Digital Participation for Smart Urban Democracy

Barcelona and Madrid have successfully started to incorporate civil engagement and participation online, through the platforms called Decide Madrid and Barcelona Decidim. The function in these platforms include citizen debates, citizen proposal, citizen budget and citizen plan. Here, citizen of the cities can interact with each other, discuss and propose ideas to the council online. With technology as one of the forefront tools in smart city, these platforms are important in enriching the way citizen can interact with their cities, aside from the traditional face-to-face engagement or discussion.

However, as this smart urban democracy tool is new, the case study in Barcelona and Madrid taught us that digital participation need to be constantly renewed and sustained to keep up with the need of the citizen. The platform must be able to bridge the participation online and in the lived experience. The challenge will be how to translate deliberate process of democracy in the real world online, within the platform. Council and relevant departments must then take active role in moderating the discussion and making sure that it is inclusive, transparent and balanced between many differing issues. Thus, the discussions online are as legitimate as the traditional democratic practice in real life.

Reference

Smith, A., & Martín, P. P. (2021). Going beyond the smart city? Implementing technopolitical platforms for urban democracy in Madrid and Barcelona. Journal of Urban Technology, 28(1-2), 311-330.

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