Participatory budgeting, a dynamic and evolving approach to democratic management, enables citizens to be involved in the decision-making process on the distribution of public funds. The purpose of the thesis is to determine the impact of the use of technology or online tools on the participation of citizens in the participatory budgeting process.
Data collected from 15 participatory budgets in Slovenia provides an innovative view of the impact of technology on citizen participation. Municipalities that collect proposals both physically and electronically as part of participatory budgeting were included in the research. Municipalities that use the following methods of voting on the participatory budget were also included in the survey: physically, electronically by registering a user account, electronically by using assigned access passwords, electronically by using social security number or any other direct citizen identifier, and voting by sending an SMS message.
Through the collection and analysis of questionnaires, it became apparent that technology, especially the use of online forms, plays a key role in increasing the level of citizen participation. Further research has shown that the way municipalities establish contact with their citizens significantly affects the level of involvement and the success of participatory budgeting.
The results of the thesis provide data to Slovenian municipalities, on the basis of which they will more easily decide what approach to take when introducing or repeating participatory budgeting.
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