# The resistible rise of participatory budgeting

Gilles Pradeau

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Gilles Pradeau. The resistible rise of participatory budgeting. 5th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP5), INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY ASSOCIATION, 2021, Barcelona, Spain. hal-05339476

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# The resistible rise of participatory budgeting. A qualitative comparative analysis of limited adoption of state PB in Brazil since 2010

Gilles Pradeau (University of Westminster)

26 June, 2021

## Abstract

Very few studies focus on participatory budgeting beyond the municipal level and its limited adoption at the state level in Brazil is not explained. The resistance against policy transfer is explored in this paper using the 27 states as units of analysis in three different terms (2010 till 2021) in Brazil, the country where PB was created. This paper tries to make a valuable contribution to the debate on pro-innovation bias and shows how qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) helps to build more robust theories about non-transfer both for policy diffusion studies and participatory democracy field. Combining two types of drivers for adoption (usual drivers for municipal diffusion and vertical diffusion), the main findings highlight the critical role of capital cities, leftist ideology and political will for explaining adoption whereas non-adoption is explained by a low financial capacity or the absence of political will.

## Contents

<table><tr><td>1 Introduction</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>2 Policy diffusion and its constraints</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>3 What is PB and why can we expect PB at the state level?</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>4 What qualitative comparative analysis brings to policy diffusion</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>4.1 Calibration</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>4.2 Truth table analysis</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>5 Analysis of necessary conditions</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>5.1 Necessary conditions for non-adoption of PB</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>5.2 Necessary conditions for adoption of PB</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>6 Analysis of sufficient conditions</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>6.1 Sufficient conditions for PB non-adoption</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td>6.2 Sufficient conditions for PB adoption</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>7 Conclusion</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>8 References</td><td>19</td></tr></table>
# 1 Introduction

Participatory budgeting (PB) has been one of the major democratic innovations for the last three decades and it is being considered as one of the best examples of diffusion across the world at the municipal level. Porto Alegre provided a success story that gained major international attention helping cities to solve problems related to urbanization and growing inequalities. PB in Porto Alegre succeeded in strengthening the quality of democracy. While hundreds adopted this participatory turn in Brazil (Bezerra et al 2018; Wampler and Romão, 2018), the promise of deepening democracy through PB raised hope beyond Brazil and thousands of cities tried to copy Porto Alegre (Porto de Oliveira, 2017; Wampler et al 2021). But can such democratic institutions be built at the state-level? In this paper, I will explore a specific research question: which conditions can explain adoption and non-adoption of participatory budgeting at the state level?

Different kinds of participatory devices were created or enhanced in Brazil during the democratisation era, including policy-oriented councils (“conselhos” addressing health policy for instance) and “neighbourhood” councils. But it has been participatory budgeting that has benefited from greater political and academic attention. While the municipal level was a well travelled path for scholars, studies have been less dedicated to participatory politics at the state-level. The possibility of participation at a greater scale has been a challenge in Brazil (Schneider, 2006; Avritzer and Ramos, 2016; Fonseca, 2019). The Federative Republic of Brazil is composed of 26 states and a federal district. The duties of local governments do not differ much in Brazil. Whether they are state or municipal government, they intervene in many policy areas such as education, health and road infrastructure. Whereas policy councils are common at the state level, participatory budgeting has encountered much more resistance at that upper administrative level and this challenges common theories of policy diffusion. Comparing subnational governments of a single polity allows us to understand how such mobilities can deliver within a similar legal framework different outcomes (Snyder, 2019).

This paper explores cases of resistance in policy diffusion by mapping and explaining adoption and non-adoption of a participatory device in Brazil on the basis of a newly developed dataset of levels of public participation in state budgets. More specifically, it investigates under which conditions few states decided to implement participatory budgeting whereas it was a global spread at the municipal level. The adoption of participatory budgeting at the state level has yet to be documented in the three biggest databases regarding democratic innovations<fnref n="1" /> and this article provides a first attempt to compare adoption and non-adoption in different states. This paper studies the adoption of participatory budgeting in the 27 Brazilian states between 2010 and 2021.<fnref n="2" /> The analysis is limited to the last three terms (2010, 2014, 2018) which represent a total of 81 cases to be analyzed. Using qualitative comparative analysis, the paper indicates that some political contexts seem to prevent PB adoption whereas other contexts foster its implementation. Moreover these patterns exhibit some evolution across time.

# 2 Policy diffusion and its constraints

If the state level in federal countries has gained some attention in their role in policy diffusion (Graham et al., 2013), it has remained understudied in Latin America (Couto and Absher-Bellon 2018, Porto de Oliveira et al. 2020) and thus this paper contributes to deepening our knowledge about Brazilian states in a systematic fashion. The case of diffusion of participatory politics in Brazil is particularly relevant for understanding the connection between different levels of administration. The municipal level and the national level have been studied, whereas the state level is understudied and with most focus on one specific state, Rio Grande do Sul, whose capital is Porto Alegre (Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006; Legard and Goldfrank, 2020).

<footnote n="1">¹Different essential projects have listed democratic innovations such as Participedia.net and Latinno.net. Spada’s census focuses on PB but only deals with municipal cases. Yet no entry has been found in these databases regarding other cases of PB at the state level at the time of writing.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²This paper is part of a doctoral research exploring diffusion of different participatory processes related to state budgets in Brazil. This paper will focus on participatory budgeting.</footnote>
But diffusion is also considered as a process instead of a simple outcome of adoption. Before being adopted, a policy or set of behaviours must be communicated. Once policy makers are aware of a policy in a different jurisdiction, they may be inclined to replicate, imitate, get inspired or even neglect that policy. Recent literature considering diffusion as a process has also expanded our conception of what could be considered as an outcome of policy diffusion. In his study of the diffusion of regionalism, Risse (2016) describes four types of diffusion outcomes:<fnref n="3" /> (1) “wholesale adoption” of institutional models and policies (2) adaptation, selecting some policies and acclimatising them to the local context (3) transformation and (4) explicit rejection of particular institutional models or policies. The timing of adoption also matters for the degree of transfer of a specific policy (Mallinson 2020; Wampler 2009).

Most of the scholarship in policy diffusion studies is limited by a dominant quantitative approach in comparative politics. There is a clear pro-innovation bias with event history analysis (Starke 2013; Karch et al., 2016). Focusing on cases of wide replication when comparing between states in the US or cantons in Switzerland do not help to perceive constraint causal mechanisms preventing potential adoption. Scarce scholarly works try to explain non-adoption in comparative politics and scholars have called more recently for a stronger analysis of the mechanisms of resistance in diffusion studies (Porto de Oliveira and Pal, 2018; Fay 2018). Actors can use different tricks to prevent the importation of a specific program by promoting inertia, arguing about irrelevance or by transforming goals. Such subtle variations can lead to different patterns of adoption (Pierce and Miller, 1999). On a meso-level analysis of policy choice, documenting inertia is somewhat more challenging than for documenting policy change. However, when a context can favor political change according to the literature, non-occurrence of change provides a good test for drivers of diffusion.

Five essential conditions as enabling factors for the adoption of democratic innovations can be drawn from the literature (Font, Sesma and Fontcuberta, 2014; Kübler et al., 2019; Fedozzi, Ramos and Gonçalves, 2020; Pradeau, 2021): the number of residents in the jurisdiction, the ideology of the implementers, the electoral competition, the presence of neighbours adopting comparable public participation instruments and basic resources. PB literature also highlights the role of mobilized civil society (Baiocchi, Heller and Silva, 2011; Wampler and Romão, 2018) even if the relevance of this variable is sometimes disputed (Fedozzi et al, 2020). More recent literature has highlighted the existence of policies travelling across different levels of government and not only from jurisdiction to another from a similar administrative level (city-to-city,..) and I propose different conditions in relation to this vertical diffusion. Thus I have included in my analysis the following conditions related to the Brazilian diffusion: (1) financial capacity (2) size of the jurisdiction (3) associative density (4) executive ideology (5) political will of the governor (6) municipal experience of the governor (7) state capital with PB.

Such drivers are commonly studied in the literature on policy diffusion, gauging the influence of domestic factors (wealth, professionalism, ideology,...) and external factors (for example, geographical proximity, networks, relations to international organizations) in the adoption of wide-spread policies (Nicholson-Crotty et al., 2014; Mitchell, 2018; Mallinson, 2020). Policy diffusion studies repeat a similar story unfolding in three successive phases with a few bold innovators which lead to a boom of adoptions and then eventually laggards will catch the wave before it is too late. The diffusion of progressive policies in Latin America indicates a very similar account of events whether the program is about conditional cash transfer or participatory budgeting (Wampler, 2009; Porto de Oliveira et al., 2020; Goldfrank, 2021; Hunter, 2021). However, we know very little about programs which do not reach such a blossoming stage. By focusing on typical cases, policy diffusion studies suffer from a severe bias towards innovation and success and a similar bias exists regarding the literature dedicated to democratic innovations (Spada and Ryan, 2017). This paper highlights the value of a deviant case by offering a better understanding of a limited adoption despite being a widely known policy.

Building on the strengths of QCA, this article aims at bridging this gap by showing that there are reasonable expectations of PB at the state level and QCA explains how outcomes and the negation of outcomes depends on specific contexts.

<footnote n="3">³However, this sophistication goes beyond the scope of this paper as the section about calibration explains.</footnote>
## 3 What is PB and why can we expect PB at the state level?

For this study, I will make a distinction between a traditional PB exercise based on popular assemblies and other events associated with the discussion of financial instruments in Brazil. Adapting a broadly used definition in the literature (Sintomer et al, 2016) to the reality of state politics, I consider a case of PB adoption only when (1) a yearly process about resource allocation is confirmed which includes (2) decentralized public hearings organizing (3) a vote at some point about priorities and (4) the selection of delegates.

The spread of PB at the municipal level can provide a fertile ground for adopting PB at the state level for different reasons. The first one is that political actors such as mayors, council members or civil society leaders can have benefited from the participatory arrangements and can pressure the upper level to implement a similar process. This kind of bottom-up diffusion has been found for participatory budgeting (Porto de Oliveira, 2017, p.55-56) and for other types of policies (Shipan and Volden, 2006; Karch, 2012; Sugiyama, 2012). This article is a first attempt to combine contextual explanations with actor-based explanations such as whether former mayors who implemented municipal PB are now state governors - in other words a commitment for PB might travel with an actor.

Legal incentives for participation in Brazil also exist. At the Federal level, the fiscal responsibility law includes Article 48, requiring transparency through "popular participation by holding public hearings during the elaboration of PPA, LDO and LOA"<fnref n="4" />. This places a requirement on municipalities, states and the federal administration. Due to this law, a minimal level of participation can be expected at the state level but the legal standard does not mean a strong participatory budgeting exercise in every state. The definition I use is openly restrictive and does not take into account consultative processes. It can be argued that participatory budgeting in some countries can have a different design where some of these core features are not present (see for example Porto de Oliveira 2017). However, widening the scope of this program to any strategy engaging with citizens about state budget allocation would be unfit for the very land of the birth of participatory budgeting. Using a restrictive definition us allows to understand why some states did choose not only to go beyond the legal requirements of two public hearings but also decided to adopt PB<fnref n="5" />.

The influence of the municipal level and legal incentives can still be marginal and elected governors may not be aware about participatory budgeting, especially if they are not familiar with municipal innovations. However this possibility can be discarded by a analysis of political manifestos provided by governors before their election.

Electoral manifestos are being registered by electoral courts and they display formal commitments<fnref n="6" />. Some of these texts can be as short as few pages while others contain hundreds of pages. A strong political will occurs when a political manifesto mentions participatory budgeting or any participatory process applied to state finances. For example, in 2010, four elected governors mentioned PB in their manifestos, including Rio Grande do Sul. In 2014, three manifestos included in their proposals a specific reference to participatory budgeting ("orçamento participativo" or "democrático"): Paraíba, Piauí and Rio Grande do Norte. This pledge expanded to six states four years later: Distrito Federal, Maranhão, Paraíba, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte and Tocantins. Acre, Alagoas, Ceará and Pará made substantial similar pledges in 2018 related to public engagement applied to spendings without using the expression "orçamento participativo," which was also true for Maranhão in 2014.

<footnote n="4">⁴Capital multi-year planning law (PPA) second the Budget Guidelines Law (LDO) which sets procedural constraints on how the third instrument, Annual Budget Law, (LOA) is decided.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Carneiro (2015) shows that many states go beyond legal standards and organise dozens of meetings gathering together local leaders while also setting up digital platforms. Researching the conditions leading to the choice of a less intensive participatory process goes beyond the scope of this paper.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶I have built a dataset comparing political manifestos available on the Supreme Electoral Court platform Divulga. The sources of these manifestos can be found at: https://divulgacandcontas.tse.jus.br/divulga/</footnote>
I can conclude that, beyond a minimal level of PB awareness at the state level, there is a small but growing appetite for PB shown by elected governors. Nevertheless, the mapping of PB adoption indicates a distinct picture. Only four states implemented PB between 2010 and 2021:

<table><caption>Table 1: State PB adoption since 2010</caption><thead><tr><td>States</td><td>Terms</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Distrito Federal</td><td>2010-2014</td></tr><tr><td>Maranhão</td><td>2014-ongoing</td></tr><tr><td>Paraíba</td><td>2010-ongoing</td></tr><tr><td>Rio Grande do Sul</td><td>2010-2014</td></tr></tbody></table>

Despite the limited adoption of state PB, this paper is going to seek an explanation for its drivers. Using QCA allows us to understand which conditions constrain adoption whereas good conditions exist.

# 4 What qualitative comparative analysis brings to policy diffusion

Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) allows for the systematic comparison of a medium (10–100) number of cases and highlights configurational complexity by analyzing how the presence of a specific outcome (or its absence) can be associated with a set of conditions. QCA assists researchers in exploring systematically which conditions are necessary or sufficient for the outcome of policy adoption within a collection of empirical cases (Rihoux and Ragin 2009). Based on Boolean algebra, QCA does not provide any guidance about the probability of occurrence of an event and helps to navigate through causal complexity.

This approach does not replace case studies and builds on close acquaintance with the cases. QCA rather provides a tool to compare cases and allows an investigation on the role of contexts or features in common while conducting in-depth research (Thomann and Ege, 2020).

QCA acknowledges that distinct relevant configurations can lead to the same outcome (“equifinality”) and the role of a specific condition or attribute can produce different effects in the presence of other conditions (“conjunctural causation”), enabling or hindering the occurrence of the outcome. Both of these features differ from probabilistic methods and can help researchers to identify similarities within a large set of cases where some combinations of conditions are rare, thanks to the creation of a truth table. A truth table presents all possible combinations of conditions and eliminates redundant conditions by attributing the number of empirical cases corresponding to each configuration.

Moreover, QCA provides a unique tool for asymmetrical causality. Policy adoption can be explained because of the presence of a specific condition whereas the absence of adoption can be associated with the presence of a different one. Some domestic factors can enable adoption acting as necessary conditions (such as the presence of a professional administration led by a leftist governor), therefore their presence leads to the outcome. However, when it comes to explaining non-adoption, another particular condition (such as a fiscal crisis) can be expected to operate as a constraining necessary condition for the negative outcome. Ultimately, the medium size of cases embraced by QCA means it is an adequate approach for rare events which cannot be dealt with using quantitative methods relying on regression for example.

Equifinality, asymmetrical causality and conjectural causation are critical in order to advance our understanding of configurational complexity and that is one reason explaining a growing interest towards the QCA as a research strategy in policy diffusion in order to explain the adoption of regulations regarding flame retardant (Olive, Gunasekara and Raymond, 2012), or the adoption of migration policies (Guérin, 2018) or climate policies (Habans, Clement and Pattison, 2019). In the field of democratic innovations, QCA has been used to understand their implementation (Ryan and Smith, 2012; Pogrebinschi and Ryan, 2017; Ryan, 2021).
# 4.1 Calibration

The operationalization of conditions is never an easy task. The QCA approach used in this paper is known as ‘crisp-set’ QCA which relies on dichotomization of contextual values indicating the presence (1) or the absence (0) of the condition. Most of these conditions were already dichotomized which is why crisp-set QCA has been chosen and I will explain some difficult choices due to dichotomization.

Some of these conditions rely on public datasets provided by the National Office for Statistics in Brazil (IBGE).

## 4.1.1 Low financial capacity

Low financial capacity is defined by a low level of investment spending and the indicator is the ratio of capital expenses as reported by different official documents from the Brazilian Treasury related to current expenses ("Receita Corrente Líquida") for a specific year⁷. I use the second year of each term as a good proxy for the financial basis for spending, allowing smooth delivery of public infrastructures (Schneider, 2006). While the fiscal crisis hit the states after 2014, figure 1 highlights that investment expenses were canceled or postponed leading to a global downfall of this type of expenses which are directly concerned by projects selected through participatory budgeting. Therefore the absence of a minimal financial capacity occurs when the level of capital expenses does not meet a specific threshold, the median for 2015 representing 6.45%. Low financial capacity is expected to hinder PB adoption.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: Capital expense ratio in Brazilian states since 2012</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Population size across Brazilian states</figcaption></figure>

4.1.2 Large population size

The membership of the set of large states is defined as one with a population bigger than eight million according to the IBGE census. Figure 2 shows that all the states meeting this threshold include at least fifteen cities above 100000. This means the state governor has to deal with powerful mayors with well-organised interests and have (at least) hundreds of local governments which represent a considerable number of local representatives to involve when it comes to designing a participatory process. This suggests size can prevent adoption, however policy diffusion literature also tends to show that big jurisdictions are more likely to implement innovations more than smaller ones.

4.1.3 High associative density

IBGE offers every four years a census for non-profit organisations and the ratio of the number of CSOs employees related to the population in each state defines associative density<fnref n="8" />. The census also includes NGOs without employees but the proxy relies on the idea that any powerful civil society needs organizers. I use the arbitrary threshold of 0.8% of inhabitant working within CSO for defining the condition high level of associative density. Figure 3 shows eight states meet this threshold. I expect this high density to be associated with PB adoption.

<footnote n="7">⁷This proxy can also be associated with a high level of debt and this needs to be further investigated.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸Fedozzi et al (2020) use a less sophisticated proxy (the ratio of NGOs per capita) and every state but Ceará follow a similar direction with the chosen proxy</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: Associative density in Brazilian states since 2010</figcaption></figure>

### 4.1.4 Leftist ideology

The association of PB with the PT is well-known (Wampler and Romão, 2018; Porto de Oliveira et al., 2020; Goldfrank, 2021) and here I will define a less restrictive definition of what is a leftist party in Brazil. I consider that PSB, PT, PSOL and PCdoB are full members of the set “leftist parties.” When they are part of the coalition supporting the governor (for example, the vice-governor is from one of these three parties), I have considered this possibility as a left-wing coalition (this can happen with the catch-all party PMDB). Other coalitions with other parties are fully out.

### 4.1.5 Political will

A strong political occurs when the political manifesto mentions participatory budgeting or any participatory process applied to state finances. This explicit commitment is also a dichotomous condition (no mention/mention). Between four and six elected governors mentioned PB in their manifestos and this commitment would lead to PB adoption.

### 4.1.6 Former mayoral experience

Being a mayor before being elected governor could be considered as another critical connection for scaling up PB. The first experience of state PB happened in Rio Grande do Sul when the former mayor from Porto Alegre was elected governor in 1998 (Abers, 2000; Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006; Smith, 2009; Porto de Oliveira, 2017). I have coded for governor experience as prefeito or vice-prefeito (vice-mayor). FGV in Brazil provides a database (Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil)<fnref n="9" /> which is

<footnote n="9">⁹Available at: http://www.fgv.br/cpdoc/acervo/dicionarios/verbete-biografico/</footnote>
a reliable source about the background of candidates and was triangulated with biographies available on Wikipedia in Portuguese. This dichotomous condition (being a former mayor) can be an enabling condition because these former mayors will have learned about this innovation at the municipal level and can be expected to repeat it at the state level.

### 4.1.7 Presence of PB in the state capital

A successful municipal experience within the state could be a driving force for adoption at the state level. In federal states, capital states can have a regional influence. According to the Spada census,<fnref n="10" /> I expect the previous presence of PB in the state capital as an enabler for the state level PB because the capital hosts both the city government and the state government, which can facilitate a mutual influence, including a bottom-up influence.

<table><caption>Table 2: Conditions for PB adoption, directional expectations, presence of each condition and outcome for the 81 cases</caption><thead><tr><td>Conditions</td><td>Expectations</td><td>Presence</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Low investment capacity (I)</td><td>-</td><td>55.55%</td></tr><tr><td>Large population size (S)</td><td>+</td><td>32.10%</td></tr><tr><td>High associative density (A)</td><td>+</td><td>34.57%</td></tr><tr><td>Leftist governor (L)</td><td>+</td><td>44.44%</td></tr><tr><td>Political will (W)</td><td>+</td><td>27.16%</td></tr><tr><td>Former mayor (M)</td><td>+</td><td>40.74%</td></tr><tr><td>Capital city with PB (C)</td><td>+</td><td>48.15%</td></tr><tr><td>PB adoption</td><td></td><td>8.64%</td></tr></tbody></table>

The truth tables depend on the calibration I have clarified in this section. Table 2 (above) shows the proportion of cases that display a specific condition or outcome. The potential outcome (PB adoption) does not fit the best standards for QCA because it follows a skewed distribution<fnref n="11" />.

## 4.2 Truth table analysis

Using crisp-set QCA, I can compare the cases when PB adoption was not adopted (the most common outcome) and when it was adopted (seven cases). Table 3 is a truth table showing each non-redundant configuration of conditions (i.e. a row) where 1 indicates the presence of the condition whereas 0 displays its absence. Each row is connected to the (non-)adoption of participatory budgeting (here called the inclusion score). Analyzing seven conditions that can be present or absent, any truth table can display up to 128 theoretical configurations. However, configurations that do not have any empirical observations are omitted (“logical remainders”). The level of empirical combinations for state PB adoption indicates the diversity and complexity of the contexts in these 81 cases because, after dichotomisation of each condition, 46 empirical combinations are displayed.

The truth table indicates as outcome the occurrences of PB. The first row<fnref n="12" /> where two cases (n=2) appear displays a specific configuration as present when PB is implemented. This configuration can be read as follows: PB is adopted when a leftist governor (L=1) was elected, without a prior mayoral experience (M=0) in a small state (S=0) without a low financial capacity (I=0). In both cases, the configuration of the absence of PB shows also that PB was present in the state capital (C=1). The governor's manifesto did mention PB which displays a strong political will (W = 1).

<footnote n="10">¹⁰Spada, Paolo. 2017. 'Dataset on Brazilian Participatory Budgeting: 1989 to 2012.' https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/EDSNJS (February 23, 2020).</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹PB is a very rare event in my 81 cases because it only occurs in 9% of the state-terms. This skewness might be problematic for the analysis although the calibration strategy regarding adoption is strongly theoretically guided.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹²The row is also numbered 14 in the truth table</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 3. Truth table showing PB adoption and non-adoption. (I) Low investment capacity (S) Large size of the jurisdiction (A) High associative density (L) Left governor (W) political will of the governor (M) municipal experience of the governor (C) state capital with PB.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>I</th><th>S</th><th>A</th><th>L</th><th>W</th><th>M</th><th>C</th><th>OUT</th><th>n</th><th>incl</th><th>PRI</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>14</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>32</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>128</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>78</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.500</td><td>0.500</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>5</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>26</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>30</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>42</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>44</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>46</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>50</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>57</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>65</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>67</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>68</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>69</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>70</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>73</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>74</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>76</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>77</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>80</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>81</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>83</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>88</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>92</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>98</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>104</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>106</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>108</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>113</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>114</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>115</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td>## 116</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>## 119</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr><tr><td>## 124</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.000</td></tr></table>

Looking at the table, some specific configurations can be more expected than others. Table 2 has indicated that a configuration in line with theoretical hypotheses would expect a row with PB not adopted when a non-leftist governor (L=0) was elected, without a prior mayoral experience (P=0) in a small state (S=0) with a low financial capacity (I=1) while PB was absent in the state capital (C=0) and the governor's manifesto did not mention PB which displays a weak political will (W = 0). Such a configuration exists empirically as row 65 shows and seven cases belong to this row.

In order to understand PB adoption we need to focus on the first five rows. The row 128 is the closest empirical configuration we can find to the theoretical expectations: PB was adopted by a leftist governor (L=1), with prior mayoral experience (P=1) in a small state (S=1) while PB was implemented in the state capital (C=1) and the governor's manifesto mentioned PB which displays a strong political will (W = 1). However only one case is defined by this configuration despite a low investment capacity (I=1). This case is Rio Grande do Sul in 2010 (RS2010).

Two other rows (16 and 32) display PB adoption: they are very similar (Non-low financial capacity, not big state, leftist governor, with political will, with a state capital having done PB). They only differ by the presence of a high degree of associative density.

Another row (78) indicates some contradictions: adoption is sometimes present (Paraíba in 2018) and adoption is absent in Rio Grande do Norte (2018) despite sharing similar characteristics. Rio Grande do Norte as an interesting outlier. First, because of its presence in a row attributed to PB adoption and also because both cases belong to the Nordeste region. Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba share a common border and geographical proximity is a common driver for policy diffusion.

# 5 Analysis of necessary conditions

The second stage of inquiry in QCA is to assess whether any of the conditions are necessary for the presence of the outcome. A necessary condition is rare in the empirical world. A condition is necessary for an outcome if that outcome cannot occur without its presence.

Consistency score is the degree of necessity of Boolean formulas for the outcome, which means we can measure to what extent the outcome is consistent with the empirical configurations of conditions. Because of the medium size of cases under analysis (81), I adopt a consistency threshold of 0.9 which is a standard for QCA (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012; Thomann and Ege, 2020).
## 5.1 Necessary conditions for non-adoption of PB

Table 4 indicates the consistency necessity score for each condition related to the negation of PB adoption. The first seven rows are related to the presence of a condition in order to explain the non-adoption of participatory budgeting. The last seven rows display the absence of a condition (for example, ~I stands for above-low investment rate in the state).

Again PB adoption at the state level is a rare event. Therefore it is crucial to check if both the event and the non-event are explained by the same configuration, which would be logically inappropriate. From all the cases where PB was not adopted, Table 4 systematically explores if a single condition by itself can hinder the adoption.

<table><caption>Table 4. Necessary conditions for PB non-adoption. (I) Low investment capacity (S) Large size of the jurisdiction (A) High associative density (L) Left governor (W) political will of the governor (M) municipal experience of the governor (C) state capital with PB. Tilde (~) indicates the absence of condition</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Cons.Nec</th><th>Cov.Nec</th><th>RoN</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>I</td><td>0.581</td><td>0.956</td><td>0.947</td></tr><tr><td>S</td><td>0.338</td><td>0.962</td><td>0.982</td></tr><tr><td>A</td><td>0.351</td><td>0.929</td><td>0.964</td></tr><tr><td>L</td><td>0.392</td><td>0.806</td><td>0.865</td></tr><tr><td>W</td><td>0.203</td><td>0.682</td><td>0.894</td></tr><tr><td>M</td><td>0.392</td><td>0.879</td><td>0.923</td></tr><tr><td>C</td><td>0.432</td><td>0.821</td><td>0.857</td></tr><tr><td>~I</td><td>0.419</td><td>0.861</td><td>0.900</td></tr><tr><td>~S</td><td>0.662</td><td>0.891</td><td>0.812</td></tr><tr><td>~A</td><td>0.649</td><td>0.906</td><td>0.848</td></tr><tr><td>~L</td><td>0.608</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>~W</td><td>0.797</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr><tr><td>~M</td><td>0.608</td><td>0.938</td><td>0.917</td></tr><tr><td>~C</td><td>0.568</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td></tr></tbody></table>

The highest consistency necessity score is related to configurations when the state governor does not include PB in the political manifesto: PB non-adoption appears to be related to this absence of political will in nearly 80% of cases. However this level does not meet the 0.9 threshold usually required in the QCA practice. So the necessity analysis can safely disregard any of these individual condition as a necessary condition. But the absence of political will might be part a junction of conditions might be more relevant for explaining non-adoption.

<table><caption>Table 5. Sufficient but unnecessary part of a factor that is insufficient but necessary (SUN) for an outcome for PB non-adoption</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>inclN</th><th>RoN</th><th>covN</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>I+~W</td><td>0.932</td><td>0.833</td><td>0.972</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>~W+~M</td><td>0.905</td><td>0.786</td><td>0.957</td></tr></tbody></table>

Two disjunctions of two conditions reach greater than 0.9 consistency score in Table 5 indicating that a low financial capacity OR the absence of political will are critical for constraining PB adoption. This suggests that PB is unlikely to happen where state finances are under financial stress or when the governor did not commit to adopt PB before the election. This disjunction is highly consistent (93.2%) and covers 97.2% of the cases.
Another disjunction shows a slightly smaller coverage (95.7%): the absence of political will OR the absence of municipal experience. This last disjunction is also interesting because it shows that some elements of traditional municipal drivers for PB (political will) and some elements relying on vertical diffusion are both Sufficient but Unnecessary part of an Insufficient but Necessary factor (SUIN conditions) and this helps to understand empirical constraints for PB non-adoption. The absence of political will, whether associated with a low financial capacity or the absence of mayoral experience, is a key driver for PB non-adoption.

## 5.2 Necessary conditions for adoption of PB

Table 6 indicates the consistency necessity score for each individual condition regarding PB adoption.

<table><caption>Table 6. Necessary conditions for PB adoption. (I) Low investment capacity (S) Large size of the jurisdiction (A) High associative density (L) Left governor (W) political will of the governor (M) municipal experience of the governor (C) state capital with PB. Tilde (~) indicates the absence of condition</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Cons.Nec</th><th>Cov.Nec</th><th>RoN</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>## I</td><td>0.2857</td><td>0.0444</td><td>0.4557</td></tr><tr><td>## S</td><td>0.1429</td><td>0.0385</td><td>0.6875</td></tr><tr><td>## A</td><td>0.2857</td><td>0.0714</td><td>0.6709</td></tr><tr><td>## L</td><td>1.0000</td><td>0.1944</td><td>0.6081</td></tr><tr><td>## W</td><td>1.0000</td><td>0.3182</td><td>0.7973</td></tr><tr><td>## M</td><td>0.5714</td><td>0.1212</td><td>0.6234</td></tr><tr><td>## C</td><td>1.0000</td><td>0.1795</td><td>0.5676</td></tr><tr><td>## ~I</td><td>0.7143</td><td>0.1389</td><td>0.5921</td></tr><tr><td>## ~S</td><td>0.8571</td><td>0.1091</td><td>0.3467</td></tr><tr><td>## ~A</td><td>0.7143</td><td>0.0943</td><td>0.3684</td></tr><tr><td>## ~L</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.4444</td></tr><tr><td>## ~W</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.2716</td></tr><tr><td>## ~M</td><td>0.4286</td><td>0.0625</td><td>0.4231</td></tr><tr><td>## ~C</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.0000</td><td>0.4815</td></tr></tbody></table>

Three conditions meet the 0.9 threshold of consistency score: every case of state PB happens where the state capital has previously organized PB. Every adoption is also led by a leftist governor. In all case of adoption, the governor pledged for the democratic innovation in their manifesto showing a strong political will. The relevance of the necessity scores capturing trivialness is above 0.5 so I can safely assume that the necessity score is not impacted by the skewed distribution.

We can interpret the other scores as not relevant for the analysis of necessity, which means the investment capacity (or its absence), the large population size (or its absence), the high associative density (or its absence) and a former mayoral experience (or its absence) are far from being necessary by themselves for the outcome of adoption.

We can also see that the coverage necessity score for the presence of PB in the capital state is low which is predictable. In Table 3 I showed that only 9% of cases have adopted PB while 48% have had a PB in the state capital. I can confirm that the cases of PB adoption are an entire subset of the much larger set of states with an experience of PB in the state capital. This suggests that one mechanism of bottom-up diffusion is at play for the adoption of state PB alongside drivers for municipal diffusion. Overall, political Will is an essential condition showing a greater coverage than being in a left-wing coalition or being in a state with PB in the capital state.
<table><caption>Table 7. Sufficient but unnecessary part of a factor that is insufficient but necessary for an outcome for PB adoption (I) Low investment capacity (S) Large size of the jurisdiction (A) High associative density (L) Left governor (W) political will of the governor (M) municipal experience of the governor (C) state capital with PB.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>inclN</th><th>RoN</th><th>covN</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>L*W</td><td>1.000</td><td>0.892</td><td>0.467</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>W*C</td><td>1.000</td><td>0.892</td><td>0.467</td></tr></tbody></table>

Table 7 presents both combinations of two conditions showing a score of necessity consistency which is greater than 0.9 across all 81 cases. A combination of a left-wing governor (L) showing some political will (W) or a governor pledging for PB (W) in a state whose capital had some PB experience (C) are two highly relevant necessary conjunctions for PB adoption. Nearly half of the cases displaying one of these two configurations lead to PB adoption.
# 6 Analysis of sufficient conditions

A condition is sufficient for an outcome to happen if the outcome always occurs as soon as the condition is present. A similar outcome can also result from other configurations (Rihoux & Ragin, 2009).

## 6.1 Sufficient conditions for PB non-adoption

A great asset of QCA is provided by the minimisation of the truth table highlighting different solutions leading to a specific outcome. Minimised sufficient conditions for PB non-adoption are presented in Table 8 below for the parsimonious solution. These results indicate a series of six solutions which cover exactly the same numbers of non-occurrences. These solutions are parsimonious because I included in the analysis logical remainders based on theoretical expectations. Every solution has in common four terms: the absence of a leftist governor (~L) or the absence of political will (~W) or the absence of PB in the state capital (~C) or the absence of municipal experience associated with a high associative density (A*~M).

### M1: ~L + ~W + ~C + A*~M + (~I*S + I*~S*M) -> NO

### M2: ~L + ~W + ~C + A*~M + (~I*S + I*~A*M) -> NO

### M3: ~L + ~W + ~C + A*~M + (S*~A + I*~S*M) -> NO

### M4: 1.000 1.000 0.986
<table><caption>Table 8. Analysis of sufficiency for PB non-adoption (I) Low investment capacity (S) Large size of the jurisdiction (A) High associative density (L) Left governor (W) political will of the governor (M) municipal experience of the governor (C) state capital with PB.</caption><tr><td>## 5</td><td>~I*S</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>## 6</td><td>S*~A</td><td>0.014</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>## 7</td><td>S*~M</td><td></td><td>0.014 0.014</td></tr><tr><td>## 8</td><td>I*~S*M</td><td></td><td>0.014</td></tr><tr><td>## 9</td><td>I*~A*M</td><td>0.014</td><td>0.014</td></tr></table>

I will comment the first solution with more details. Alongside the absence of the three conditions Left, Will, and Capital, a high associative density associated with a lack of municipal experience (A*~M), or the absence of a low financial capacity associated with a large state (~I*S) or the low financial capacity combined with a non-large state and a former mayoral experience (I*~S*M) explain non-adoption of PB. These terms cover respectively 14.9%, 10.8% and 14.9% of the cases whereas the absence of a leftist governor, the absence of PB in the state capital and the absence of political will represent each more than half of the non-adoption. These three paths (A*~M and ~I*S and I*~S*M) have a unique coverage of 0.014 which means each of these terms represents only 1.4% of the cases which are not covered by other terms.

The inclusion score is 1 which means the solution represents 100% of the empirical data displaying the five configurations of PB non-adoption. The overall solution coverage is 0.986, showing that the 98% of non-adoptions are explained by the six paths. Despite the skewness of the set towards non-adoption, these findings are highly relevant to understand under which conditions PB cannot be adopted. The solutions highlight the absence of a leftist governor (~L) or the absence of political will (~W) or the absence of PB in the state capital (~C) which represent a confirmation of some critical findings in the literature (the importance of a leftist ideology and a strong political will) and also add an important feature of vertical diffusion: without the presence of PB in the state capital, PB tends not to be adopted in the state.

With these solutions, QCA shows clearly that distinct configurations are very relevant for the occurrence of the outcome (“equifinality”) and the role of a specific condition or attribute can produce different effects in the presence of other conditions. Other conditions such as low financial capacity, the size of the jurisdiction and the former mayoral experience play different roles depending on the presence or absence of conditions which highlight the causal complexity at play when policy diffusion does not lead to adoption.

## 6.2 Sufficient conditions for PB adoption

Due to the absence of many cases displaying PB adoption, the effect of minimization is quite small because it shows common configurations found in table 3 when the PB is adopted. Only five rows display this outcome and one of these rows has to be eliminated because of its contradiction (excluding the case of Paraíba in 2018).

<table><caption>Table 9. Analysis of sufficiency for PB adoption</caption><tr><td>##</td><td colspan="5">M1: A*L*W*M + ~I*~S*~A*W*C -> 0</td></tr><tr><td>##</td><td colspan="5">inclS PRI covS covU</td></tr><tr><td>##</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>## 1</td><td>A*L*W*M</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td><td>0.286</td><td>0.286</td></tr><tr><td>## 2</td><td>~I*~S*~A*W*C</td><td>1.000</td><td>1.000</td><td>0.571</td><td>0.571</td></tr><tr><td>##</td><td colspan="5">M1 1.000 1.000 0.857</td></tr></table>
The overall solution coverage is 0.857, showing that the 85.7% of PB adoptions can be explained by the two terms<fnref n="13" />, and the solution consistency is 1, indicating that all the empirical data displaying the two paths have adopted PB.

The first path A*L*W*M of the parsimonious solution means there is PB when there is a left-wing governor who was a former mayor and who shows political will in a state benefiting from a high associative density. The second term of the solution ~I*~S*~A*W*C describes cases in non-large states associated with a non-high associative density and an above low level of financial capacity which had a previous PB experience in the state capital while the governor supported PB in the political manifesto.

The first term of the solution A*L*W*M represents the cases of Rio Grande do Sul in 2010 and the Federal district in 2010 whereas ~I*~S*~A*W*C represents cases such as Maranhão in 2014 and 2018 (MA2014 & MA2018) and Paraíba in 2010 and 2014 (PB2010 and PB2014).

Rio Grande do Sul started PB implementation in 1999 when Olivio Dutra was elected governor. This leader was mayor of the state capital Porto Alegre in 1989 and his team helped to create a new mechanism allocating budget resources to every territorial subdivision. His team (including Ubiratan de Souza) helped to translate this innovation at the state level. This implementation led to a political struggle with the former governor's party (Abers, 2000; Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006). The existence of a preexisting legal framework at the state level requires the organisation of meetings and vote within existing regional councils and Dutra tried to bypass these councils. PB was organized as a popular process every year relying on social movements without any public resources supporting the process. The process was decentralised and the vote was organised in the 27 regions of the states. Dutra failed to be reelected in 2002.

In 2010, PB started again in Rio Grande do Sul. Tarso Genro was elected governor and did not meet such problems. Genro is another leader from PT who was mayor of Porto Alegre from 1994 to 1998. Learning from the previous administration, he took great care to include regional councils in the organisation of regional meetings in a systemic participation scheme. In 2014 Genro was not reelected and successive governors stopped PB (Fonseca, 2019).

A similar story of PB adoption is explained by the former experience of Ricardo Coutinho before his election as a governor in 2010 in Paraíba. Again, the leader was a former mayor of the state capital having done PB. Before being mayor, Coutinho was a member of the PT until the end of the 90's. He did not win the support of the local PT when he decided to run the mayoral race of the state capital. He got the endorsement of another leftist party (Brazilian Socialist Party) and was elected twice mayor. He implemented PB under another label ("orçamento democrático") for his two terms from 2004 to 2010. When he was elected governor in 2010 with the support of PSB, he used his mayoral experience and his staff to transfer PB at the state level. The process of diffusion seems very similar to Rio Grande do Sul: the mayor transposes his municipal policies at the state level when he becomes governor.

Nevertheless, the relevance of this mayoral experience is downplayed by this systematic analysis taking into account counterfactuals. PB in Paraíba and Maranhão are explained through minimization by another configuration where the previous experience of PB in the state capital is more relevant than the personal experience as a mayor. The adoption of PB in Rio Grande do Sul and in the Federal district in 2010 follows a distinct pattern from the other cases. Each term also represents distinct regional trends: the South region and the Northeast region. This means Rio Grande do Sul does not have any strictly equivalent state beyond the Federal district and this very specific configuration can explain limited diffusion in the South region.

Both terms have in common the relevance of a strong political will to implement PB. If the first term (A*L*W*M) is quite in line with findings for municipal cases, the second term (~I*~S*~A*W*C) provides a finding not expected by the literature. Despite being small and without any high associative density, a state can adopt PB if there is some optimal conditions linked to a previous experience in the state capital and some financial capacity. Both terms also highlight the need to take into account vertical diffusion, whether it is the personal experience as a mayor or the influence of the capital city on the state policies.

This Qualitative Comparative Analysis does not help to understand under which conditions the Workers' Party was prevented from adopting PB after 2014 whereas PT was the main promoter in Rio Grande do

<footnote n="13">¹³Only one case of PB adoption from the analysis is missing because it was part of a contradictory row.</footnote>
Sul at the very start of PB both at the municipal and state level. A careful analysis of the Northeast region can explore why other states in the same region did not implement PB and this QCA provides a very thoughtful basis for a case study selection. Another point is related to the constraint of geographical diffusion. Paraíba and Maranhão are two active cases are found in Nordeste region, which could drive diffusion within this region. But little diffusion is happening in Nordeste region despite having states led by the PT which includes PB in their manifesto and despite sharing common domestic characteristics with Paraíba and Maranhão.

The reader can focus on a specific condition highlighted by this qualitative comparative analysis (such as the pledge for PB in the governor's manifesto) and select typical or deviant cases for process tracing. This analysis also confirms the existence of regional trends in the diffusion of this democratic innovation (Fedozzi et al, 2020).

# 7 Conclusion

This paper offers a new perspective on the issue of limited diffusion with three findings. Adoption of participatory budgeting and participatory processes applied to state finances share some common patterns with the municipal PB adoption. However, only four state-PB experiences were found in Brazil since 2010 which limits any claim to generalization. Very few cases of state PBs have been documented (Fonseca, 2019; Goldfrank and Schneider, 2006; Legard and Goldfrank, 2020) and the absence of wide expansion at this level of government is never explained whereas the degree of transferability of democratic innovations has proven to be difficult (Abers, 2001; Smith, 2009).

QCA allows comparing different configurations of conditions leading to adoption or non-adoption of PB. Driven by the key factors identified in the literature I have tested different conditions related to usual drivers of municipal diffusion of democratic innovations and other conditions related to vertical diffusion, namely (1) financial capacity (2) size of the jurisdiction (3) associative density (4) executive ideology (5) political will of the governor (6) municipal experience of the governor (7) state capital with PB.

The first finding reveals that the absence of political will, whether associated with a low financial capacity or the absence of mayoral experience, is a key driver for PB non-adoption. Other conditions are not necessary for explaining non-adoption.

The second finding shows that state PB adoption, while being a rare event, relies on three necessary conditions: a process led by a leftist governor after a formal pledge in her/his political manifesto in a state where its capital city had previous experience with PB.

Overall this study reveals that municipal factors found in the literature about the diffusion of PB need to be combined with vertical diffusion mechanisms in order to explain both adoption and non-adoption of this participatory approach. The leadership driving the vertical diffusion seems also to rely on diverse forces such as personal experience (as a mayor) and other movements associated with the capital city.

Finally the last finding shows that adverse contexts such as a small state without high associative density can be overcome for state PB adoption if there is a propitious context linked to a previous experience in the state capital and some financial capacity.

This article shows that the trajectory of PB at the state level is not similar (yet) to the downfall at the municipal level (Fedozzi et al 2020). The relevance of political manifestos as a key predictor for both the adoption and the non-adoption of PB is worth noting. Using political manifestos for a proxy of political will seems to be highly reliable as a measure and this needs to be worthy of further investigation for understanding policy diffusion and the fate of participatory policies in Brazil.
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