The document discusses Decidim.Barcelona, an online platform for participatory democracy created by Barcelona City Council. It summarizes that Decidim.Barcelona allows for strategic city planning, citizen initiatives, participatory budgeting, and public consultations. Data analysis found that individual citizens contributed the most proposals, though civic associations formed a relevant community, and offline meetings in each district helped contribute to discussions. Design features like those allowing for counter-arguments increased online deliberation on the platform. The platform operates as an open ecosystem where citizens, associations, and the city can collaboratively discuss and decide on new features through a process called MetaDecidim.

1. Discussions and decisions on Decidim
Data Analysis of participatory democracy in Barcelona
Pablo Aragón
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Eurecat - Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya
The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference
25-26 April 2017, Florence

2. ddasf
2
What is Decidim.Barcelona…?

3. 3
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

4. Decidim.Barcelona is
the largest free software
project by the Barcelona
City Council
○ Agile development
○ Digital sovereignty
○ Collaborative public-common
infrastructure
4
Decidim.Barcelona as a software
https://github.com/AjuntamentdeBarcelona
Barandiaran, X (2016) Què és decidim?
https://www.bcnparticipa.cat/JornadesMetadecidim/es/materials.php

5. Decidim.Barcelona is
an open and collaborative
community/ecosystem of
citizens
○ Hackers
○ Civic associations
○ City Council workers
○ SMEs
5
Decidim.Barcelona as a community
Barandiaran, X (2016) Què és decidim?
https://www.bcnparticipa.cat/JornadesMetadecidim/es/materials.php

6. 6
Impact

7. ● 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 supports
7
Programa d’Actuació Municipal
https://www.decidim.barcelona/processes/pam

8. City Council >> Civic Associations > Offline meetings >> Individual citizens
8
Data Analysis: Source and topic

9. 9
There were offline meetings
in every district of
Barcelona
Every district held offline
meetings with different
thematic axis
Data Analysis: Offline meetings

10. ● 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
10
Data Analysis: Community structure

11. Hybrid discussion interface: Threaded + (Counter)argumentation
11
Data Analysis: Online deliberation

12. Deliberative structural properties of online discussion threads
12
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

13. 13
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

14. Few counterarguments but more likely to trigger deliberative discussions
14
Data Analysis: Online deliberation

15. 15
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

16. 16
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

17. 17
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

18. 18
Thanks for your attention