PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING IN AUTOCRACIES: Conflicting Logics, Unintended Consequences and Contentious Participation in Angola's <i>Orçamento Participativo</i>

Abstract Participatory institutions are no longer confined to liberal democracies as autocrats around the world experiment with ‘authoritarian participation’. This also applies to the most successful democratic innovation of recent decades: participatory budgeting (PB). But what should we make of a practice that can seemingly accommodate any political system and serve as a vehicle for what often are diametrically opposed objectives? Should we curb our enthusiasm when it comes to the promise of democratization that has accompanied the global diffusion of PB, or at least differentiate between ‘truly’ progressive cases and those where PB functions as mere window‐dressing? Although the share of autocratic PBs is growing, research has yet to catch up with this development. This article attempts to bridge the gap by exploring the Orçamento Participativo of Angola, the first African country to introduce PB in all its municipalities. Analysing the diverse ‘logics’ of Angola's PB and its contestation, I argue that PB in autocracies may—even when carefully circumscribed by design—retain an innate democratic appeal that can be difficult to control. The Angolan experience exemplifies the contested nature of authoritarian participation and blurs the line between ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces of participation in non‐democratic settings.