Government Participation as a PR Mechanism
Interestingly, governance structures can be used as a method to increase adoption of otherwise unpopular ideas as well as general civic engagement. One example of this is a practice called participatory budgeting, in which stakeholders decide how to allocate part of a government’s budget with the goal of forcing them to identify, discuss, and prioritize spending projects.
While this strategy may seem trite on its surface, it has been shown to be surprisingly effective. A World Bank study on the subject demonstrated that in one case, participatory budgeting drove an expansion of sewer and water connections from 75% of households to 98% and increased the community’s health and education budget from 13% to almost 40% in just a nine-year period.[[31]](#_ftn31)
More specifically, giving people a sense of ownership within their government appears to facilitate comfort with increasing government budgets and power. While sometimes this is good, increased wealth and power (with citizen buy-in) does not always produce optimal results. A core failure of systems like this is that they grant disproportionate power to individuals who have failed at traditional pursuits and have more time on their hands to engage with unpaid civic government work—as well as individuals willing to be more aggressive in public social environments. Both of these traits are typically not thought of as having a high correlation with competent governance.