2024 Dataset of Participatory Budgeting in Italy

Abstract: The dataset provides data on Italian Municipalities’ policies pertaining to participatory budgeting (PB). The dataset comprises information on all municipalities, and is composed as follows: Municipality ISTAT Code (ID), Municipality Name (MN) Province, Region, Population (2011 Census), Researcher (IR), Mapping randomized process (MR), Mapping Method (MM), twenty dummy variables identifying Municipalities running PB in a given year (y1994, y2002 to y2020), Number of years with PB (TOT). 
Overall, the dataset comprises 7909 units of mapped municipalities.

Primary Researchers, Institution: 
Bassoli, Matteo - 0000-0003-3601-9099 (CISR, SPGI, Università degli Studi di Padova); 
Almagisti Marco - 0000-0002-1734-8412 (CISR, SPGI, Università degli Studi di Padova);
Badia Francesco - 0000-0002-3484-5293 (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia);
Brenco Chiara (Università degli Studi di Padova);
D'Avella Giuseppe - 0009-0008-0616-6550 (Parliament Watch Italia)
Felicetti Andrea - 0000-0001-7793-1012 (CISR, SGI, Università degli Studi di Padova);
Graziano, Paolo Roberto - 0000-0002-9596-9660 (CISR, SPGI, Università degli Studi di Padova); 
Greppi Tommaso -  0009-0007-4354-8358 (Università degli Studi di Padova);
Iida Elisabetta Ginevra - 0009-0002-5812-9408 (Università degli Studi di Padova);
Kocollari Ulpiana - 0000-0003-4643-7673 (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Mastrocola Francesco 0009-0000-2829-5937  (Università Telematica Leonardo da Vinci)
Mauro Sara Giovanna - 0000-0003-4309-3625 (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Perini Lorenza - 0000-0001-5377-4382 (CISR, SGI, Università degli Studi di Padova);
Quattromani, Dario - 0000-0002-2074-1725 (Link Campus University); 
Ranucci Paula Alicia - 0000-0002-2018-4068 (University of Tuscia)
Saija Francesco (Parliament Watch Italia, University of Messina)
Scarselli Martina - 0009-0004-8153-4799 (Università degli Studi d'Annunzio, Chieti-Pescara)
Stortone, Stefano - 0000-0001-8530-8968 (BiPart); 
Valletta, Carmen (Università degli Studi d'Annunzio, Chieti-Pescara)

Supporting institution
BiPart Impresa sociale Srl 
Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Regionali (CISR) “Giorgio Lago”
Parliament Watch Italia

Publication year: 2026
Date of Data Collection: 2025 (Jan-Apr)
Geographic coverage: Italy / IT
Population: Italian Municipalities, 7909 units
Subject area: Political Science, Political sociology
Codebook: 08/03/2026

Content
Municipality ISTAT Code (ID): Unique identifier ISTAT code (nominal variable)
Municipality (MN): Italian name of the Municipality as per 2024 record (nominal variable) 
Province: Two-letter code of the ISO 3166-2:IT standard identifying the province or the metropolitan city where the Municipality is located (nominal variable)
Region: Name of the Region in Italian (nominal variable)
Population: Inhabitants according to the 2011 ISTAT Census (interval variable)
Researcher (IR): Code to identify the researcher who performed the mapping. The code runs from 1 to 15. 
Mapping Method (MM): A variable identifying the mapping strategy adopted: stringent mapping (value 1) vs. loose mapping (value 2) – see below for further specifications.
Presence of PB (y1994): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 1994
Presence of PB (y2002): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2002
Presence of PB (y2003): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2003
Presence of PB (y2004): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2004
Presence of PB (y2005): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2005
Presence of PB (y2006): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2006
Presence of PB (y2007): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2007
Presence of PB (y2008): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2008
Presence of PB (y2009): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2009
Presence of PB (y2010): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2010
Presence of PB (y2011): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2011
Presence of PB (y2012): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2012
Presence of PB (y2013): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2013
Presence of PB (y2014): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2014
Presence of PB (y2015): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2015
Presence of PB (y2016): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2016
Presence of PB (y2017): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2017
Presence of PB (y2018): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2018
Presence of PB (y2019): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2019
Presence of PB (y2020): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2020, 
Presence of PB (y2021): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2021, 
Presence of PB (y2022): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2022, 
Presence of PB (y2023): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2023, 
Presence of PB (y2024): Dummy variable identifying municipality running a PB in 2024, 
TOT: Number of years with PB between 1994 and 2024 

Sources
ID, Municipality, Province, Region 
Official data retrieved from the ISTAT website (November 28, 2024)
Other
Data collected by the “OIBP - Osservatorio Italiano sui Bilanci Partecipativi” research group

Methodology
Sampling frame
The mapping procedure adopted a sampling frame for Italian municipalities based on the ISTAT list of municipalities in the year 2024 (December 31), without any threshold for inhabitants. The whole list comprises all municipalities of “2019 Dataset of Participatory Budgeting in Italy” (Bassoli et al. 2021), plus those belowe 2.000 inhabitans. One municipality was added as the results of a merging in 2021. We set a time focus on 2021-2024, although the researcher could record all past experiences (i.e. before 2021). The dataset was built leveraging on the “2019 Dataset of Participatory Budgeting in Italy” (Bassoli, et al. 2021), allocating all municipalities of a given Region (or Province) to a single researcher.
 
Mapping protocol
According to the 4/2004 law, every municipality has to implement its own website; moreover, PB is a policy which needs to be advertised in all possible form (Bassoli 2010, Bassoli and Amura 2003), therefore we could assume that every recent PB was advertised online. We based our mapping on this assumption and gathered information on the presence of PB using a standard procedure of web-search based on keywords. We opted for the Google™ search-engine because it is the most widely  used search engine and the one with a stronger user-led learning algorithm. 
We then identified the crucial key words composed of two possibilities for the first mapping level (more stringent) (variable MM=2):
•	•	“Comune di + [name of the municipality]” & “Bilancio Partecipativo”
•	•	“Comune di + [name of the municipality]” & “Bilancio Partecipato”

and two possibilities for the second mapping level (looser) (variable MM=1):
•	•	Comune di [name of the municipality] & “Bilancio Partecipativo” 
•	•	Comune di [name of the municipality] & “Bilancio Partecipato”

While the first key-word string produced a limited number of pages, because it forced the web-engine to acknowledge the presence of the Municipality in a rather stringent manner, the second allows the web-engine to produce less relevant and more abundant results. Those researchers following the looser approach previously used the stringent one. Therefore, the loose approach has been used only for some municipalities. Every search produced one or more pages as results. 
The methodology then required the researcher to spend 10 minutes on each Municipality to reach a positive result, focusing either on the first page or on the first few pages. Thereafter, either the researcher moved to the next case, or she could dwell on the documentation produced by the PB in the municipality. All the information obtained on the web was inserted in two documents: the database and a second document gathering qualitative information about the experience, which is available upon request (see oibp.bipart.it).

Methodological caveat
The main issue regarding PB relates to its structure as a budget cycle (Sintomer and Allegretti 2009, Bassoli 2012). During PB citizens discuss the allocation of the budget of the following year. The main issue is thus the label used to define the PB. Some Municipalities may use the year of the discussion as “naming year”, others opt for the budget year. Moreover, information (regardless of the name of the practices) often spans two or more years. 
An example may clarify this point. The city of Mantua ran a PB for a couple of years between 2017 and 2020. Information can be gathered online under the label “Bilancio Partecipativo 2017/18” (BiPart 2018) even though the process was decided in 2017, involved the citizens in 2018 and citizens discussed the 2019 budget. The preferred project was implemented in 2019 and inaugurated on the 10th of November (Comune di Mantova 2019a). Similarly, according to the Municipal webpage (Comune di Mantova 2019b, BiPart 2019), the “Bilancio Partecipativo 2019” managed funds allocated to the 2020 budget, but the project was implemented in 2021 (Comune di Mantova 2021).

Publications
The dataset can be found on the webpage of the Osservatorio Italiano sui Bilanci Partecipativi (OIBP): oibp.bipart.it

References
Bassoli, Matteo. 2010. “Local Governance Arrangements and Democratic Outcomes (with Some Evidence from the Italian Case)”. Governance 23: 485–508. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2010.01491.x.
Bassoli, Matteo. 2012. “Participatory Budgeting in Italy: An Analysis of (Almost Democratic) Participatory Governance Arrangements”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36(6): 1183–1203. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2010.01491.x.
Bassoli, Matteo, and Salvatore Amura. 2003. “Una comunicazione a misura di cittadino”, in  Amura, Salvatore (ed) La città che partecipa, Roma: Ediesse, 2003: 123-128. 
Bassoli, Matteo and Graziano, Paolo and Perini, Lorenza and Quattromani, Dario and Stortone, Stefano and Biacca, Elisa and Colavolpe, Greta and Capovilla, Giacomo and Dell'Antone, Elisabetta and Onorato, Angela and Maiella, Michele and Recchia, Christian and Valletta, Carmen. 2021. 2019 Dataset of Participatory Budgeting in Italy. [Data Collection] . https://doi.org/10.25430/researchdata.cab.unipd.it.00000457  
BiPart. 2018. ‘”Bilancio 2017/18 - Documentazione finale”. https://mantova2018.bipart.it/results (March 25, 2021).
BiPart. 2019. ‘Fasi’. https://mantova.bipart.it/phases (March 25, 2021).
Comune di Mantova. 2019a. “Dieci nuove installazioni inaugurate sul Lungolago Mincio”. http://www.comune.mantova.gov.it/index.php/governo/governo-della-citta/news-governo/item/4722-dieci-nuove-installazioni-inaugurate-sul-lungolago-mincio (March 25, 2021).
Comune di Mantova. 2019b. “Bilancio Partecipativo, si entra nella fase del voto”. http://www.comune.mantova.gov.it/index.php/governo/governo-della-citta/news-governo/item/4662-bilancio-partecipativo-si-entra-nella-fase-del-voto (March 25, 2021).
Comune di Mantova. 2021. “Al via i lavori a Cittadella per ciclabile, ponticello, pista di pattinaggio e area giochi”. http://www.comune.mantova.gov.it/index.php/home/in-primo-piano/item/5527-al-via-i-lavori-a-cittadella-per-ciclabile-ponticello-pista-di-pattinaggio-e-area-giochi (March 25, 2021).
Sintomer, Yves, and Giovanni Allegretti. 2009. I bilanci partecipativi in Europa: nuove esperienze democratiche nel vecchio continente. Roma: Ediesse.
Stortone, Stefano. 2019. “Participatory Budgeting Data” in Dias, Nelson, Sahsil Enríquez, Simone Júlio (eds) The Participatory Budgeting World Atlas 2019, pp. 164-165.