Poor access to clean and reliable energy technologies is a major challenge to most developing countries. The decision to introduce new technologies is often faced by low adoption rates or even public opposition. In addition, the data required for effective decision making is often inadequate or even lacking, thus constraining the planning process. In this study, a methodology for participatory ...

Participatory budgeting is one of the exciting developments in deliberative grassroots democracy. We concentrate on approval elections and propose proportional representation axioms in participatory budgeting, by generalizing relevant axioms for approval-based multi-winner elections. We observe a rich landscape with respect to the computational complexity of identifying proportional budgets and...

In this article, I chart a trajectory from deconstruction to embodiment in the intellectual history of Buddhist traditions in Tibet. I focus on embodiment as a participatory approach to radically deconstructed and unthematized meaning, in contrast to an interpretation of truth as purely an analytic category or an approach to meaning that deals with values, such as emptiness, as simply truth cla...

The digital environment has opened up new opportunities for fans to engage with the production process of their favoured texts. The successful Kickstarter campaigns for Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell’s Veronica Mars film and Zach Braff’s film Wish I Was Here, and the failed Kickstarter campaign for Melissa Joan Hart’s film Darci’s Walk of Shame, each illustrate how the entertainers drew (or did no...

• Participation by civil society in public expenditure management promises to improve social and economic outcomes while increasing confidence in public institutions. • Participatory budgeting (PB) programmes depend on the effective engagement of three key domestic stakeholders: governments, civil society and legislatures. Participatory budgeting cannot be imposed. • The successful execution of...

The budget is the key means for effecting policy in democracies, yet its preparation is typically an opaque and arcane process. Participatory budgeting is making inroads in municipalities, but is usually limited to a small fraction of the total budget as its methods do not scale: They cannot handle quantitative budget items nor hierarchical budget construction. Here we apply the Condorcet princ...

Participatory budgeting enables the allocation of public funds by collecting and aggregating individual preferences; it has already had a sizable real-world impact. But making the most of this new paradigm requires a rethinking of some of the basics of computational social choice, including the very way in which individuals express their preferences. We analytically compare four preference elic...

____________________________________________________________________ ii Chapter 1_____________________________________________________________________1 1. Towards Improving Representative Democracy in Canada _____________________________ 1 1.1. Defining Democracy: A “Dynamic Balance” ______________________________________________1 1.2. The Contemporary Model: Representative Democracy __________...

This paper studies the optimal income redistribution and optimal monitoring when disability benefits are intended for disabled people but some of the disabled do not claim disability benefits and enter the labor force. Classification errors also occur. Some able applicants with high distaste for work are falsely granted disability benefits (type II errors) and some disabled applicants are denie...

Participatory budgeting is a relatively new movement in public administration to involve citizens in civic decision-making. Electronic participatory budgeting can lower opportunity costs and engage more citizens in public budgeting. Drawing from research on participatory budgeting in particular and public administration, public policy, and information systems in general, this research establish...