Brazilian Participatory Budgeting Census for Cities Over 50,000 Inhabitants, 1989-2012

Approximately 500 Brazilian cities with over 50,000 inhabitants are tracked across six four-year intervals from 1989 to 2012. Paolo Spada from the University of Coimbra began this census in 2008, integrating prior efforts and using a two-step verification methodology. The data is geolocated and designed to integrate with official Brazilian economic, electoral, and statistical datasets.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the adoption and decline of participatory budgeting over time based on the four-year interval coding scheme.
• Mapping the geographic distribution of participatory governance based on the geolocated city data.
• Studying the impact of electoral cycles on policy implementation based on the electoral-cycle-aligned coding.
• Correlating participatory budgeting presence with socioeconomic indicators by joining with IPEA, TSE, and IBGE datasets.

Strengths

• Covers approximately 500 cities across six time periods, providing longitudinal data.
• Uses a verified two-step methodology involving internet research and phone confirmation for accuracy.
• Geolocated and designed for integration with major Brazilian institutional datasets (IPEA, TSE, IBGE).
• Applies a consistent definition of participatory budgeting using Yves Sintomer's five criteria.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified for the 2012 version.

Provenance

Source

Paolo Spada, University of Coimbra, with contributions from multiple Brazilian scholars.

Collection Method

Two-step methodology: initial internet research followed by telephonic verification with city officials.

Time Range

1989 to 2012

Freshness

Data covers up to 2012; a 2016 update was mentioned but its release status is unclear from this input.

Geography

Brazil, specifically all cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.