Social and learning practices in participatory democracy process The case study of self-organized communities in Maribor, Slovenia, contextualised through the e-participatory budgeting ...

Dr. Marta Gregorčič and Dr. Sabina Jelenc Krašovec

Summary:  The central issue of this article is a case study of informal learning in the participatorybudgeting process (PB) that was developed by self-organized local and district community assemblies in Maribor, Slovenia, in the beginning of 2013. The case study is contextualised through the social unrestin Iceland and the e-PB initiative of the Citizens Foundation (CF) in Reykjavík, from which, in additionto other cases, such as Porto Alegre, Brazil, active citizens in Maribor drew knowledge and examples of good practices. The social and learning practices in the participatory democracy process were researched in five stages; however, mainly the findings from the semi-structured interviews are highlighted in thisarticle. Our case study confirmed, similarly to the pioneer work of Schugurensky and his colleagues,that interviewees acquired instrumental and technical knowledge about politics and citizenship; de-veloped analytical, leadership, and deliberative skills; and, even more importantly, translated the newunderstanding, abilities, and dispositions into new social practices and behaviours. It revealed that participatory democracy provides a privileged learning site, because, in addition to a variety of civic and learning virtues, citizens also developed the capacity for co-governance and influencing political decisions. Full text