Rebuilding Participatory Institutions in Brazil: The PPA Participativo Between Corporate Demands and Climate and Animal Rights

Abstract

In 2023, Brazil regained momentum in proposing innovative participatory institutions by launching a complex participatory experiment for budget planning within its “Multiannual Plan” (PPA). While this was not a scaled-up version of the local participatory budgeting plan that emerged decades earlier, its launch did reopen the debate on the possibilities of expanding political participation. The challenge was significant due to the intricate nature of budget planning and the complexity of the plan’s participatory design. This paper examines that experience by outlining the institutional design of the PPA Participativo and analyzing its results in terms of online participation. It also discusses the prominence of climate-related proposals, suggesting that the PPA Participativo serves as a relevant indicator of national concerns regarding climate-based issues. Building on previous experiences, the PPA Participativo is a strategy consisting of three layers: an online platform for digital participation, state-level meetings with civil society activists, and a high-level forum composed of members from national councils. This paper analyses some of the results from the online platform, which recorded 4 million visits from 1.5 million individual participants. These citizens were invited to submit proposals, vote for up to three proposals, and choose from a set of pre-designed government programs. The main concerns that emerged from this open-ended process included corporate demands, stemming from highly organized sectors, such as public health and education employees. However, animal rights also ranked among the most-voted proposals. The program of the Ministry of the Environment on climate change reached the top position in this segment, largely due to its strong campaigning strategy. This paper discusses these outcomes, drawing on evidence of both societal engagement and institutional activism to promote specific agendas.

1. Introduction

Since the 1990s, Brazil has become a key player in democratic innovations following the success of the launch of its participatory budgeting (PB) plan in Porto Alegre. In the 2000s, under a center-left national government, other participatory institutions (PIs) flourished in the country, such as policy councils and national policy conferences [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. However, it was the PB-based idea—allowing citizens to have a say in the allocation of portions of municipal public spending—that would spread across various countries and garner success [13]. As it travelled, participatory budgeting was reimagined through experiments that preserved its original spirit while adapting its format to specific constituencies, such as the youth-based PB in Cascais, Portugal [14]. One ongoing question in this process was the potential and challenges of scaling up PB from local experiences to state or national levels [14,15,16].

In Brazil, participation became a contentious issue during the country’s recent conservative shift in politics. Former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to shut down every policy council in Brazil was partially halted by the Judiciary [17]. Still, participatory institutions were mostly weakened during his term. The scenario is currently undergoing change since the return of Lula da Silva for his third presidential term in 2023. Participation was highlighted by Lula as part of his presidential campaign, as he signaled the intention of promoting a national participatory budgeting experience, once again pointing to the challenge of scaling up participatory institutions.

By early 2023, the first institutional participatory experiment of Lula’s new administration was set in motion. The PPA Participativo included a participatory process set within the “Plano Plurianual” or Multiannual Plan, a federal planning mandatory tool that sets the guidelines for all government budgeting decisions in the following four years.

The PPA Participativo (hereafter PPA-P) presents a valuable case study for understanding the reorganization of public participation in Brazil after a period of transformation impacting both civil society and the state. From a theoretical standpoint, this case contributes to our understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities involved in scaling up budget planning initiatives through the articulation of different institutional designs. As we look at the data gathered by the PPA-P workings so far, we discuss the profile of civil society actors that emerged from this participatory process, mainly its online phase, and suggest that, in order to understand the prominence of some issues—especially the plan’s environment-related programs and proposals—it is necessary to bridge the gap between the literature on participation and that on institutional activism.

Hence, this article aims to answer a set of questions: (a) What does the PPA-P add to the discussion on democratic innovations at the national level?; (b) what do the results of citizen voting reveal about the nature of the issues prioritized by citizenship and about the features of civil society after a period of contention around participation?

Our initial overview of the PPA-P’s voting results suggested a significant presence of corporate agendas, followed by environmental issues. The most-voted government program on the online platform the PPA-P set up was the climate program presented by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA), which actively campaigned for its proposal. Amid the bottom-up proposals—many of which had a strong corporate character due to the influence of public sector unions and organizations—the issue of animal rights received considerable voting support and visibility. This outcome was driven both by institutional activism and the choices of individual citizens.

Following this introduction, the paper is divided into five sections. Section 2 presents the materials and methods. The theoretical section consists of a brief discussion of the literature on democratic innovations and the presentation of our analytical categories. Section 4 traces the evolution of the PPA Participativo in the Brazilian political context. The next two sections present the research findings. Section 5 focuses on the three-tier institutional design of the PPA Participativo and discusses how it contributes to the scaling up of democratic innovations by articulating different institutional designs. Section 6 analyses the content of the most-voted proposals, which leads us not only to a discussion of corporate demands, but also to climate and animal rights. Finally, we draw some possible conclusions.

2. Materials and Methods

As this is an analysis of a complex participatory instrument made up of various components, the article integrates multiple analysis techniques and data sources, such as document analysis, in-depth interviews, and participant observation. Our goal in combining these data and techniques was to capture the different dimensions of the PPA Participativo (PPA-P). For this case study, we utilized three main sources:

(a)

Reports on the PPA-P published by the federal government [18,19,20,21]: Through the analysis of official documents, we conducted a detailed mapping of the participatory design proposed by the Brazilian government for the different processes the plan aims to integrate. Additionally, we analyzed official data on the number of submissions and voting figures, which allowed us to understand the PPA-P’s reach and its quantitative outcomes.

(b)

Observation of in-person PPA-P meetings and events, conducted by researchers and colleagues from the INCT—Institute of Democracy: In addition to analyzing secondary data provided by the government, we used participant observation data gathered from a series of in-person events. This group followed 8 (out of 27) state plenary sessions, periodically monitored the results of the digital platform, and participated in 2 (out of 3) inter-council forums. Although the main axis of the PPA-P was digital, in-person events played a crucial role. To understand the relationship between in-person and digital dynamics, we observed eight state plenary sessions and three inter-council forums, examining who had the right to speak on these occasions as well as the content of the presentations and the proposals under discussion.

(c)

Interviews conducted by the authors as part of the research project “Challenges in Rebuilding Participation in Brazil: An Analysis of the 2024–2027 Participatory PPA”, supported by the Programa Cátedras Brasil of the National School of Public Administration (ENAP): Between October and December 2023, we conducted 11 interviews with bureaucrats from different areas of the Executive Branch as well as civil society activists1. These interviews were the result of contacts established during the previous observation of in-person events (b) and were conducted online, recorded, transcribed, and studied by the authors. We carefully selected the interviewees to ensure thematic diversity and included both government representatives and members of civil society, prioritizing actors who had actively participated in the process. The script of the semi-structured interview covered four main areas, asking about: the preparation and organization of PPA proposals, in-person plenary sessions, voting on proposals, and the interviewees’ evaluation of the performance of the digital platform and the overall PPA experience. The analysis of the interviews was carried out by manually categorizing the responses into thematic areas, guided by the topics discussed in the interviews. Not all interviewees discussed all topics in depth, so we were able to select key contributions from each. We then highlighted the key points they raised and summarized the common understanding of participatory processes as well as their specific contributions.

3. Theoretical Approach

Recently, a new wave in the literature on democratic innovations has emerged as a response to the limitations of traditional representative democracy models, thereby offering more inclusive and participatory mechanisms to involve civil society in political decision-making [22]. Democratic innovations now “encompass a wide range of instruments, including participatory budgets, citizen juries, deliberative surveys, referenda, town meetings, online citizen forums, e-democracy, public conversations, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolutions” [23]. These experiences are generally associated with greater citizen participation, improved representation, and higher-quality deliberation. The significance of such innovations lies in their ability to bridge the gap between elected representatives and voters, thereby enhancing the legitimacy of public policies by incorporating popular voices into decision-making processes [22,24,25,26].

Empirically, the field of democratic innovations has gained momentum since the late 20th century, with hundreds of new political engagement experiences being documented worldwide [27]. These initiatives bridge participatory and deliberative practices, allowing for a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and civil society. According to Escobar [28], such innovations create new arenas for citizen participation that serve as distinct interfaces between the state and society, rethinking the traditionally adversarial relationship between the two.

The development of a field so attentive to these intricate state–society connections, including third-wave democracies, led to the creation of innovative analytical categories that contributed both to the literature on contentious politics and to that on social participation. This is the case in the concept of “interaction repertoires”, which ranges from institutional participation, protest routines, and occupation of government positions to direct relations between activists and bureaucrats [29]. A related concept is that of “institutional activism”, defined as any “collective action in defense of contentious causes conducted within the boundaries of state institutions” [1] (p. 1).

However, while our analytical tools were refined, some empirical challenges remained. Most participatory experiences have remained concentrated at a local level. The challenge of scaling up participation has been faced by initiatives, like the Participatory Budget in Portugal, which also operates on a national scale, connecting different levels of government and fostering greater integration between the administration and civil society [4,15,16]. Additionally, examples, such as the climate assemblies in France and the Citizens’ Assembly in British Columbia, Canada, demonstrate how democratic innovations can address complex large-scale issues, reinforcing the role of these initiatives in building a more inclusive and legitimate governance.

The example of the 2024 PPA-P in Brazil can be interpreted within this theoretical framework of democratic innovations at the national level. In order for us to understand how the PPA-P contributes to this scenario, we suggest initially looking at its structural features and only later moving on to the program’s results. The structures of participatory experiences are often analyzed using three interconnected categories. These are as follows:

• Institutional designs, which refers to how participatory institutions are structured, including their formats and rules;
• The [level of] organization of civil society actors or the profile of the activists involved and the ways in which various actors in/from each area engage (or fail to engage) to influence the processes;
• The political will of governments to implement the decisions or recommendations of the PIs [30].

Each of these categories exhibits a great degree of variability, depending on the case under study. Institutional designs can be classified into at least three types: bottom-up, power-sharing, and ratification designs [30]. Bottom-up designs aim to broaden participation by prioritizing the free entry of political actors, as is often the case with participatory budgeting [31,32]. The second type deals with designs intended to share power among participants associated with public authorities and civil society, and is typically seen with popular assemblies, gathered to shape policies and choose priorities for specific areas. Finally, ratification designs are processes aimed at policy-building, requiring the dissemination of information and that decisions be validated by specific sectors, such as through public hearings and open meetings [30]

Regarding civil society organizations, the variations are extensive and less systematized, so we propose an inductive approach to sort them out, considering the following variations and criteria:

(a)

Individual activists who advocate for issues and causes but who are not necessarily linked to any association. This type of activism often gains visibility in online participation initiatives that do not require long-term engagement.

(b)

Thematic associations or groups focused on specific issues, with primarily voluntary/gratuitous participation, often concentrated on local issues—community associations and NGOs fall into this category.

(c)

Social movements, which may range from more fluid coalitions to well-structured organizations, with coordinators or leaders who engage in articulating with public authorities.

(d)

Organizations or groups with a corporate profile, such as trade unions and professional associations, including professional councils that act on behalf of their members, as well as more informal groups of professionals seeking recognition for their work.

(e)

Councilors from participatory institutions (PIs), who are often affiliated with associations or movements. In our specific case, they engage in the initiatives of the PPA-P process through their involvement in national rights councils. These individuals have extensive experience in institutional participation, understand how councils and conferences operate, and work to defend their associations’ priorities within these spaces.

Finally, we argue that the category of “the political will of governments to implement the decisions or recommendations of the PIs” is less relevant to this study given the current Brazilian government’s professed commitment to advancing a participatory agenda. Therefore, this third category may not be as useful here, despite its importance in investigating other contexts.

Instead, we propose focusing on the issue of deliberation, which has become a central notion in the debate around participation in recent decades. Deliberation, as grounded in Habermas’ [33,34] theory, refers to the argumentative dimension of the relationship between the state and society, going beyond the mere formation of general political will. It requires individuals to express their opinions in a process of public argument. Participatory institutions serve as one of the potential arenas for deliberation, where individuals and groups can engage in dialogical processes, exchanging arguments and narratives to find solutions that would not be possible without this level of coordination and cooperation [35,36,37]. Deliberative practice, in its various forms, enables different groups to develop more refined proposals, often complementing and articulating ideas and solidifying projects.

While participation and deliberation are not synonymous, participatory institutions can be important spaces for deliberation. This is a relevant analytical dimension in the field of participation [38,39,40,41] and is critical for the analysis of the PPA 2024–2027 participatory process. Thus, we propose evaluating the PPA-P’s openness to deliberation in terms of intensity: high, medium, or low.

Before moving on to the analysis of the PPA-P in 2023, it is useful to briefly revisit the trajectory of participation in Brazil, as it provides a wider understanding of the challenges that participation had faced in the country during the last decade. Additionally, in the upcoming section, we will shortly present the trajectory of participation within the previous Multiannual Plans, as both contribute to shaping the design of PPA-P.

4. Politics, Participation and the PPA Trajectory in Brazil

The history of democratic innovations in Brazil was significantly advanced by the 1988 Federal Constitution. Initially, it involved public policy councils and participatory budgeting initiatives, and, later, national conferences [42]. The center-left government that oversaw the country from 2003 to 2016 multiplied venues and thematic areas of participation and provided extensive empirical material for reflecting on the patterns of state–society relations [1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,30]. By 2014, the federal government proposed a national participatory system that would integrate pre-existing institutions. At the time, right-leaning congressmen and media outlets criticized the project. This was a turning point for the Brazilian political landscape and the public opinion surrounding it, and public participation soon became a source of intense controversy.

These disputes over participation foreshadowed the political crisis that would unfold in 2015 amidst calls for the impeachment of the then-re-elected president, Dilma Rousseff. The succeeding president, Michel Temer, went on to pursue a conservative agenda that cooled down most participatory efforts. Two years later, in 2018, one of the first official acts of the right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro as president was to dismantle hundreds of participatory institutions around the country. He sought to eliminate councils, commissions, and other PIs under the guise of reducing public expenditure and curbing the influence of left-wing activists over the federal government. The issue reached the Supreme Court, which then ruled that councils established by law could not be dissolved by the president [17]. Consequently, stronger PIs would partially survive, remaining active to varying degrees depending on their alignment with the administration’s policy areas [43] and on their level of institutionalization.

Of particular note among the surviving PIs is the case of the National Environmental Council (CONAMA), which, despite its endurance, faced numerous attacks on several fronts regarding the involvement of civil society actors in its midst. As a result, many efforts were made to reduce the level of representation in CONAMA by environmental organizations and municipal governments to less than one-fourth of the original figures [12]. These actions were reversed only in 2023 by the Supreme Court, when the Council’s original composition was restored.

This shift aligned with another political change. In 2022, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s third-term presidential campaign re-established the importance of participatory institutions. During a televised debate, Lula proposed a national participatory budgeting system. His approach on the issue was tied to a broader dispute over the allocation of significant portions of the public budget directly by parliamentarians without any accountability mechanisms—referred to as a “secret budget”. By advocating for participatory budgeting, Lula was simultaneously criticizing former President Bolsonaro’s relationship with the legislative branch and reaffirming his own commitment to public participation.

Lula da Silva was elected for his third term, and during the transition, participation was presented not merely as a set of policy tools, but as a method of governance in and of itself [44]. The new administration pledged to restore participatory institutions and created a new position within the cabinet of each ministry, that of Advisor on Public Participation and Diversity (Aspad). These officials are now responsible for promoting participation in their respective areas. Amid this state of affairs, policy councils slowly began to return and national conferences regained their political strength [45]

By early 2023, the PPA Participativo was seen as a means to “carry out a broad participatory process”, to be set within the governmental Multiannual Plan (PPA) led every four years by the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the presidential cabinet2 [46]. As mentioned above, the PPA sets the guidelines, objectives, and targets of the country’s Public Administration, taking into account the available resources and regional specificities3. Each PPA establishes long-term programs that form the basis for annual budgets. After every presidential election, the legislative branch approves the executive-designed Multiannual Plan.

The participation within the 2023 Multiannual Plan was framed by its organizers as unique, as it could be a test for the potential development of a national participatory budgeting system, but it was by no means the first time that participatory experiments had been included in the PPA. In fact, the involvement of civil society in the nation’s plans was first introduced during Lula’s initial term, by means of the 2004–2007 PPA. At the time, civil society organizations were invited to participate in consultative forums to discuss guidelines and challenges, which were outlined by the administration’s technical staff [47]. In the subsequent PPA (2008–2011), still under Lula, these forums were replaced by consultations with policy councils.

Monitoring the implementation of the PPAs has posed significant challenges. For the 2012–2015 edition, the government created a high-level national forum composed of policy council members known as the inter-council forum. The idea was that individuals who were experienced with public policy discussions would be well-equipped to engage in budget planning debates [48]. In the following cycle (2016–2019), a digital platform and consultative face-to-face plenary sessions were introduced to enhance transparency, while the inter-council forum was re-established. These experiments were mostly discontinued under the Bolsonaro government. Nevertheless, a digital public consultation was held during his term, gathering 2100 participants and 193 proposals.

This two-decade long experience was the scenario to which the Workers’ Party (PT)4 returned to in 2023 and the point of departure from which it set out. The resulting new PPA was designed with three layers. The analysis of these layers is the focus of the following section.

5. The 2024–2027 PPA Participativo: Scaling Up Participation in Three Layers

In 2023, the structure of the PPA-P was made up of three different layers. One consisted of state-level meetings with civil society activists. The second expanded the inter-council forum. The third restructured the online platform. Each layer can be analyzed for its specific institutional design, and we argue that by articulating these three institutional designs, the Brazilian government has proposed a way of dealing with the challenge of scaling up participation in budget planning.

The following figure summarizes the design of the PPA-P and its composition based on the different layers [See Figure 1].

Between May and July 2023, the government held 27 plenary sessions in all Brazilian state capitals as well as Brasília, the nation’s capital. High-level bureaucrats actively participated in these meetings. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva inaugurated the process in Salvador, and several ministers attended subsequent events, demonstrating its political relevance. State-level politicians, particularly those aligned with the Workers’ Party (PT), also took part. As we witnessed through participatory observation, these sessions served as an opportunity to disseminate information about the PPA to the government’s allies amid civil society—particularly trade unions, social movements, and NGOs. The total audience reached 34,000 people, and the sessions were broadcast via digital platforms. Additionally, they received widespread coverage by the local press.

Throughout the plenaries, the public was informed about the significance of participation in budget planning and the general workings of the digital platform and was encouraged to take part. However, the plenary sessions did not allow common citizens to speak or engage in public debates. Participants were required to register beforehand, and the floor was not open to the audience.

The sessions were structured in two stages: (a) speeches by activists and (b) speeches by local and national authorities. The activists, representing civil society organizations, were selected in advance during preparatory meetings, and their role in the plenary sessions was to present proposals that would also be uploaded to the PPA-P’s digital platform for online voting. Although civil society representatives had opportunities to speak and be heard by politicians, little time was dedicated to debating or discussing the presented proposals. Because of that, in the interviews we conducted, government assessment of these plenaries tended to be more positive than the evaluations of civil society.

“this reconstruction of participation and dialogue is a significant challenge. It reintroduces elements that were almost eradicated from our political life and social engagement—elements like public political mobilization and agitation. However, in reality, the tool of the PPA-P plenary sessions did not achieve this. I cannot say in detail whether they even aimed to do so (…). While they ensured attendance and mobilized people, the process of listening, building, and participating was marked by significant limitations.”

(Civil society).

“It was a first moment for the movements to meet again, for institutional participation to return (…) I wouldn’t call it festive, but one of reunion, enthusiasm. From my point of view, we ensured that these moments had participatory content.”

(Government official).

Interviews revealed that the dynamics of these meetings were influenced by the political context in at least two senses. On the one hand, civil society groups politically aligned to the federal government were eager to return to interaction practices of previous Workers’ Party administrations. On the other hand, there were time constraints and concerns over potential conflicts within the audience, if far-right opposition members decided to dispute those forums or to question their legitimacy. This probably contributed to a design that was not conducive to real debate. The institutional design was, therefore, shaped by the political context.

In short, the plenary sessions of May–July 2023 largely followed an institutional design of public ratification, with a low level of deliberative intensity, and were composed mainly of structured civil society organizations aligned with the government’s political field.

The second participatory level was the inter-council forum. As mentioned earlier, high-level forums had been a feature of previous PPAs. In 2023, this forum emerged alongside the reconstruction of policy councils under Lula’s third term. Following Bolsonaro’s dismantling of participatory institutions, even those councils that had remained active had fewer members and operated at a slower pace [49]. This perception of reconstruction was highlighted by interviewees:

“The Inter-Council Forum begins at a time when the Councils are being restructured. So it was a period of great fragility. And we (the government team) were just getting started. The councils were still being rebuilt, so we held this first Forum with a sense of urgency (…), we did not know in advance how many councils would be able to respond to the call. (…) There were difficulties in bringing the group together. But it was a very positive thing, because they actually interfered in the process, they were listened to and they had feedback. So I think that gave encouragement for the second Forum. The second Forum began a little more organized. With more participation. Because more councils were getting back to work.”

(Government official).

This inter-council forum was composed of 68 councilors (civil society representatives from policy councils) and had around 300 members from various policy councils. Thus, it represented a constituency with prior experience in participatory institutionary practices in Brazil.

The Forum met three times during 2023, from April to August5 [18] (p.11). The First Forum discussed the vision of the future expressed in the PPA and its strategic guidelines. After the debates, the Ministry of Planning and Budget (MPO) incorporated contributions into the official document. These changes were made along three main axes: vision of the future, values and guidelines, and priority issues. Our team witnessed some of these conversations. When discussing the vision of the future, there was some intense debate about the use of the term “prosperity” in the original text and concerns about explicitly including minority groups. Ultimately, the MPO revised the wording of the document according to the Forum’s suggestions. The original vision, “A democratic, just, and prosperous country, where all people live with dignity and quality of life”, was replaced with “A democratic, just, developed, and environmentally sustainable country”. Civil society was, thus, instrumental in bringing sustainability to the core of the national agenda for the coming years.

The second Forum analyzed the relevance of proposals submitted by citizens on the online platform, identifying those they deemed inadequate and setting priorities that were then sent to all ministries for evaluation [21] (p.2). At this stage, the forum members categorized the 20 most-voted proposals in each thematic area into one of the following categories: “Priority for the PPA”, “Not a matter for the PPA—remains on the agenda of the corresponding ministry”, and “Contradictory to the policies enshrined by the councils and their conferences”. The dynamics, therefore, leveraged both the technical and political expertise of the individuals who took part, who had knowledge in both those thematic areas and participatory processes in general.

Based on our categories of analysis, the inter-council forum can be classified as a public ratification format with medium deliberative intensity, composed of groups and representatives with significant participatory experience and aligned with the federal government’s political field. In contrast, the online platform had some distinctive features, as we will discuss in the following section.

Platform Participatory Brazil: The Digital Layer

The digital layer of the PPA-P was named Plataforma Brasil Participativo (Platform Participatory Brazil). From May to July 2023, citizens were invited to participate in two tasks. The first was to vote for up to 3 out of 90 government programs presented by the ministries, with the goal of establishing the 28 priority programs for the following years6 [50].

The second task was to submit up to three proposals, which could then be voted on by any Brazilian citizen with access to the platform. The top 20 proposals in each ministry’s thematic area would be forwarded to the respective agencies, which would take them into consideration when finalizing their programs, to be submitted to Congress as part of the PPA, as well as in their day-to-day activities [18] (p.5). The voting process also produced a list of the top 50 proposals, providing an overview of popular preferences.

In terms of technology, the platform solidified two key choices by the administration. First, it embraced the tools and community of Decidim, a digital platform tailored for citizen participation and built on open source code. Second, it linked the voting mechanism to the gov.br website, where citizens access federal government digital services through unique logins associated with their tax identification number (CPF). This ensured the security and stability of the process. Additionally, the government anticipated that linking the platform to gov.br would facilitate access, given its familiarity among the population [46,51]. Documents published by the Federal Government detail the platform’s implementation and mechanics, all technical and political decisions, voting dynamics, participant profiles, and voting results, demonstrating a clear commitment to transparency and the dissemination of information [19,20]. In this paper, we analyze the online platform through three lenses: its institutional design, the profile of civil society actors who took part in proposal submission and voting, and the intensity of deliberation.

Regarding the rules and regulations that organize participatory institutions—their institutional design—the online phase of the PPA-P operates according to a logic of inclusion by allowing any Brazilian citizen to vote. The only requirement for participation was having an active gov.br account. Since the priority here was to enable open access and facilitate the creation of proposals from the bottom up, this design aims to broaden participation.

The methodology of submitting and voting on preferred proposals closely mirrors the experience of participatory budgeting, in which citizens can present proposals to address local issues and then build support for them in subsequent meetings, where projects from different areas are refined and prioritized. However, the PPA-P design did not include any discussion or deliberation regarding the programs and proposals chosen for voting. As a result, the platform focused solely on aggregating preferences without fostering any exchange of reasons or perspectives. Thus, the expansion of participation came at the expense of deliberative intensity.

Regarding the profile of participants, among the 1,422,529 individuals who logged into the platform, 60.72% were female (863,827) and 38.28% were male [52]. Approximately 31% of the participants were adults aged 35 to 44, followed by younger citizens, who made up 28.79% of the voting total, and by older adults aged 45 to 54, who represented around 18.7%.

In terms of civil society engagement, we observed variety in the manner of participation. Although all proposals were submitted by individual citizens, the content of the proposals and the campaigns surrounding them revealed the involvement of various profiles: (a) individual activists, (b) thematic associations, (c) social movements and their organizations, and (d) corporate organizations, including unions and professional associations. Interviews ratified this perception, but also pointed out that online participation is still challenging for popular sectors:

“We had very high expectations. We thought that being able to make a proposal, write a proposal from (name of organisation) and get people to vote, it had mobilisation potential, it was cool. But we had a problem with the tool, with the gov.br website. Ordinary people couldn’t register, they couldn’t get on the internet, there’s no wi-fi, they lost their password. It was very difficult for people to vote, you know?”

(Civil society)

As will be further explored, despite the variety of organizational forms that existed among participants, there was a significant predominance of corporate organizations, which advocated for improvements for specific professional categories. These organizations effectively mobilized their constituencies and garnered large numbers of votes. Thematic associations, movements, and groups also participated in the process, though typically with lower vote counts. This group profile includes both traditional social movements in Brazil, such as the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), and forms of activism that span both civil society and political parties, such as sectoral party organizations. Additionally, by requiring an individual registration for one to be able to submit proposals on the platform, the digital design encouraged the contribution of individual activists who were not directly affiliated with any organization.

In summary, by opening up broad access channels for the submission and selection of proposals, the online phase of the PPA-P was able to incorporate civil society profiles that were not limited to social movements and NGOs—the main participants in the state-level plenary sessions—nor to the councilors from the inter-council forums. The Platform Participatory Brazil paved the way for individuals and groups that had not necessarily been previously engaged in participatory processes or aligned with the government’s political field. In a context of civil society pluralization and political polarization [53], this is a notable achievement of the PPA-P, as it facilitated the inclusion of unforeseen groups in the participatory experience. Strengthening the channels opened by this process is an important step in rebuilding participation in Brazil and can serve as a tool to identify which themes and actors—both individual and collective—are capable of building bridges with sectors that are skeptical of or indifferent to participation. In the following sections, we will argue that the analysis of environmentally conscious proposals provided valuable insight into this process, also highlighting the visibility of animal/pet-related proposals and showcasing how institutional activism intersects with participatory experiences.

This section presented an analysis of each of the three layers that make up the PPA-P. An in-depth approach to each layer is useful because it was through the layering of different institutional designs that the Brazilian government found ways to overcome the challenges of scaling up participatory processes related to budgeting. By overlapping different moments, PPA-P added to the possibilities in all three analytical categories we have assessed. In terms of formats and rules, there were moments for disseminating information, validating decisions and broadening participation. The aggregation of levels also increased the possibilities of reaching different civil society profiles. Activists previously involved in institutional participation were prioritized in the inter-council forums, while traditional social movement organizations, popular movements, and trade unions were the main audience in the state-level plenaries. While these two layers allowed the government more control over participation, the online platform opened the way for a more diffuse and expanded constituency, from individual participation to public employees’ associations.

Widening deliberation seemed to be the biggest challenge in scaling up the participatory strategy for budget planning. In spite of the efforts that were made, including meetings and forums, the intensity of deliberation remained medium to low and was only increased at the inter-council forum. This was the layer where participation was more controlled, as activists with previous experience of institutional participation were invited.

In summary, the PPA-P contributes to the expansion of participatory institutions by linking different institutional designs. More critically, the integration of these layers could be further developed, and in future editions it would be interesting to see, for example, how proposals from civil society organizations involved in plenary sessions could be identified on the online platform.

In the next section, we move on from looking at the structure of the PPA-P to analyzing the results of the online vote.

6. Between Corporate Demands and Climate and Animal Rights: The Most Voted Proposals

This section answers the general question about the results of the citizens’ vote in two parts. First, it begins by laying out the programs submitted by the ministries, with a focus on the Ministry of the Environment’s project on climate change, which received the most votes. In the second part, we discuss the proposals based on the results of this stage, highlighting the strength of corporate agendas and the success of institutional activism in animal rights.

Examining the highly rated projects and programs related to environmental issues during the online phase of the PPA-P provides an opportunity to reflect on both societal demands and the civil society actors involved in putting them forth.

6.1. The Victory of the Climate Program

The program “Addressing the Climate Emergency” secured the top position among those proposed by the ministries for popular voting, receiving 20,534 votes out of a total of 215,3707. The program was presented by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA) and came close to tying with “Primary Health Care”, proposed by the Ministry of Health [18] (p. 20). Environmentalist programs appeared once more toward the end of the list of 28 priorities, with most incorporating sustainability into pre-existing areas, such as a social solidarity economy, economic policy, fisheries, and agricultural production. Urban mobility and energy transition rounded out the environmentally friendly programs, as summarized in the

Table 1. Most-voted programs.

	Programme	Topics	Votes
1	Addressing the climate emergency	Environment and climate change	20,534
2	Primary health care	Health	20,427
3	Specialized health care	Health	18,786
4	Promotion of decent work, employment, and income	Work and employment	16,316
5	Tourism, This is the Destination	Tourism	15,246
6	Food Security, nutrition, and combating hunger	Social development and assistance, family, and combating hunger	15,161
7	Promotion of ethnic–racial equality, combating and overcoming racism	Racial equality	12,477
8	Family farming and agroecology	Agrarian development and family agriculture	10,964
9	A democratic basic education with equality and equity	Education	9192
10	Youth: rights, participation, and well-being	President’s office	9099
Other environment-related programs
16	Popular, solid, and sustainable economy	Work and employment	6000
19	Urban mobility	Cities	4955
20	Economic policy for sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic growth	Treasury	4381
25	Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture	Fisheries and aquaculture	3245
27	Energy transition	Mines and energy	2773
28	Sustainable “Agropecuary” [agriculture and livestock/cattle industries] production	Agriculture and livestock	2460
	Total		215,570

Source: SNPS/SG/PR Report (Brasil, 2023). The names of programs presented in this paper have been translated as far as their contextual meanings allow8.

.

The substantial number of votes in favor of the MMA’s “Addressing the Climate Emergency” program reflects both the importance of the issue to the population and that Ministry’s active efforts to promote its agenda. The PR and media teams of the MMA worked diligently to publicize the program and, on several occasions, Minister Marina Silva herself mentioned the PPA-P while talking at official events and in social media posts.

We interviewed a member of the MMA staff who emphasized the team’s efforts to promote the program: “I am involved in several environmentalist movements, and whenever I knew a group was meeting online, I would inform the Minister (Marina Silva) and ask her to participate briefly. When she did, we would ask people to support our program. It was symbolic, powerful. That’s why we got so many votes”.

The need for ministries to engage on social media to compete for votes is linked to the inner dynamics of the PPA-P’s design. A gamified dynamic was created by allowing citizens to select up to three programs proposed by the ministries. This introduced a competitive element, encouraging interested parties to promote their preferences and draw attention to the process. Additionally, the requirement for each ministry to propose only a few programs from its broader agenda led to further internal competition. Bureaucrats who wanted to include programs that were not selected within their departments could use the online platform to articulate these issues through common citizens. This was the case with the “National Program for the Ethical Population Management of Dogs and Cats”, which we will discuss in the next section.

Analyzing the performance of the “Climate Emergency” program based on voter profiles allows for an assessment of the program’s reach within specific social groups, as shown in

Table 2. Most voted programs by gender.

Programme	Themes	Total Votes	Men’s Votes	Women’s Votes
Addressing the climate emergency	Environment and climate change	20,534 (1st)	8544 (1st)	11,989 (3rd)
Primary health care	Health	20,427 (2nd)	6477 (3rd)	13,961 (1st)
Specialized health care	Health	18,786 (3rd)	5763 (5th)	13,045 (2nd)

Source: Prepared by the authors based on data from the SNPS/SG/PR report (Brasil, 2023).

. In this context, although the majority of the 2023 PPA-P votes came from women (approximately 58%), the program ranked third among this group, being surpassed by health-related programs. However, among men, it was the most-voted program [18].

In turn, sorting the program’s performance by region reveals some interesting insights. In northern Brazil, composed of seven states and home to the Amazon rainforest, the climate change program only reached the top three positions in two states (second-most-voted in both). However, in the richer and more industrialized regions of the country—the south and southeast—the program performed well, ranking among the top three most-voted in all their provinces. In São Paulo, for instance, it was the most-voted program, receiving support from approximately 14% of the state’s participants. This suggests that the climate change agenda has been more widely adopted by citizens in densely populated and urbanized areas than in other regions.

Notably, the program also performed well in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, where it was the third most-voted program. This indicates that even before the tragic floods that hit the area, a result of the 2024 climate disaster in the state, climate change was already a concern for a significant portion of those participating in the PPA who were from Rio Grande do Sul.

When analyzing the votes garnered by the environmentalist program through an age group lens, it becomes clear that it performed best among older participants. Among the “up to 14 years old”, “15 to 24 years old”, and “25 to 34 years old” groups, the program did not rank among the top three. However, it ranked third in the “35 to 44 years” and “45 to 54 years” groups and was the most-voted both in the “55 to 64 years” and “65 or over” groups. This result may point to challenges in engaging younger sectors of the population with the climate agenda. Despite predictions that climate disasters will become increasingly prevalent in the daily lives of future generations, the project did not resonate as strongly with younger participants, at least within the context of the PPA-P.

6.2. Bottom-Up Images of the Environment: The Citizens’ Proposals

Within the PPA-P, civil society submitted 8394 proposals, which collectively received an impressive 1.29 million votes. Among the highest-ranked topics, corporate demands stood out. Seven of the ten most-voted proposals concerned specific groups of civil servants, addressing issues, such as professional qualifications and development, salaries, careers, and pensions, with each receiving between 95,000 and 19,000 votes. These results demonstrate the mobilization capacity of such sectors and the importance behind some of the digital action strategies certain unions employed, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic [54]. Together, unions and work-related associations represent what we refer to as “corporate actors”, the civil society profile that played the most significant role in the PPA-P, even if they did not make up the entirety of the involved groups.

Health and justice/public security were prominent issues among the highest-ranked corporate proposals. In the health sector, which employs a large number of public workers, demands focused on worker recognition and increasing the wage floor for nursing and dentistry. For example, the most-voted proposal, garnering over 90,000 votes, called for the technical and professional qualification of community health agents (ACS) and endemic disease control agents (ACE). This proposal was promoted by the National Confederation of Community Health Agents (CONACS). The prominence of the health agenda underscores the strength and mobilization capacity of organized health movements, which played a central role in the creation of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) and the development of participatory institutions in Brazil. It also demonstrates that groups with long-standing connections to both participation and the dynamics of the public sector were well-prepared to influence the PPA-P.

The strength of the public security agenda is also notable. The fourth and fifth best-ranked proposals called for the expansion of the duties taken on by municipal guards, from property protection to public security, and for an increase in the number of positions in the Federal Highway Police, which oversees national highways. While these proposals reflect corporate agendas, they also highlight the visibility of “law and order” issues in Brazil. Such topics and their corresponding actors were bolstered by the far-right federal government of Jair Bolsonaro. Therefore, the receptiveness of these proposals among the public shows the continued relevance of such agendas in public opinion and their enduring mobilization capacity in contemporary Brazil. The

Table 3. Ranking of the 10 most-voted proposals.

	Proposal	Votes
1	Technical qualification and professional valorization of ACS and ACE professionals to expand health services in the SUS	95,731
2	Raising the nursing wage floor	92,502
3	Career restructuring and salary adjustment of the technical–administrative staff in education (TAE) in the PCCTAE sectors at federal education institutions (IFEs)	77,066
4	Citizen public safety and legal security for municipal guards	75,382
5	An increase in the number of PRF positions and the recruitment of all 1455 successful candidates	73,173
6	Creation of a federal council and regional councils for aesthetics and cosmetology professionals	67,487
7	Inclusion of people with fibromyalgia, lupus, sickle cell anemia, and related diseases as PwD’s	66,261
8	Complying with wage floors for all dental professionals throughout the country	52,840
9	National dog and cat population control policy	39,980
10	Special retirement for community health agents and endemic disease control agents	19,842

Source: Prepared by the authors based on data from the SNPS/SG/PR report (Brasil, 2023). The names of the proposals presented in this paper have been translated as far as their contextual meanings allow9.

below shows the ranking of the most-voted proposals:

In the list above, only position 9 introduces a different agenda: that of animal rights. The proposal called for the creation of a “National Dog and Cat Population Control Policy” and was directed to the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA).10 In fact, all three proposals from the environmental area that made it into the top 50 list (excluding the previously outlined program on climate change) were related to animal rights. Ranked 27th (with 6131 votes) was a demand for a “National Agenda for the Protection, Defence and Animal Rights”11, and in 34th place was the “Donkey Protection”12 proposal (4298 votes). The latter called for the “prohibition of the slaughter of donkeys (…) and the creation of protection mechanisms, ensuring resources and support to prevent the extinction of these animals and promote awareness of their preservation”. Another noteworthy proposal, “Cage-Free Animal Breeding”13, directed to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, reached 5262 votes, securing 28th place.

The animal rights agenda also stood out in the list among the 20 most-voted proposals in the “environment and climate change” thematic area. Nine of these were related to animal policies, including the top four. The first non-animal-related proposal, “Environmental Education,”14 ranked 5th, with only 959 votes.

Among the animal rights proposals, three were particularly notable for accounting for more than 90% of the votes in the environmental area. The first, “National Dog and Cat Population Control Policy”, received 39,900 votes, pointing to the growing societal concern with domestic animals. In total, animal rights proposals garnered 53,788 votes, significantly surpassing other topics, as shown in the

Table 4. Themes/issues broached by the twenty most-voted proposals, in the topic of environmental concerns and climate change.

Theme	N. of Proposals	Votes
Animal rights	9	53,788
Environmental education	2	1212
Conservation and combating deforestation	2	892
Recycling and solid waste	2	589
Rights of communities affected by dams	1	609
Basic sanitation	1	330
Solar power	1	258
Sustainable tourism	1	243
Sustainable land regularization	1	239

Source: SNPS/SG/PR Report (Brasil, 2023).

below.

The strength of the animal rights agenda appears to highlight two distinct phenomena. The first is the growing importance of pet and animal-related issues within Brazilian society. The second is the role of institutional activism in advancing this agenda.

Looking at the three animal rights proposals among the 50 most-voted in more detail allows for a clearer understanding of such findings. The first one, “National Dog and Cat Population Control Policy”, was submitted by a citizen who identified himself on his gov.br profile as an “Animal Rights Activist, Animal Lawyer, and Vegetarian”. He also coordinated the animal rights sector of the Workers’ Party (PT) in Santa Catarina, a state in southern Brazil. During our research, we traced connections between this proposal and the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) staff.

The MMA had been working on an animal control policy under the name “National Program for the Ethical Management of the Population of Dogs and Cats”. When this issue was not selected as a priority program by the MMA, it was transformed into a proposal and promoted by the PT’s animal rights sector15. The PT’s animal rights sector began mobilizing for support on social media, generating 29 posts and 18,864 likes. The post with the highest level of engagement, featuring a video of abandoned dogs alongside some text about the proposals’ content, received 6528 likes on Instagram. This same collaboration between the PT’s environmental sector and the MMA also supported the proposal for a “National Agenda for Animal Protection, Defence, and Rights”.

Throughout the PPA-P process, the MMA’s Department of Animal Protection, Defense, and Rights intensified its institutional efforts to create favorable conditions for implementation. Key measures included producing a report for the development of the policy, asking the National Environment Council to establish a technical chamber for the protection and welfare of animals, and organizing a seminar on incorporating the dog and cat population management policy into the public budget. The strong performance of the proposal in the PPA-P’s online platform was then used to broaden support for the program within the government and to secure public funding for its implementation.

The third highest-ranked proposal within the environmental area, “Donkey Protection”, was similarly set forth by a thematic sector of a political party known as Elo Animal, which is part of Rede Sustentabilidade, the party to which Marina Silva and many of her team belong to. Thus, all proposals related to the “Environment and Climate Change” thematic area that made it into the top 50 list were promoted by party sectors linked to animal rights, with the involvement of MMA-based bureaucrat activists.

The digital dynamic of the PPA proved to be more attractive to certain civil society profiles, such as trade unions and environmental groups connected to political parties, like the PT’s Animal Rights Sector and Rede’s Elo Animal. This offers a recent example of institutional activists leveraging participatory institutions to promote their contested agendas within the government. Meanwhile, more traditional environmental organizations did not engage as intensively in the process.

While the attention to the institutional activism among the animal rights proposals is important, it should not overshadow the broader societal support for these issues. The high number of votes indicates that these concerns resonate widely across society. The level and kind of support also suggests that the animal rights agenda cuts across different socioeconomic categories in Brazil. Our examples indicate that animal rights issues tend to intersect with economic and political agendas—an intriguing find in Brazil’s polarized political landscape. In this sense, the issue has the potential to mobilize various sectors of society, which could be explored in future thematic initiatives within participatory frameworks. This could bring together citizens sensitive to these causes and others who might not be as engaged on issues of democracy and participation.

This argument is supported by other research findings. During the 2022 national elections, several candidates who identified with pet protection and animal rights were elected. Many of these candidates were from center-right parties, illustrating how animal rights have gained prominence within the conservative political field. Currently, the Parliamentary Front for Animal Rights is composed mostly of conservative members [55].

In short, the significant number of proposals linked to this theme and their striking voting results, despite a low engagement level from traditional organizations in this field, suggest that there is substantial demand within civil society for policies related to animal rights. A quick comparative exercise reinforces this argument. Traditional Brazilian civil society groups did not perform as well in capturing citizens’ attention, despite their campaigning efforts. For instance, the proposal “Agrarian Reform to Develop Brazil and Combat Hunger”16, submitted by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), an organization with a significant presence at the in-person PPA-P events (represented in 14 of the 27 plenary sessions), also mobilized its supporters and promoted their proposal through social media, publishing 149 posts and receiving 105,951 likes [55]. However, their proposal garnered 13,400 votes, placing it 14th among the top 50. Despite the MST’s substantial campaign efforts, which achieved significantly higher digital media engagement than the PT’s animal rights sector, its program received less than half the votes attained by the “National Dog and Cat Population Control Policy”.

The institutional activism of animal rights defenders in the PPA-P mirrors strategies historically used to consolidate environmental activism in Brazil. The environmental movement in the country grew with significant integration into political parties and governments [56], enabling the creation of activist networks that bridged social and political spheres [57]. This similarity becomes even more evident when compared to the rise of institutional environmental activism within the MMA during Marina Silva’s first ministerial administration, between 2003 and 2008. During that period, the appointment of activists to key positions within the Ministry led to the formation of a network of environmentalists in government, who used their institutional capacities to advance environmental policies, particularly in combating deforestation [58,59]. This helped connect environmental activism across society, political parties, and government [60], often leveraging participatory institutions to strengthen their agendas [59].

Similarly, the current presence of socio-partisan leaders with a history of pro-animal rights activism within the MMA, particularly those with ties to the PT and Rede, suggests that something similar is taking place in the case of animal rights. The opportunity to demonstrate social support through the PPA-P’s voting results has provided a platform for the MMA’s Department of Protection, Defense, and Animal Rights to further strengthen its agenda.

7. Conclusions

The 2023 PPA-P was successful in both its scope and efforts to mobilize citizens on a national scale. It represented a major step toward re-establishing participation, a goal set by the government elected in 2022. In this context, PPA-P offered an innovative three-layer structure (state plenary sessions–inter-council forum–online platform). The link between layers and different institutional designs thus emerges as a plausible strategy for scaling up participation, which deserves further attention.

Throughout the paper, we have assessed each of the layers in terms of their designs, the profile of civil society organizations they were able to engage, and the intensity of deliberation. These items are summarized in the

Table 5. Participatory layers and categories of analysis.

Layers	State Plenary Sessions	Platform	Inter-Council Forum
Design profile	Public ratification	Broadening participation	Public ratification (moments of shared decision-making)
Civil society organizations	(c) Movements and organizations (d) Corporate profile organizations/trade unions	(a) Individual activists (b) Thematic associations (c) Movements and organizations (d) Corporate organisations	(c) Movements and organizations (d) IP councillors
Intensity of deliberation	Low	Low	Medium

Source: Prepared by the authors.

:

Design profile varied between broadening participation—by allowing any citizen to submit proposals on the online platform—and public ratification, as both the state plenary sessions and the inter-council forum worked to disseminate information and validate decisions. Participatory processes would benefit from increased integration of these layers, and they would also benefit from enabling shared decision-making on both the structure of participation and the content. This could improve planning and evaluation processes.

The low deliberative capacity of the online Platform Participatory Brazil, combined with the challenges faced by traditional sectors of civil society in mobilizing online votes for their proposals, led to the prominence of certain groups in the PPA process. As noted, unions and labor associations achieved significant results, particularly on issues related to corporate agendas. Additionally, actors operating at the intersection of civil society and government stood out, particularly in thematic areas, like the environment and the climate emergency, where animal rights proposals predominated.

The intensity of deliberation tended to be medium-low. On the one hand, there were efforts to expand participation exponentially through online voting; on the other, there were concerns that recent changes in civil society—ranging from questioning the legitimacy of participatory institutions to the entry of far-right groups—might exacerbate existing tensions and impact the process. While the possibility of disagreements and violence loomed, such outcomes were avoided, likely due to the institutional design of the PPA-P itself.

This last finding is related to the second research question that drove this paper, about the outcomes of citizen voting after a period of contestation over participation. To address this question, it was necessary to assess the voting results and ask what they reveal about the nature of the issues prioritized by citizens and about the characteristics of the civil society that engaged in the PPA-P. Session 6 presented a lengthy discussion of the results, which we will not repeat in the conclusion.

Instead, we want to highlight the role of institutional activism, as evidenced by the success of the climate agenda in government programs and the support for civil society proposals on animal rights. With regard to the climate change program, the Ministry of the Environment led a successful campaign. However, institutional activism is even more evident in the case of the animal rights proposals. Although this cause was not chosen as the cause to represent the Ministry, the connection between institutional activists and party sectors enabled significant results. As discussed above, such gains were then mobilized to strengthen animal rights agendas in Congress (via public hearings) and in the Ministry of the Environment itself.

Campaigning for proposals and programs became an opportunity for institutional activists focused on animal rights to mobilize popular support and strengthen their agenda within the government. This highlights how participatory experiences can serve as platforms for campaigns that connect civil society actors with government representatives. The collaboration between civil society actors and state activists is particularly important in contexts where institutional capacity is still in development [1], as is the case with animal rights.

Given the ongoing polarization in Brazilian society, the PPA-P experience offers insights into issues that have the potential to bridge different political ideologies, which could be instrumental in expanding support for institutional participation. How actors from various political sectors will navigate the process of consolidating these agendas after the 2023 PPA remains a topic of interest and an open question.