Between Resilience and Abandonment: Political Factors Determining Participatory Budgeting Through Digital Participatory Platforms

Participatory budgeting (PB) is one of the most significant democratic innovations to enhance citizens’ influence on public policy, seeing renewed growth over the last decade by merging with digital participatory platforms. However, many PB programmes fail to persist beyond their initial adoption. Which political factors affect the resilience of hybrid deployments of PB through digital platforms? Local governments, and ultimately mayors, play a pivotal role, but the extent to which political factors influence the continuity of PB programmes remains contested, with mixed evidence in the literature. To examine this relationship, we compiled a database tracking PB processes in 90 municipalities that used the Decidim platform across Catalonia from 2016 to 2025. Our findings provide insights into how political conditions shape the survival of PB initiatives. A change in the ruling party increases the likelihood of PB abandonment, though this effect is contingent upon the incoming mayor belonging to a mainstream party, particularly on the centre-left. In addition, municipalities that show signs of institutionalisation, such as prior experience in participatory processes and a participation regulatory framework, or that possess a strong local participatory culture, are more prone to sustain these initiatives.