European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750

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European Journal of Operational Research

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Interfaces with Other Disciplines

On deciding how to decide: Designing participatory budget processes

J. Gomez a,⇑, D. Rios Insua b, J.M. Lavin a, C. Alfaro a
a
Rey Juan Carlos University, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Fuenlabrada, 28943 Madrid, Spain
b
Royal Academy of Sciences, 28004 Madrid, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Participatory budgets are becoming increasingly popular in many municipalities all around the world.
Received 11 May 2012 The underlying idea is to allow citizens to participate in the allocation of a municipal budget. Many
Accepted 22 March 2013 advantages have been suggested for such experiences, including legitimization and more informed and
Available online 30 March 2013
transparent decisions. There are many conceivable variants of such processes. However, in most cases
both its design and implementation are carried out in an informal way. In this paper we propose a meth-
Keywords: odology to design a participatory budget process based on a multicriteria decision making model.
Group decision support
Ó 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Public budgeting
Participatory budgeting
Participation
Multicriteria decision making
Multiattribute value function

1. Introduction
Since the 1960s, an increasing apathy and feeling of alienation
among citizens has led to the so-called democratic deficit (Sttefek
et al., 2008), which has entailed a growing interest in promoting
participatory processes. These allow citizens to take part in public
policy decision making. Among such processes, participatory bud-
gets (PBs) are emerging as a paradigm for participation, especially
at a local level, see Alfaro et al. (2010a). They constitute an attempt
to allow citizens to have a word on the decision of how a public
budget is spent, mainly in municipalities. It is a budget allocation
approach based on dialogue and citizen participation, which di-
verges from the predominant representative model. In a sense,
PBs are transforming the idea of a representative democracy, in
which the citizen’s input is considered just at the moment of elec-
tions, to move closer to a participatory democracy, based on direct
participation of citizens.
Early experiences with PBs took place in several Brazilian cities
such as Lajes, Boa Esperança, Diadema and Vila Velha. However,
the most well known and longest lasting PB experience comes
from Porto Alegre, initiated in 1989 and consolidated in 1992, ac-
claimed for both the efficient and democratic management of ur-
ban resources it has enabled. PBs are becoming increasingly
popular in many other places. Recent reports indicate that PB pro-
cesses have spread to more than one thousand municipalities in
Europe (Sintomer et al., 2008; Herzberg, 2011).
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: javier.gomez@urjc.es (J. Gomez), david.rios@urjc.es
(D.R. Insua), josemaria.lavin@urjc.es (J.M. Lavin), cesar.alfaro@urjc.es (C. Alfaro).
There are many variants of PBs (Alfaro et al., 2010a). In some
cases, they consist only of an informative event, so that citizens
do not actually participate directly in decision making. In other
cases, PBs entail an intensive participation procedure, using, for in-
stance, voting or negotiation sessions. Generally speaking, they
may be seen as a sequence of decision making tasks which are
scheduled in various ways leading to different PB processes (Alfaro
et al., 2010b). However, there is very little guidance on how to de-
sign such processes, which are usually adopted in an ad hoc man-
ner. As described in Bayley and French (2007) and French and Ríos
Insua (2010), designing participatory processes remains as a key
methodological issue in this area.
In this paper, we present a PB process design methodology
based on a multicriteria decision making model. With it we aim
at facilitating an organization wishing to implement a PB process
to choose the most appropriate approach, taking into account var-
ious constraints and their organizational objectives in relation with
participation. First, we shall briefly present a PB as a group re-
source allocation problem in which citizens try to agree on a bud-
get in view of multiple criteria, possibly subject to constraints in
addition to that of a maximum budget limit. Then, we define the
set of alternatives that characterize various PB processes as se-
quences of decision making tasks. There are some limitations when
combining such tasks which we describe through logical and logis-
tic constraints that, from our point of view, should satisfy any PB
process. Then, we propose a list of objectives to be achieved in a
PB process and the attributes that allow us to evaluate them. Fur-
thermore, we construct a value function to evaluate every feasible
PB scheme and obtain the optimal one. We illustrate our approach
with an example. We end up with some discussion.

0377-2217/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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744 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750

Table 1 6. Problem structuring. A problem might not be clearly formu-

Formulation of a participatory budget problem.
Project Cost Participant
1 ... j ...
 1  
a1 c1 x11 ; . . . ; x11m ... xj11 ; . . . ; xj1m
.. .. .. ..
. . . .
   
ai ci x1i1 ; . . . ; x1im ... xji1 ; . . . ; xjim
.. .. .. ..
. . . .
   
aq cq x1q1 ; . . . ; x1qm ... xjq1 ; . . . ; xjqm
2. Participatory budget processes
Suppose that a group of n persons has to decide how to spend a
budget b. There is a set of q projects, X = {a1, . . . , aq}. Project ai has an
estimated cost ci, and is evaluated by the jth individual with re-
spect to m criteria, with values xjik ; k ¼ 1; . . . ; m. For simplicity,
we assume that we have a sufficiently precise estimate of the cost
and features of various projects. We represent this information in
Table 1, in which each position associated with a pair composed
by project ai and the jth participant has a score vector
 
xji1 ; . . . ; xjim , for all i = 1, . . . , q and j = 1, . . . , n.
Assume that the total cost of the projects is greater than b.
Otherwise, there would be no discussion as we could implement
all projects. In addition to the budget constraint, there may exist
other constraints that restrict the feasible budgets. For example,
there could be several projects concerning a new hospital, of which
more than one may not be necessary in the final budget. Moreover,
there could also be logical constraints, like when there is a project
that requires another one to be in the final budget.
A feasible budget for the PB problem is a subset of projects, de-
fined by the corresponding subset of indices F # I = {1, 2, . . . , q},
which satisfies the budget constraint,
X the world as well as a general scheme that could support any PB
ci 6 b;
i2F
and other possible constraints. The aim of a PB process is to find a
feasible budget which, somehow, maximizes group satisfaction.
There are many variants of PB processes (Alfaro et al., 2010a) all
based on a sequence of common tasks differentiated by how they
are combined and scheduled (Lavin and Rios Insua, 2010). These
tasks are:
1. Participant sampling. In many processes, participation of all
citizens is impossible for logistic or physical reasons. Thus,
a sample of citizens is chosen to represent the whole popu-
lation. This sample could be purposive, random . . ., depend-
ing on the proposed issue or problem.
2. Election of representatives. For the same reasons, the partici-
pants might alternatively elect representatives to take part
in the PB process.
3. Use of questionnaires. They aid in focusing on the main issues
of interest, revealing what is of most interest to citizens.
4. Preparation of documents. There are two types of documents:
preliminary, which contain information about the problem,
and final, which contain the results from the process. The
documents are usually proposed by representatives and/or
experts.
5. Distribution of information. A key element in decision-making
is providing the best possible information to participants.
Similarly, participants should be able to share the informa-
tion they might be able to gather.
lated and participants would spend time structuring it,
dividing it into parts so as to better apprehend it. In PB pro-
cesses, these include determining criteria for choosing
n between proposals and elaborating an initial list of alterna-
  n
x11 ; . . . ; xn1m
 tives, together with their associated costs, technical features
...
and constraints.
..
. 7. Preference modeling. Participants are sometimes required to
 
... xni1 ; . . . ; xnim express their preferences, usually through pairwise compar-
.. isons, goal setting or value functions. These preferences aid
.
  participants in finding their most preferred alternative and
... xnq1 ; . . . ; xnqm support them in negotiation.
8. Debate. Whether regulated or spontaneous, the exchange of
ideas is vital for citizen participation. Participants can
express and discuss their opinions.
9. Negotiation. When individuals disagree on their preferred
alternative, they may try to deal with the conflict through
negotiations, in which participants exchange offers, ideas
and arguments so as to try to reach a consensus. Several
negotiation methods could be used, such as POSTING or
the Balanced Increment Solution, see Ríos and Ríos Insua
(2008, 2010) or Benyoucef et al. (2008) for further
information.
10. Arbitration. Through debate and negotiation, we may find
that the parties involved cannot be satisfied and refuse to
budge from their positions. To avoid this, some mechanisms
include the figure of an arbitrator who makes the final deci-
sion, once the opinions and reasoning of the different parties
have been presented, see e.g. Raiffa et al. (2002).
11. Voting. Many times, it is used as a last resort, particularly if
achieving consensus is not possible. Voting can be done with
different rules, such as simple majority, approval voting, and
Borda count. See Nurmi (2010) or Brams and Fishburn
(2002), among others, for information on voting rules.
As an illustration, we shall sketch some instances of PB pro-
cesses that have been carried out in some municipalities around
process (Alfaro et al., 2010b). For each of them, we provide the cor-
responding schedule of tasks:
– Madrid (Spain): Problem structuring, use of questionnaires (in
parallel with debate), problem structuring, negotiation and distri-
bution of information.
– Chicago (USA): Debate, election of representatives, debate and
voting.
– Medellin (Colombia): Distribution of information, election of rep-
resentatives, preference modeling and negotiation.
– Emsdetten (Germany): Participant sampling, debate, arbitration
and preparation of documents.
– Morsang-Sur-Orge (France): Debate, preference modeling and
arbitration.
– Scheme in Alfaro et al. (2010b): Problem structuring (to elabo-
rate an initial list of projects and determine criteria for choosing
between them); debate (in which the participants can express
their opinions and discuss the list of projects and propose
new projects or criteria to consolidate the final list of propos-
als); problem structuring (to elaborate the final list of proposals
based on the previous debate); preference modeling (where citi-
zens asses their preferences); negotiation (where the partici-
pants exchange offers, ideas and arguments to try to reach a
consensus); voting (if there is no agreement after negotiation,
the participants search for the final decision through voting).
An organization willing to undertake a PB process may feel
overwhelmed by the many potential variants available. Thus, it
 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750 745

seems interesting to devise a procedure to support the choice of satisfied by such task sequences. For instance, some tasks cannot
the most appropriate PB process for such organization, given its begin a process; some tasks cannot precede others, and so on.
objectives and constraints. We provide a decision analytic We provide here a list of the constraints that we shall consider.
approach to such problem, see Clemen and Reilly (2001). We first
define the set of feasible alternatives. Then, we propose a multiat-
3.2.1. Constraints on the number of tasks
tribute value function model for the PB process design. Finally, we
A PB process is a finite sequence of participatory tasks. We
optimize the value function to find out the most appropriate PB
should define the minimum and maximum number of tasks that
process.
a PB process could contain.

3. Structuring the participatory budget design problem
We start by structuring the participatory budget design
problem, defining the initial alternatives, the constraints and the
feasible set.
3.1. Alternatives
We shall consider that a PB process may be described as a finite
sequence of tasks of the type we introduced in Section 2. We shall
represent them through a single character as follows: participant
sampling (M), election of representatives (R), use of questionnaires
(Q), preparation of documents (D), distribution of information (I),
problem structuring (E), preference modeling (P), debate (F), nego-
tiation (N), arbitration (A) and voting (V). Furthermore, we have
identified a couple of cases in which two tasks can be carried out
in parallel:
 Debate and Use of questionnaires (L). Both tasks can be used to
express the participants’ opinions about an initial list of
proposals.
 Use of questionnaires and Preference modeling (O). Both tasks can
be undertaken in parallel to obtain information about the par-
ticipants’ preferences.
Each sequence of tasks will represent an alternative in the PB
process design problem, i.e.
S ¼ ðtask1 ; task2 ; . . . ; taskn Þ;
where n is the number of tasks included in the corresponding PB
process S and taski is the task carried out at the ith stage, which will
belong to the set {M, R, Q, D, I, E, P, F, N, A, V, L, O}. As an example, the
PB process in Chicago may be represented through the sequence
S ¼ ðF; R; F; VÞ:
 Maximum number of tasks. A large number of tasks could lead to
fatigue and confusion among the citizens participating in the
process and, consequently, participation could decrease. We
shall consider that nine tasks is a sufficiently high number
within a PB process.
 Minimum number of tasks. We consider that a PB process must
include, at least, two participatory tasks. In addition, one of
them should be voting, negotiation, or arbitration, as these are
the actual decision making tasks.
Issues concerning process duration are considered below.
3.2.2. Begin-process constraints
Clearly, some tasks should not begin the process such as arbitra-
tion, as it is a dispute resolution mechanism involving a third actor,
the arbitrator, who makes the final decision, once the opinions and
reasoning of different participants have been presented. Thus, arbi-
tration may not appear as the first task of a process. For similar rea-
sons, preference modeling, negotiation and voting tasks should not
begin the PB process.
3.2.3. Constraints on task sequences
Certain tasks cannot be preceded by others because their out-
comes must feed the first ones. The acceptable precedences we
shall consider are included in Table 2, where an X in cell (i, j) means
that the task in row i may precede the task in column j. For exam-
ple, the first row of the table means that the task Participant sam-
pling may precede all tasks (except itself).
A relevant example refers to the negotiation task. In some cases,
before starting the negotiation, participants must have communi-
cated their preferences. The inverse sequence is not possible: once
a negotiation stage has been carried out, preference modeling will
be typically irrelevant.

3.2.4. Constraints on repetition of tasks

3.2. Constraints For various reasons, such as lack of time or efficiency, some
tasks should appear only once in the process. Other tasks could
Different schedules of tasks lead to different PB processes. How- be repeated at most once. Table 3 indicates the maximum number
ever, there are some logistic and logic constraints that should be of occurrences of each task within a PB process.

Table 2
Potential precedence among tasks.

M R Q D I E P F N A V L O
(M) Sampling X X X X X X X X X X X X
(R) Representatives X X X X X X X X
(Q) Questionnaires X X X X X X X X X
(D) Documents X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(I) Information X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(E) Structuring X X X X X X X X X X X X X
(P) Preferences X X X X X X X X
(F) Debate X X X X X X X X X X X
(F) Negotiation X X X X X X X
(A) Arbitrating X X
(V) Voting X X X X X X X
(L) Questionnaires and debate X X X X X X X X X
(O) Questionnaires and preferences X X X X X X X X
746 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750

Table 3 The next step consists of obtaining the feasible PB schemes. If m

Maximum number of task occurrences within a PB process. denotes the number of tasks of a scheme and n is the number of
Tasks Repetitions possible tasks, nm represents all schemes composed of m tasks,
Participant sampling 1 without considering the constraints. The number Sm of feasible
Election of representatives 1 schemes of length m will be
Use of questionnaires 1
Preparation of documents 2 Sm ¼ nm  cardðC m Þ;
Distribution of information 2
Problem structuring 2
Preference modeling 1
where Cm is the set of schemes of length m that do not satisfy the
Debate 2 constraints we have described above. Finally, the set of feasible
Negotiation 2 schemes will be
Arbitration 1
Voting 2 X
9
Use of questionnaires and debate 1 ½nm  cardðC m Þ:
Use of questionnaires and preference modeling 1 m¼2

Table 5 provides the number of feasible schemes, obtained with

a JAVA program which we have implemented. The generation of
3.2.5. Finish-process constraints these feasible schemes takes less than 2 days. Most of this time
We consider that at the last stages of the process should appear was spent producing schemes composed of eight and nine tasks
at least one of the tasks leading to a decision (arbitration, negotia- since the generation of the other ones takes about 20 minutes.
tion or voting), probably followed by the tasks of debate or/and The schemes were generated with a laptop with a Dual-Core pro-
preparation of documents. cessor of 2.0 gigahertz and 2 gigabyte of memory RAM. A best pro-
cessor could be used reducing significantly the generation time.
3.2.6. Constraints on tasks that elicit citizen preferences To conclude this section, we present some of the PB processes
Two tasks can be used to obtain information about citizen pref- generated:
erences: Preference modeling and Use of questionnaires. We consider
that citizens must elicit their preferences at most once so that the  S2 = {FN, FA, FV, MN, MV, RN, RV, DN, DV, IN, IV, EN, EV, QN, QV, QA}
inclusion of one of them implies the exclusion of the other task, ex- are the feasible PB schemes with two tasks.
cept if both tasks are carried out in parallel.  S03 ¼ fFPA; MFN; MND; DNI; DOA; IQN; EVNg is a subset of feasi-
ble PB schemes with three tasks, which include the scheme of
Morsang-Sur-Orge (FPA).
3.2.7. Other constraints
 S04 ¼ fFRFV; FOFV; MFAD; DFAD; DMPA; IRPN; IMVNg are some of
Note that there may exist other constraints that restrict the fea-
the feasible PB schemes with four tasks, which include the
sible schemes taking into account cost, time, or other resource
schemes of Chicago (FRFV), Medellin (IRPN) and Emsdetten
availability considerations. For example, if a maximum time T is
(MFAD).
available to undertake the PB process, we would add a constraint
 S05 ¼ fFPFVD; MFNQA; MFOAD; ELENI; IEQRNg is a sample of fea-
d(S) 6 T, where d(S) is the duration of the process S. If there is a
sible PB schemes with five tasks, which include the scheme of
maximum budget B to implement the PB process, it should be
Madrid (ELENI).
c(S) 6 B, where c(S) is the cost of S, and so on. In what follows,
 S06 ¼ fFPNVIV; MEFOAI; DQEVFN; EDNQFVg is a subset of feasi-
we shall not include this last type of constraints.
ble PB schemes with six tasks.
 S07 ¼ fFPINVIV; MIPNVFV; IMOFVIV; RFONVIVg represents four
3.3. Feasible schemes feasible PB schemes with seven tasks.
 S08 ¼ fDMEFOIAD; EDPVINID; QDIMVFVD; FQFNVRNDg is a sub-
Before we generate the PB schemes that satisfy the above con- set of feasible PB schemes with eight tasks.
straints, we must choose how to represent them. We define a PB  S09 ¼ fRIPINVFVN; IEDVFQIVD; IDEQVFVND; MEPINVFNDg is a
scheme as a character sequence where each character belongs to sample of feasible PB schemes with nine tasks.
the set {M, R, D, I, E, Q, F, P, V, N, A, L, O}.
The constraints may be represented through regular expres-
sions, see Friedl (2006) for details. Therefore, a feasible scheme will 4. A value function for the participatory budget design problem
be a sequence of characters matching all these regular expressions.
In Table 4, we present the regular expressions that represent some We describe now the preference model adopted in our PB pro-
of our constraints. cess design methodology.
For example, constraint C1 indicates that a sequence is valid if
its length is between two and nine and the characters included
belong to the set {M, R, Q, F, I, E, P, D, N, V, A, L, O}. C2 means that the Table 5
sequence may be started only by a character not in {P, N, A, V, L, O}, Number of feasible PB process.
possibly followed by a sequence of characters included in the set
Number tasks Number possible schemes Number feasible schemes
{M, R, Q, F, I, E, P, D, N, A, V, L, O}, and so on.
2 169 16
3 2197 156
Table 4 4 28,571 897
Some PB process constraints as regular expressions. 5 371,293 3642
6 4,826,809 11,510
Constraint Regular expression Section 7 62,748,517 29,579
8 815,730,721 62,906
C1 [MRQFIEPDNAVLO]{2, 9} 3.2.1
9 10,604,499,373 110,277
C2 [^PNAVLO][MRQFIEPDNAVLO]⁄ 3.2.2
C3 [MRQFIEPDNAVLO]⁄(NjAjV)[DI]⁄ 3.2.5 Total 218,983
 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750
4.1. Objectives and attributes
An important issue when designing a PB experience is to iden-
tify the objectives describing why are we conducting the process
and what we hope to achieve. However, as argued in Bayley and
French (2007), there has been relatively little discussion of the
objectives that could be addressed in designing a participatory pro-
cess, see Rowe and Frewer (2004, 2005), or Keeney (1992), for gen-
eral issues on value focused thinking. Rowe and Frewer (2000,
2005), Macintosh and Whyte (2008), Aichholzer et al. (2008), Aich-
holzer and Westholm (2009) have proposed several attributes to
assess the effectiveness of a participatory process, once it has been
undertaken. Based on them, we suggest the following objectives as
a reference for PB process design, illustrated in Fig. 1, although the
process designer could define alternative ones.
1. Maximize the relevant information. A key element of participa-
tory processes is to make available the best information possi-
ble. For this, it is necessary to involve citizens, technicians
and authorities, to identify complete and relevant information
from them. We thus distinguish the following sub-objectives:
(a) Maximize the relevant information from participants. An effec-
tive process requires the elicitation of all relevant informa-
tion from active citizens. Rowe and Frewer (2005) identify
two structural aspects of engagement mechanisms that will
surely affect the likelihood of maximizing such relevant
information: the presence or absence of a facilitator and
the response mode available, in particular, whether it is
‘‘open’’ or ‘‘closed’’.
(b) Maximize the information from technicians and authorities.
Both authorities and technicians, responsible for initiating
participation processes, should ensure that any information
provided by them is relevant, comprehensive and appropri-
ate for citizen understanding.
(c) Maximize information exchange. Through information
exchange, stakeholders involved in the PB process can share
their opinions and knowledge.
Fig. 1. Objectives of PB processes.
747
2. Maximize the number of participants. Involving a diverse group of
participants in decision making processes may encourage a
greater number of opinions and, possibly, more creative ideas.
3. Maximize democratic ideals. There is a range of democratic issues
that need to be considered when a participatory process is
designed. We shall consider the following sub-objectives:
(a) Maximize transparency. A key issue is building trust in the
authorities conducting the PB process and in the PB process
itself.
(b) Maximize representativeness. Sometimes it is impossible to
involve all citizens in a PB process. In this case, we must
ensure that all relevant viewpoints are represented in the
process.
4. Maximize fairness in the distribution of public resources. Public
resources must be distributed equitably and fairly, without dis-
criminating against minority groups.
5. Minimize the process duration. A key issue in any process that
requires citizen involvement is its duration. It is clear that a
process demanding excessive effort by citizens will lead to fati-
gue and, consequently, a low participation rate.
For three of these objectives, we may identify the following
‘natural’ scales:
 Maximize the information from participants. According to the
response mode available to the tasks, we consider the following
possibilities: ‘‘None’’, ‘‘Closed’’ and ‘‘Open’’, which we identify
with the values 0, 1 and 2, respectively.
 Maximize information exchange. We consider that the level of
citizen engagement (Rowe and Frewer, 2005) affects the infor-
mation provided by participants, technicians and authorities.
Possible values could be: ‘‘None’’,‘‘Communication’’, ‘‘Consult’’
and ‘‘Participation’’, corresponding to 0, 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
 Minimize the process duration, which will be the sum of the
durations of the tasks within the PB process. We can measure
it in days. Finding consensual durations of the tasks is not easy
and may depend on cultural and logistic aspects. We propose as
748 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750

v 0j ðti Þminðv 0j Þ
typical durations the values in Table 6 obtained from a litera-  v j ðti Þ ¼ maxðv Þminðv Þ,
0
j
0
j
where v 0j ðti Þ is the effectiveness of task ti
ture review (Alberich, 2004; Brown, 2006; Coglianese, 1997; with respect to the jth objective.
Iglesias et al., 2004). However, other values could be considered,
 d(S) is the process duration.
as pertinent in the incumbent case.
 v8(d(S)) is the evaluation of the duration of the process, where
v8(d(S)) 2 [0, 1], with 1 for the shortest process and 0 for the lon-
For the rest of objectives, we have used a qualitative ordinal
gest one. Note that this value is calculated for all schemes, inde-
scale with five levels: Very Low, Low, Fair, High and Very High,
pendently of their number of tasks.
which has been transformed into a numerical 1–5 scale, 1 to Very
Low, 5 to Very High. Table 7 summarizes the measurement scales
Once we have constructed v, we have to solve the problem
of all the objectives except that related with the duration of the
process. max v ðSÞ
ð1Þ
Table 8 proposes a possible evaluation of each of the tasks in s:t: S 2 R
terms of their success against the first seven objectives. Note that
there are many potential evaluations: ours is one of many. How- where R is the set of feasible PB processes.
ever, this might be used as a starting point to mitigate the PB pro-
cess owner fatigue. 5. Example

4.2. Value function for PB process design We illustrate the methodology, with an example in which we
only consider the achievement of six of the goals with the follow-
We define now a value function to assess the feasible schemes ing weights, emphasizing the need to speed up the execution of the
and obtain the most preferred PB process. We shall assume an PB process:
additive value function, see Von Winterfeldt and Edwards (1986)
or Clemen and Reilly (2001), which penalizes the number of repe- – 0.02 to maximize information exchange.
titions of the same task. Specifically, a PB process S = (t1, t2, . . . , tn) – 0.05 to maximize the number of participants.
will be evaluated through – 0.10 to maximize transparency.
" # – 0.03 to maximize representativeness.
X
n X7
v ðSÞ ¼ qi wj v j ðti Þ þ w8 v 8 ðdðSÞÞ; – 0.15 to maximize fairness in the distribution of public
i¼1 j¼1 resources.
– 0.65 to minimize the process duration.
where
The other weights would be 0. We assume that q = 0.8. We
 qi = qk1, if this is the kth occurrence of task ti in the process, present the results based on the number of tasks:
where q 2 [0, 1]. In such a way we penalize the repetition of
tasks within a PB process, as we expect that repeated tasks will  Schemes with two tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.662
not reveal themselves as useful as the first time they are with the scheme RV (election of representatives and voting),
implemented. which lasts 2 days.
 wj is the weight of the jth objective, where wj P 0 and  Schemes with three tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.673
P8
i¼1 wj ¼ 1 for the scheme RPV (election of representatives, preference
modeling and voting), which lasts 3 days. Another PB scheme
Table 6 with three tasks is carried out in Morsang-Sur-Orge (debate,
Duration of tasks in days.
preference modeling and arbitration) with a value of 0.586.
Tasks Duration  Schemes with four tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.665
Participant sampling 1 for the scheme RPNV (election of representatives, preference
Election of representatives 1 modeling, negotiation and voting), which lasts 5 days. Other
Use of questionnaires 3 PB schemes with four tasks are carried out in Chicago (debate,
Preparation of documents 3
election of representatives, debate and voting) with a value of
Distribution of information 5
Problem structuring 5 0.554, Emsdetten (participant sampling, debate, arbitration
Preference modeling 1 and elaboration of documents) with a value of 0.516 and Medel-
Debate 4 lin (distribution of information, election of representatives,
Negotiation 2 preference modeling and negotiation) with a value of 0.566.
Arbitration 1
Voting 1
 Schemes with five tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.651
Use or questionnaires and debate 4 for the scheme MPRNV (participant sampling, preference mod-
Use or questionnaires and preference modeling 3 eling, election of representatives, negotiation and voting) and
its feasible permutations, which last 6 days. Another PB scheme
with five tasks is carried out in Madrid (problem structuring,
use of questionnaires in parallel with debate, problem structur-
Table 7 ing, negotiation and distribution of information) with a value of
Scales to evaluate the objectives. 0.322.
 Schemes with six tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.641
Objectives Scale
for the scheme MPRNVN (participant sampling, preference
Max. information from participants [0–2]
modeling, election of representatives, negotiation, voting and
Max. information from technicians and authorities [1–5]
Max. information exchange [0–3] negotiation) and its feasible permutations. These schemes last
Max. number of participants [1–5] 8 days.
Max. transparency [1–5]  Schemes with seven tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.605
Max. representativeness [1–5]
for the scheme MPRNVFV (participant sampling, preference
Maximize fairness in the distribution of public resources [1–5]
modeling, election of representatives, negotiation, voting,
 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750 749

Table 8
Evaluation of tasks within PB processes.

Objective M R Q D I E P F N A V L O
Max. info. participants 0 0 2 0 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 2 2
Max. info. tech. and auth. 2 3 3 1 4 1 4 5 5 1 4 5 4
Max. info. exchange 0 0 1 1 3 0 3 2 3 2 3 2 3
Max. num. participants 2 1 2 1 5 1 4 5 3 1 5 5 4
Max. transparency 1 2 2 3 5 2 4 3 4 1 5 3 4
Max. representativeness 4 3 2 1 5 1 4 4 3 1 5 4 4
Max. fairness resources 2 3 2 1 3 1 4 3 4 1 5 3 4

debate and voting) and its feasible permutations. These
schemes last 11 days. Another scheme with seven tasks is our
scheme proposed in Alfaro et al. (2010b): EFEPNVN (problem
structuring, debate, problem structuring, preference modeling,
negotiation, voting and negotiation) with a value of 0.415.
 Schemes with eight tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.578
for the scheme MPRNVIVN (participant sampling, preference
modeling, election of representatives, negotiation, voting, dis-
tribution of information, voting and negotiation) and its feasible
permutations. These schemes last 14 days.
 Schemes with nine tasks: The maximum value obtained is 0.497
for the scheme MPFRNVFVN (participant sampling, preference
modeling, debate, election of representatives, negotiation, vot-
ing, debate, voting and negotiation) and its feasible permuta-
tions. These schemes last 16 days.
As we can see, the optimal value tends to decrease as the dura-
tion gets longer, given the importance (0.65) we have assigned to
the duration related objective. Furthermore, the above schemes
tend to result by combining tasks with shorter durations, to wit,
arbitration, voting, participant sampling and preference modeling.
Globally, the best scheme would be RPV, which would proceed by:
1. Election of representatives. Citizens elect representatives to
participate in the PB process.
2. Preference modeling. The participants must provide their
preferences. (If all participants prefer the same optimal bud-
get, the process concludes).
3. Voting. The participants make the decision through voting
(assisted by their preference model).
Note that, as we have mentioned, these results arise from the
importance given to the duration objective. In addition, we have
observed that if we assign a small weight to this objective, the
function value tends to increase when the schemes are composed
of a greater number of tasks. On the other hand, if we would like
to increase the number of participants and emphasize the objec-
tives related with democratic ideals, the obtained results would
be significantly different. Thus, for example, if we assume q = 0.8
and the following weights:
– 0.05 to maximize the relevant information from participants.
– 0.05 to maximize the relevant information from technicians and
authorities.
– 0.05 to maximize information exchange.
– 0.20 to maximize the number of participants.
– 0.20 to maximize transparency.
– 0.30 to maximize representativeness.
– 0.10 to maximize fairness in the distribution of public
resources.
– 0.05 to minimize the process duration,
the optimal scheme would be FPINVFVNI which contains tasks
like voting, debate, distribution of information, negotiation or
preference modeling which provide best values for these three
objectives (maximize number of participants, transparency and
representativeness). This scheme would proceed by:
1. Debate, in which participants can express their opinions and
suggestions in order to elaborate an initial list of proposals.
2. Preference modeling, through which participants asses their
preferences. (If all participants prefer the same optimal bud-
get, the PB process ends).
3. Distribution of information, in which authorities and techni-
cians explain to citizens all the proposals and its technical
features and constraints among them.
4. Negotiation, where participants exchange offers, ideas and
arguments to try to reach a consensus. (If negotiation is suc-
cessful, the PB process ends.)
5. Voting, if there is no agreement after negotiation a voting
session takes place in which the participants eliminate the
less preferred proposals.
6. Debate, where participants may explain their preferred alter-
natives to the other participants in order to facilitate achiev-
ing consensus at the next stage.
7. Voting, if there is no agreement in previous phases, the par-
ticipants make the final decision through voting.
8. Negotiation, if the decision made by voting is dominated
then there is a negotiation to find a best solution.
9. Distribution of information, where authorities and techni-
cians explain to citizens the final budget.
6. Discussion
Due to increasing demand for citizen participation in public
decision processes, some municipalities are implementing partici-
patory budgets, allowing citizens to take part in local budgeting
decisions. The level of involvement of participants can be decided
by the authorities conducting the PB process. PB experiences have
increased over the last years. However, in most of them, their de-
sign has been carried out in an informal way. For this reason, we
have proposed a PB process design methodology based on a multi-
criteria decision analysis model that may aid authorities in deter-
mining which is the most appropriate PB process for a specific
context, given the many possible variants.
Firstly, we have defined a PB process as a sequence of participa-
tory tasks which we have briefly described. Furthermore, we have
identified several constraints about the combination of these tasks.
When designing a PB process we must ensure it to be effective.
This entails that we must adapt the PB process to each context,
by choosing the appropriate objectives. We have proposed a list
of them from a literature review. Nevertheless, other objectives
could be considered according to each case. We have defined a va-
lue function to evaluate the feasible PB processes and we have
illustrated it with an example, obtaining the list of optimal ones.
Note that the PB schemes arising are novel and would improve
the PB processes carried out in most municipalities all around
the world, based on our proposed value function. However, this
750 J. Gomez et al. / European Journal of Operational Research 229 (2013) 743–750
would clearly depend on the objectives, weights and value compo-
nent functions chosen. Our proposal may be seen as an initial mod-
el that may be modified according to the tastes of the PB process
owner.
As we have mentioned in Section 3.3, in order to develop this
methodology we have implemented a program using JAVA tech-
nologies which could be easily converted into a web service. Thus,
our methodology could be used over the Internet collaborating
with other decision support systems that provide electronic deci-
sion support services (Alfaro et al., 2010a; Bisdorff et al., 2008).
In the proposed example we have constructed the value func-
tion by assigning weights directly. However, sometimes the deci-
sion makers may be uncomfortable in assigning precise weights.
Therefore, other methods could be used such as the tradeoff
weighting method, see e.g. Bouyssou et al. (2000).
Our methodology shows promise of conducting better PB pro-
cesses ensuring a more consistent match in the selection of the
process tasks to the set of objectives. The proposed methodology
focuses on the design of PB processes. However, it could be adapted
to support the design of any participatory process allowing us to
choose among the hundreds of types of participatory processes
available, see Iglesias et al. (2004) or Lavin and Rios Insua (2010).
It would be possible also to use other MCDA approaches based,
e.g., on outranking methods, see Brans et al. (1984).
Acknowledgements
Research supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry
Science and Innovation, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and
Trade, the Government of Madrid, RIESGOS-CM, Agora.net,
e-COLABORA, Corporate Community, Democracy4All, EDUCALAB
and MyUniversity.
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