Discussions and decisions on Decidim

Data Analysis of participatory democracy in Barcelona

Pablo AragónUniversitat Pompeu FabraEurecat - Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya

The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference25-26 April 2017, Florence

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What is Decidim.Barcelona…?

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Decidim.Barcelona as a platform

https://decidim.barcelona

Barandiaran, X (2016) Què és decidim?https://www.bcnparticipa.cat/JornadesMetadecidim/es/materials.php

Decidim.Barcelona is the online platform for participatory democracy by the Barcelona City Council

○ Strategic city planning○ Citizen initiatives○ Participatory budgeting○ Public consultations

Decidim.Barcelona is the largest free software project by the BarcelonaCity Council

○ Agile development○ Digital sovereignty○ Collaborative public-common

infrastructure

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Decidim.Barcelona as a software

https://github.com/AjuntamentdeBarcelona

Barandiaran, X (2016) Què és decidim?https://www.bcnparticipa.cat/JornadesMetadecidim/es/materials.php

Decidim.Barcelona is an open and collaborative community/ecosystem of citizens

○ Hackers○ Civic associations○ City Council workers○ SMEs

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Decidim.Barcelona as a community

Barandiaran, X (2016) Què és decidim?https://www.bcnparticipa.cat/JornadesMetadecidim/es/materials.php

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Impact

● Strategic city planning for the present legislature (2015-2019)

● Participatory processes in Feb-Apr 2016

● 10.860 proposals grouped by:○ source: city Council, civic Associations,

offline meetings, individual citizens

○ topic: welfare, economy, justice, etc.

○ scope: city, district

● 18.191 comments and 165.087 supports7

Programa d’Actuació Municipal

https://www.decidim.barcelona/processes/pam

City Council >> Civic Associations > Offline meetings >> Individual citizens

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Data Analysis: Source and topic

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There were offline meetings in every district of Barcelona

Every district held offline meetings with different thematic axis

Data Analysis: Offline meetings

● The City Hall is the most central actor in the discussion network for the Strategic City Plan (PAM)

● However, the largest community is built by individual citizens

● Small but relevant communities around civic associations

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Data Analysis: Community structure

Hybrid discussion interface: Threaded + (Counter)argumentation

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Data Analysis: Online deliberation

Deliberative structural properties of online discussion threads

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Data Analysis: Online deliberation

Gonzalez-Bailon, S, Kaltenbrunner, A, & Banchs, R (2010)

The structure of political discussion networks: a model for the analysis of online deliberation

Journal of Information Technology, 25:230–243

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Data Analysis: Online deliberation

Aragón, P, Gómez, V, & Kaltenbrunner, A (2016)Visualization Tool for Collective Awareness in a Platform of Citizen Proposals

ICWSM 2016 – The International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, Cologne, Germany

Few counterarguments but more likely to trigger deliberative discussions

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Data Analysis: Online deliberation

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Conclusion

● Proposals from collaborative sources were more likely to be accepted

● The hybridization of offline/online dynamics became essential

● Relevant social implications of platform design

○ Features for counter-argumentation increased online deliberation

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The principles of Civic Tech

Technology that enables engagement or participation of the public for stronger development, enhancing citizen communications, improving government infrastructure, and generally improving the public good

Civic_technology (Wikipedia)

Patel, M, Sotsky, J, Gourley, S, & Houghton, D (2013)The emergence of civic tech: Investments in a growing field

The Knight Foundation

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Sovereignty: Beyond the principles of Civic Tech

MetaDecidim is a process in Decidim.Barcelona in which the own community

● proposes

● discusses

● analyzes

● decides

the next features to be developed in the platform

https://meta.decidim.barcelona

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Thanks for your attention