In the most recent decade, participatory budgeting gained momentum around the world. This increased use has generated scholarly attention about its implementation and outcomes, but widely ignored the reasons for which citizens engage with it. This paper addresses this gap in the literature and aims to explain why some citizens participate in participatory budgeting while others do not. To achieve this goal, we use 48 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2024 with people from four cities in Romania. The country is a representative case for the use of participatory budgeting in new democracies. The four cities were selected to increase variation with the experience of participatory budgeting, city size and people’s participation. The results of our deductive thematic analysis indicate three main reasons for participation or absenteeism: information regarding the procedure from the organizers, transparency of the procedure itself and interest to participate linked to the visibility of the outcomes.
