Increasing freedoms in Sao Paulo : promoting development through decentralization and participation

Abstract

Decentralization and participation have been advocated by international organizations as a means for achieving development. They would do so my approximating government and citizens, allowing the latter to decide on matters that directly affect their lives. Existing literature endorses these claims by suggesting decentralization and participation can improve the quality of local democracies and yield better public policy outcomes. But in what conditions do decentralization and participation actually lead to development? To answer this question, this paper has reviewed the literature on the links between decentralization, participation and development through the lenses of Amartya Sen’s “development as freedom” concept, trying to show how the freedoms enjoyed by citizens can be increased. This dissertation has explored four policies implemented in the city of São Paulo: participatory budget, sub-prefectures, municipal health system, and urban planning. São Paulo was chosen because it enjoys high levels of decentralization and has experimented with participatory institutions rarely seen in other cities of similar size. The findings show that São Paulo's participatory institutions were highly affected by oscillating political support and unequal civil society mobilization. However, some institutional designs were able to partly overcome these challenges. Overall, we found that São Paulo’s decentralized participatory institutions helped improve political freedoms and transparency guarantees in the city, improving the quality of its local democracy. We found little evidence on their effect on public policy outcomes in São Paulo, but further research could fill that gap.