Schools of Democracy offers a vivid analysis of the long-term impact of engagement in participatory budgeting institutions in Europe. While democratic innovations mushroom nowadays around the world, great hopes have appeared on their potential to re-enchant representative government and solve the increasing apathy of the public. Based on a rich ethnographic study in France, Italy and Spain, this book shows how participatory institutions can satisfy this ambition, by creating the procedural and social conditions of formation of a competent citizenry. More than deliberation itself, it seems...