Do hybrid democratic innovations work in autocracies? Investigating the Cases of Participatory Budgeting in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

Hybrid democratic innovations, typically introduced in democratic contexts to enhance citizen engagement and address democratic “malaise,” combine deliberative “talking” among smaller groups with broader “voting” by the public. In recent years, authoritarian regimes have also begun adopting such democratic innovations, including participatory budgeting (PB). This paper investigates whether such mechanisms serve merely as tools to reinforce authoritarian rule or whether they can genuinely empower citizens and function as hybrid democratic innovations that foster inclusion, deliberation, and impact. Drawing on 36 in-depth interviews and secondary sources, the study identifies two key mechanisms in PB cases in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan: wide programmatic scope and local-level incentives that can foster partial empowerment. These empirical cases are assessed against three dimensions of hybrid democratic innovation: inclusion, deliberation, and impact. While PB in both countries remains shaped by top-down control and limited deliberative engagement, the findings suggest that under specific conditions such reforms can generate modest forms of citizen empowerment rather than serve solely as instruments of regime legitimation. The paper contributes to the literature on deliberative practices and comparative public administration in authoritarian settings with broader implications for understanding citizen empowerment across the Global South.