

As a result, Harbin was chosen as one of the first pilot cities in China to carry out participatory budgeting reforms. Through the use of participatory budgeting, the Harbin government expects to improve the scientific and democratic nature of decision-making and rational use of fiscal funds; stimulate public enthusiasm for political participation, enhance democratic participation and promote social equity; improve the transparency of fiscal policies, avoid fiscal waste and promote the optimisation of public finance functions; and design public projects from the demand side to better deliver public services (Zhang 2010).

Background History and Context

Participatory budgeting is only in its infancy in China: 2005 saw the introduction of democratic consultation in the budget discussion and preparation process in the city of Xinhe in Wenling, Zhejiang. Other townships in Wenling soon adopted the model, and by 2008, four townships - Panheng, Jianguo, Binhai and Daxi - had also started to implement participatory budgeting, so that nearly half of the townships had implemented participatory budgeting, with five of them accounting for 70% of the total budget of the 11 townships.In 2006, the China Development Research Foundation summarised the economic development of the past few years and proposed its next work ideas and selected Binhu District and Beitang District in Wuxi as pilot areas, as well as Daoli District and Acheng District in Harbin as pilot areas to initially pilot and promote budget reform (Du 2010).

In 2006, at the initiative of the China Development Research Foundation, a pilot participatory budgeting exercise was carried out in Daoli and Acheng districts of Harbin. The total area of Daoli District in Harbin is 479.2 square kilometres, with 19 streets and 4 towns under its jurisdiction and a resident population of approximately 730,000 people. the total GDP value reached RMB 8.05 billion and the fiscal revenue was RMB 578 million. Acheng District covers an area of 2,452 square kilometres, with 4 towns and 15 streets under its jurisdiction and a population of approximately 590,000. In terms of social economy, the GDP of Acheng District was RMB 10.7 billion in 2006. Looking at the fiscal expenditure, we can see the irrationality of it. 2006 Harbin's administrative overheads accounted for 12.3% of the general budget expenditure and production and construction expenditure of RMB 1.97 billion accounted for 12%(National Bureau of Statistics of China 2006). The government's excessive operating expenditure and production and construction input crowded out the expenditure input of general public utilities and affected the progress of citizens' welfare.

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The Harbin municipal government, which has administrative authority and directly manages the areas under its jurisdiction, is the leading provider of participatory budgeting and the main provider of funding (Zhang 2010). Beginning in 2006, at the initiative of the China Development Research Foundation, the project received joint funding from the Foundation and the government and was implemented at the municipal level as well as in a number of street offices and townships in eight districts and ten counties. In terms of the scope of funding, Harbin's participatory budgeting is similar to that of Brazil, where the public decides on the funding of public infrastructure projects and has the right to decide on a portion of the budget.

In 2006, five participatory budgeting projects were carried out throughout the year, involving more than 4 million yuan. in 2007, the scope was expanded, with the number of projects reaching 31 and the government providing more than 51 million yuan. in 2008, participatory budgeting was rolled out across the city, involving 100 projects and 210 million yuan. in 2009, the government provided the same amount of funding, still at 210 million yuan. And in 2010, there were 382 participatory budgeting projects in the city, with a total of RMB 470 million in government funding (Du 2010, p. 14).

Participant Recruitment and Selection

Participants in the Harbin Participatory Budget are limited to residents who have a household registration in Harbin. However, the participants in a particular participatory budgeting project are limited to those residents who have a stake in the project and not the whole city. At the same time, the process of decision-making, implementation and monitoring of participatory budgeting projects is heavily involved with resident representatives.

The recruitment strategies used in Harbin are varied. Firstly, the government's publicity department determines the publicity strategy, in the form of posters or banners, and the street offices are responsible for promoting participatory budgeting and helping residents to understand participatory budgeting itself. Secondly, the street offices form a pool of projects for participatory budgeting by collecting residents' wishes and motivating them to participate. Afterwards, the street offices in the areas involved in the participatory budgeting projects introduced alternative participatory budgeting projects to the residents, such as urban street renovation plans, urban sewerage renovation plans and small park construction plans, and also included the estimated implementation schedule, project cost estimates, social benefits of the renovation and benefits to residents, so that most residents had a preliminary understanding and knowledge of the relevant projects (Yan 2012). Finally, the street office will announce the conditions, time and ways for residents to participate through posters and flyers in each community. The Harbin government uses these methods to motivate residents and expand the base of residents' representatives to be selected at a later stage. Street offices are government agencies responsible for the basic affairs of their districts. The community residents' committees are self-governing organisations of the residents, with the government providing guidance and assistance.

The selection of resident representatives for Harbin participatory budgeting is based on the number of people in urban and rural communities and rural areas, and the number of resident representatives is determined proportionally. In the case of urban areas, the number of general resident representatives is generally 2-3% of the community's population. Other constituents include deputies to the National People's Congress and community directors in the areas covered by the project, as well as government officials and a panel of experts in areas related to the project, who become resident representatives directly. Ultimately the various types of representatives involved in participatory budgeting are no less than 5% of the total population of the area covered by the project.

Methods and Tools Used

The tool of 'representation' was mainly used in the decision-making and implementation processes of participatory budgeting projects.

Firstly, the street offices use communication tools to introduce the residents of the district to the basics of participatory budgeting. A questionnaire was then sent to all residents of the district through the community councils (resident self-governance organisations) to find out what they wanted to optimise and improve within the community, and this was used as the basis for the project pool. The choice of projects within the pool is generally made in one of two ways, either by a vote of all community residents or directly by the deliberations of the head of the neighbourhood committee, who represents the residents of the community.

Secondly, Harbin's participatory budget combines the people's congress system with the grassroots management system. The in-depth participants in defining and completing projects are still the residents' representatives. However, there are two ways of selecting resident representatives in Harbin, by lottery and by direct appointment (Yan 2012). Those selected by lottery are ordinary resident representatives, while directly appointed resident representatives are Harbin's NPC deputies and community directors, as well as government officials and experts in project-related fields. During the project implementation process, resident representatives will decide on the project and select the construction unit mainly through voting. The composition of the delegates for participatory budgeting is roughly as follows. (see table below)

Table 1: Statistics on community representation in a participatory budgeting project in X district, Harbin (Shi 2010)

During the feedback phase after the project is completed, the relevant departments will collect opinions on the effectiveness of the implementation through the interview method and questionnaires. For example, several areas in Harbin where participatory budgeting projects were implemented were selected in the hope of covering all types of projects and obtaining the most comprehensive feedback. Questionnaires were administered to individuals and were set up in three categories: street resident representatives, community resident representatives and general residents. Street resident representatives were those who were recommended to attend voting meetings or consultation sessions on projects organised by the streets in the Participatory Budgeting model. (Yan 2012).

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

Harbin government has gained experience in implementing participatory budget for the first time in urban areas and towns. The Harbin government has continuously improved its understanding of participatory budget by learning from the operating mode of participatory budget in other provinces, then put forward the operating mode of Harbin's financial participatory budget.

The first stage is the solicitation of residents' opinions. According to the work requirements, the construction projects that can be tested are initially selected, and the alternative projects, implementation time, project budget estimate, social benefits after transformation and the benefits of residents are introduced to the residents in the communities that participate in the participatory budget test, so that the residents have a preliminary understanding of the pilot participatory budget. Finally, the community residents committee will distribute 100% of the community construction consultation form to the residents in the jurisdiction, sort out the obtained consultation form, list the alternative projects, and finally build an alternative project library.

The second stage is to select and implement projects from the completed project library. There are two key links in project selection: one is how to select the project. Generally, the selection of the project is carried out within the community, so the mode agreed by the community residents' representatives or the director of the neighborhood committee is selected. The second is to delimit the scope of alternative projects. Residents can choose directly among various projects; It can also be that after the government determines the type of the project, the residents select the area for the implementation of the project. Finally, the community that selected the project will sort out the final decision and further finalize the participatory budget project to be implemented in this year's plan.

The selection of resident representatives to participate in the project selection is the basis for this work.

Table 2 Election conditions for resident representatives

According to the regulations of Daoli District, the number of resident representatives elected must account for 5% or more of the total population of the community. Acheng District selected 205 representatives from the communities of Shengli and Heping community. After the community representatives are selected, they shall be informed of the time, place, content and procedure of the meeting.

The third stage is the implementation stage of the project. According to the determined project budget, the bidding will be conducted in accordance with the principles of openness and transparency. The street will organize a bid issuance meeting to select the construction unit. The community representatives will participate in the selection of the construction unit, and then the bidding results will be publicized to the community residents as required. After both parties sign the contract, the project will be started. During the construction of the project, the residents' representatives and community residents should be informed of the implementation of the project periodically, actively accept the supervision of the residents, take their suggestions seriously, and organize the residents' representatives to carry out centralized inspection on the actual situation of the project.

The fourth stage is the acceptance stage of the project. After the completion of the construction, a professional audit firm can conduct a special audit of the project, and organize relevant experts and invite community representatives to carry out performance evaluation of the completed project, conduct acceptance of the project quality, and obtain the project construction quality evaluation report.

Table 3 Participatory budgeting Process

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

To assess the success of financial participatory budgeting in Harbin, we probe two main aspects: the degree of improvement in democratization and the degree of effectiveness in the actual use of funds.

Firstly, from the perspective of civic democracy, Harbin's participatory budget innovates ways and platforms for the government to enhance the participation of the masses in political activities and increase the democratic nature of political activities. In carrying out the activities of the budget project, the participants were mostly representatives of the residents. For example, the participatory activities required that the number of residents' representatives elected in the Daoli District be at least 5% of the total population of the pilot area, as well as a total of 2,060 community residents in the Ankang and Gongcheng communities，103 and 63 representatives were selected by lot for the two communities respectively, with the number of representatives selected representing 8% of the overall community population. The gradual increase in the representation of residents from different regions is a good example of the Harbin government's efforts to increase democracy and give delegates more opportunities to participate directly in the development of programmes(yanzhiwei). Citizens' behavior patterns have also changed, from passive participation in political life to active input in monitoring. At the time of the Harbin participatory project, the original estimate planned to collect 900 valid questionnaire samples, but the actual number of valid questionnaires collected was 946. The actual number of returned questionnaires exceeded the expected number of returned questionnaires, which indicates that Harbin citizens expect to actively participate in community activities, care about community matters, and then think about the management of community affairs, and eventually propose and maintain the project, so the participatory budgeting project, in a way, helps to cultivate a sense of resonant social identity among citizens.According to the results of a 2008 report by Lingdian, an authoritative research firm, participatory projects have gained a high level of recognition and influence in Harbin. 85% of the respondents were satisfied with the collection, adoption and feedback of residents' opinions during the project; 90.6% gave positive comments on the services provided by the grassroots government and staff; 76% approved of the quality of the project construction; 81.5% of the residents felt that the project had 81.5% of the residents felt that the project had made a "significant improvement" in their local lives; 83.3% of the residents expressed their willingness to participate in the participatory budgeting project to be carried out in the future(Zhiwei Yan,2012).

Second, from the perspective of economic efficiency, Harbin's participatory budgeting has improved the accuracy of the use of China's financial funds. During the Harbin project, the funds were openly used for the public, and the public understood where the funds were going. In the project implementation stage, the public shall openly and transparently select the bidding unit, inform the project development in stages during the project construction process, and the public can supervise the project construction progress and cost during the project implementation stage, organize experts in the project acceptance stage and invite residents to carry out performance evaluation of the project(Zhiwei Yan,2012). This increases the openness and transparency of the use of funds, which in turn effectively prevents corruption, and allows limited funds to solve more public life problems, more rational allocation of public resources, reduces waste of resources, and improves the effectiveness of funds in public service projects. Based on the principle of "active and steady, gradual and orderly progress, leading by points and gradually pushing out", the Harbin government initially implemented only three projects, including cultural squares in Daoli District, Taiping City and Ankang Village, to promote the cultural development of the district.A characteristic road renovation was also implemented on Jindu Street (Shengli) in Acheng District, which has effectively promoted the development of the local characteristic culture; the road renovation on Heping Street in Acheng District has ensured smooth traffic flow.In 2007, the pilot project at the township level was in full swing. in 2008, participatory budgeting at the municipal level was in full swing in the city's 8 districts and 10 counties, with a total of 100 projects. From 2009, participatory budgeting projects were extended to include compound renovations, recreational and fitness spaces, alleys and roads, rural cultural facilities, drinking water for farmers, and 311 projects to support low-income groups such as migrant workers and poor people with disabilities (Du 2010). Over the past few years, Harbin has chosen to implement more than 447 participatory budget projects in the areas of courtyard renovation, alleyway construction, cultural facilities, energy conservation and environmental protection, construction of rural homes for the elderly, and assistance to the disadvantaged, with a total project funding of more than 390 million yuan. From 2006 to 2010, the trend of increasing government investment in participatory budgeting in Harbin is shown in the figure below.

Table4 From 2006 to 2010, the Harbin government invested in participatory budget projects

 Retrieved from http://www.harbin.gov.cn/col/col4967/index.html

Based on the above, it can be said that Harbin participatory budgeting has achieved a stage of success, but there is still a lot of room for improvement and progress. For example, when conducting the survey, the sampling sample was mostly representatives of street residents and community residents, and the number of ordinary residents was not large enough, and the sample variety needs to be enriched.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

Since the implementation of participatory budget reform in Harbin City in 2006, the number of participating projects has increased year by year, the scope has continued to expand, the amount of funds used for participatory budget projects has increased year by year, and the system and implementation process have been continuously improved. problems that need to be continuously improved. In order to systematically evaluate the advantages and limitations of Harbin's fiscal participatory budgeting, the analytical framework established by Smith (2009) should be adopted. This particular approach examines six key democratic goods: transferability, considered judgment, inclusiveness, transparency, efficiency, and popular control. Through this framework, the process can be evaluated and integrated more fully.

The fiscal participatory budgeting in Harbin is a test field for the reform and optimization of local government budget planning in China. The central government delegates power to local governments, and local governments arrange the overall content of participatory budgeting (Yan, 2012). China's budgetary environment has always had three salient features, namely the fragmentation of the authoritarian system, the fragmentation of the formal budgetary system, and the backwardness of the formal budgetary system (Ma and Hou, 2004). Ma and Hou (2004) also proposed that in such a The budgetary environment has led to problems related to budgetary property rights, partial hierarchy and complete hierarchy, which are mainly manifested in the centralized management of budgets, such as the choice of personal preferences of leaders and the opacity of decision-making. Therefore, from 2006 to 2010, Harbin City tried to prevent corruption from the source by adopting the public decision-making method of financial participatory budget, so as to make resource allocation more scientific and democratic. To achieve this goal, the development of participatory budgeting draws lessons from the advanced methods of many western countries. Italy's public participation budget focuses on specific democratic practices. It is mainly divided into two parts. One is to hold a public meeting, where the public can express their views and vote; Scholars discussed the viewpoints and proposed solutions (Allegretti, G. and Herzberg, 2004). By combining foreign successful cases with the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the project framework was finally obtained, as shown in the figure below.

(Figure 1)

According to the content and results of the participation, we found that in the first stage and the fourth stage, the questions were raised and the results of the final evaluation were collected through questionnaires. In terms of the selection and selection of people in Harbin participatory budgeting, compared with the previous process of participatory budgeting, the participating people are not randomly selected, but directional selection among people who meet certain conditions. This behavior greatly reduces the number of people who can participate. range of people. Pan and Chen (2009) concluded from a case study of participatory budgeting in Zeguo Town, Zhejiang Province that the success of participatory budgeting reform is mainly affected by the public's awareness of participatory budgeting projects and the degree of public participation in participatory budgeting projects. In the process of selecting participants for the project, the government did not publicize the project enough, and the public did not have a clear concept of participatory budgeting, which ultimately led to low enthusiasm among the public. In addition, both project screening and project implementation require participants to have high professionalism or enthusiasm, which also weakens the voice of the masses in disguise. In the end, it is still a "few people" who make decisions. It is very important that ordinary people only have the right to propose projects but not the right to choose projects, and there is no convenient way to monitor them. The above actions have failed to reach the two aspects of voice and monitoring in Wampler's (2012) 4 key principles of participatory budgeting, "voice, vote, social justice".

In the experience of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, it is mentioned that in carrying out participatory budgeting activities, more attention and political capital must be spent on adjusting fiscal institutions and infrastructure (de SOUSA SANTOS, 1998) . China's hierarchical fiscal management system is a huge institutional system, the most important component of which is the fiscal transfer payment system (Li, 2003). Such a financial system will result in local governments having no fiscal autonomy and can only approve funds from higher-level governments. Moreover, funds will become scarcer as they reach the grassroots level, making it difficult for grassroots to carry out participatory budgeting and restricting the promotion and implementation of participatory budgeting. The Harbin participatory budget combined with precedents has created a working model that is in line with the current situation, which is called the stock reform model (Yan,2012). That is to change the original fund allocation and use the public facilities construction funds for participatory budgeting to ensure sufficient and continuous public construction funds. However, there is a big disadvantage in this working model. The organizers will give priority to public construction projects, which limits the choice of other project types, which is contrary to the original intention of participatory budgeting.

The original purpose of Harbin participatory budgeting is to prevent corruption of public projects and improve the utilization rate of funds, and to propose solutions. According to the above situation, we integrate Harbin fiscal participatory budgeting, a democratic product, to study whether it achieves its original purpose. First of all, in terms of inclusiveness, it has not met its due standards. Although methods such as random number sampling are used in participatory budgeting, the number of participants is relatively fixed, the participants' democratic awareness is not strong, and the degree of participation is low, so it is impossible to obtain the best way to use funds. Second, the transparency and efficiency of this activity is relatively high. During the two-month event, participants can supervise large-scale government projects. The total cost of the project, the unit price of building materials and management costs will be publicized to ensure the transparency of the project. Finally, in the process of problem selection and implementation, the activities will be discussed and judged by professionals to reduce the risk of the final decision. However, such behavior not only weakens the voice of the public in disguise, but also makes it difficult to change the decision after it is made, which may lead to the Democratic products fail to serve their purpose. To sum up, Harbin participatory budgeting is not considered a success.

The proposal and process formulation of the Harbin participatory budgeting project are in line with China's national conditions. However, due to the generally low public quality and the insufficient government funding chain under the fiscal system, the expected results have not been achieved in the end. This is also mainly due to the lack of domestic related research and the lack of a complete theoretical system of participatory budgeting. Nevertheless, the Chinese government's awareness of institutional transparency and democratic decision-making is rising, and more scholars and practitioners are required to participate in this research field, and formulate systems and policies that are in line with China's development according to China's national conditions. Eventually, the participatory budget of China's fiscal budget will be formed.

See Also

Participatory Budgeting – Participedia

References

[1]Allegretti, G. and Herzberg, C., (2004). Participatory budgets in Europe. Between efficiency and growing local democracy (pp. 1-24). Transnational Institute.

[2]de SOUSA SANTOS, B. (1998). Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre: Toward a Redistributive Democracy. Politics & Society, 26(4), 461–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329298026004003

[3]Du,YX.,(2010).Participatory Budgeting: An Exploration of Promoting Democratic Politics at the Grassroots Level--Practice and Reflections on the Implementation of Participatory Budgeting in Harbin City.New Vision, 2010(10).p.14-17.

[4]Li, Q., (2003). 分级财政体制研究. Mj Economic Science Press, 2003. (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

[5]Ma, J and Hou, Y., (2004). 中国省级预算中的非正式制度: 一个交易费用理论框架. Economic Studies, 10(14), p.2. (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

[6]Pan, R. and Chen, P., (2009). 选举民主与协商民主共生发展: 乡村的实践与价值——浙江泽国镇的案例启示. Research on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, (4), pp.71-77. (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

[7]Shi,Y.,(2010).A study of financial participatory budgeting in X District, Harbin.p.1-15.

[8]Yan, Z., (2012). 哈尔滨市财政参与式预算的研究 ,Jilin University,Unpublished. (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

[9]Wampler, B., (2012) “Participatory Budgeting: Core principles and Key Impacts”, Journal of Public Deliberation 8(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.138 (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

[10]Zhang,HX.,(2010).The Countermeasures Suggestions To Improve The Participatory Budgeting Mode In Harbin.p.1-32.

[11] Wampler, B., (2012) “Participatory Budgeting: Core principles and Key Impacts”, Journal of Public Deliberation 8(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.138 (Accessed: 10 December 2022)

External Links

Official Website [Harbin]:哈尔滨市人民政府 市级财政预决算 关于哈尔滨市2007年财政预算执行情况和2008年财政预算(草案)的报告 (harbin.gov.cn)

哈尔滨市人民政府 市级财政预决算 关于哈尔滨市2008年财政预算执行情况和2009年财政预算（草案）的报告 (harbin.gov.cn)

Notes