Citizen Participation in Participatory Budgeting: A Case Study of New Immigrants in Taipei

• Main Authors: Yu-Ying Yu, 游于穎
• Other Authors: 施世駿
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/246bq7

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 107 === As contemporary politics is gradually unable to accommodate diverse political cultures; citizen participation is increased in demand and participatory democracy is valued. These developments had led to the rise of deliberative democracy, consensus conference, and participatory budgeting in Taiwan. Open governments and citizen participation are used to promote the idea of democracy by many governments. The present study conducts a qualitative analysis of the participation of new immigrants in participatory budgeting in Taipei City. The research focuses on those new immigrants in the double tight spots (democracy dilemma in Taiwan and citizen participation dilemma), and investigates how they participate in the participatory budgeting of the Taipei city government. It further explores how participatory budgeting promotes open government and enhances participation of the marginalized groups. The research goal is to understand how Taiwan learns to become a deliberative democracy model by dint of participatory budgeting. The case study looks into the interaction between government and new immigrants in the process of participation. Using collaborative governance theory including cross-domain cooperation, participation and consensus, the present study examines the operation processes while analyzing the actor-networks among the individuals and organizations through the perspective of the actor-network theory. Major findings are that, although the deliberative democracy is conducive to democracy, it may not be easy to empower citizen participation because of the very conditions under which the participation can take place. Despite this restriction, however, participatory budgeting can enlarge the advantage deliberative democracy delivers, and by this it can make improvement on participation. Furthermore, this new method of citizen participation can enhance the sense of participation. As such, participatory budgeting has a long way to go, but is definitely worth continued efforts to foster citizen participation.