Accounting for Publicness: Sociomaterial Interactions in Participatory Budgeting Platforms

Purpose:
This study explores the becoming of publicness in the context of participatory budgeting (PB), a form of governance that enables citizens to participate directly in public resource allocation. The research question is how the participatory budgets’ platforms—through their digital interfaces, evaluative infrastructures, and participatory architectures—enable new forms of publicness to emerge.
Method:
The empirical material comes from two Finnish cities. The digital platforms used in both cities serve as the central focus for examining sociomaterial interactions, as they mediate citizen participation, co-production, co-valuation, and publicness.
Data collection involves semi-structured interviews with city officials, platform designers, and citizens to explore how public value and accountability are perceived and co-created through the platforms. In addition, a digital ethnographic approach (netnography) analyzes citizen interactions on the PB platforms, focusing on participation patterns and the role of technology in mediating decision-making processes. Document analysis reviews relevant policy documents and platform guidelines to provide contextual understanding.
Findings:
The main findings show that: 1) PB platforms do not just collect public opinions; they enact publicness by structuring relational valuation processes. 2) Public value in PB is generative, emerging from participatory infrastructures that enable new forms of valuation (e.g., ecological services and participatory budgeting in education). 3) Control is not eliminated but redistributed—citizens set the agenda, institutions validate feasibility, and platforms mediate visibility and legitimacy.
Originality:
The study provides a fresh perspective on the emergence of publicness as a hybrid sociomaterial process rather than an outcome