Nexus between participatory budgeting and democratic accountability in smart cities

This study takes inspiration from archetype theory and the literature of platforms as infrastructures to analyse relationships between participatory budgeting and democratic accountability. Data based on two case-studies came from Helsinki and Turku smart cities from 2019- early 2024 in Finland. The data include interviews, document analysis, participation in meetings, in addition to netnographic notes, videos and pictures. Findings show that the archetype of ex-ante and ex-post democratic accountability in participatory budgeting is shaped with open access, high technicality, active discourses and ultimate authority. Although the open access feature may promote a taken-for-granted democratic setting for the giving and the asking accounts of account of action or conduct, the technicality feature sets comprehensive boundaries of the scope of PB, which exclude some potential PB projects from reaching the voting step. Public managers retain the authority of overseeing the PB process, and are able to limit the content of any democratic accountability discourse as they deem appropriate. Hence, participatory budget participants have to be very knowledgeable of their city governance before they can successfully influence the ex-ante democratic accountability of PB of the districts of the cities. Both cities are very advanced in technological inclusiveness. However, a contrast exists, because although mature and older citizens participate actively in the process ex-ante democratic accountability to suggest PB projects, the youth and young children influence the voting outcome. The ex-post accountability is fairly transparent in PB platforms.