Case study of Preparing Participatory Budgeting in the City of Tartu

The main goal of this paper is to examine practical experience in good governance at a local level by discussing the initiative called Participatory Budgeting (PB). The paper seeks to map challenges, choices and decisive factors that can be distinguished in the PB preparation process by presenting a case study of the City of Tartu. It focuses specifically on the fears, barriers and arguments of the local politicians and officials involved in the preparation process. The study reveals that political confrontation, financial constraints, composing the PB decision-making body as well as overcoming the problem of extra workloads can become major challenges in the process of preparing for PB.