The Participation Game: Designing Participatory Budgeting with Gamification and Public Value for Meaningful Engagement

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a widely adopted participatory model recognized as a democratic innovation; when implemented effectively, it can enhance citizen empowerment and improve public service design. However, despite its normative promise, PB is often accused of producing superficial engagement, limited inclusion, and low-impact outcomes. This thesis addresses a central question: How can PB be designed to enable public value outcomes through meaningful engagement and gamification principles? To answer this, the thesis integrates a systematic review of PB implementation cases, semi-structured interviews with municipal workers involved in the PB process (i.e., the OmaStadi process), and the development of a conceptual framework combining gamification with public value theory to promote meaningful engagement in the PB process.
The thesis develops through three interconnected research. The literature review highlights that although the PB literature emphasizes research on participation rates, representation, and voting numbers, it largely neglects the quality of engagement, the long-term sustainability of PB, and its impact on communities. The empirical analysis demonstrates that municipal workers face persistent challenges due to ambiguous goals, resource constraints, and an inability to leverage organizational capabilities effectively. Building on these insights, this thesis develops a conceptual model in which “meaningful engagement,” defined by representativeness, deliberative depth, consequentiality, and sustained engagement, serves as a binding agent in the design of a PB process. The conceptual model demonstrates how gamification mechanisms, when cooperated with a public value lens, can enhance inclusiveness and deliberation while supporting situated and long-term engagement in a PB process.
While doing so, this thesis makes four contributions. First, it reframes PB from a procedural mechanism focused on participation numbers to a value-generating democratic practice. Second, it provides empirical evidence of how public value goals are operationalized by municipal workers, explaining why PB often fails to realize its transformative potential. Third, it advances a conceptual framework that leverages gamification and public value theory to support empowering and sustained engagement. Finally, it introduces and theorizes the concept of meaningful engagement as a central concept to the design of a PB process.
Overall, this thesis provides a theoretically grounded, practically actionable model for designing a PB process that promotes meaningful engagement. The study concludes by outlining directions for future empirical testing and highlighting the broader significance of meaningful engagement for civic innovation, digital participation, and the evolution of democratic governance.