Participatory Democracy Archives

Civic Engagement, Civic Tech, Democracy, Open Government, Participatory Budgeting, Participatory Democracy

Next-Generation Engagement Platforms (II) and the Current Moment

In my last post (Next-Generation Engagement Platforms, May 12), I covered three of the most powerful open source next-generation public engagement platforms. These platforms are compelling because they invite residents and citizens to do so much more than vote and submit complaints to governments. Each platform I covered invites its...

By: Matt Stempeck Jun 22, 2020
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Civic Engagement, Civic Tech, Democracy, Participatory Budgeting, Participatory Democracy

Next-Generation Engagement Platforms, and How They Are Useful Right Now (Part 1)

Inspiration for remotely engaging your constituency

By: Matt Stempeck May 12, 2020
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Democracy, Participatory Democracy

Beyond Flatland: Machine Learning and the End of the Two-Party Binary

In democracies worldwide, billions of citizens hold an untold number of interests, opinions and positions. Political reality on the ground is vastly more complex than our political symbols and categories allow us to express. Our political choices are artificially constrained by existing abstractions that either compress us into just two large...

By: Colin Megill Jun 24, 2019
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Civic Engagement, France, Participatory Democracy

France’s Great Debate: Civic Washing or Real Engagement?

Two weeks ago Emmanuel Macron, the French president, announced the results of the “Grand Débat” or “Great Debate,” a two-month process of intensive public consultation that garnered nearly two million comments online along with 10,000 local meetings and a series of citizen assemblies. The initiative was in response to France’s...

By: Tatiana de Feraudy May 9, 2019
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Civic Engagement, Democracy, GovTech, New York, Participatory Democracy

Missing: A Digital Playbook for Local Elected Officials

In just the last two weeks, newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has gained half a million new Twitter followers, zooming from 1.6M to 2.1M. On Instagram, another platform where she excels at sharing interesting glimpses of her life as an activist-turned-newly-successful-politician, Ocasio-Cortez now has 1.6M followers, putting her in...

By: Micah L. Sifry Jan 7, 2019
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Democracy, Participatory Democracy, Petitions, Taiwan, Transparency

What vTaiwan Teaches Us About Digital Democracy

Last week, I spent a good part of Monday and Tuesday at a training workshop on the vTaiwan public engagement process and Taiwan’s Public Digital Innovation Space (PDIS), the innovation lab inside the central Taiwanese government. It was organized by the New York City node of the g0v (pronounced “gov...

By: Micah L. Sifry Jun 19, 2018
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Civic Engagement, Democracy, Participatory Democracy

Testing Tech for Consensus in a Purple Town

How a radical experiment in participatory democracy came to Bowling Green, Kentucky.

By: Jessica McKenzie Mar 30, 2018
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Civic Engagement, Participatory Democracy, World

Direct Democracy in the Digital Age: A Conversation with the Mayor of Seoul

For the past five years, the little co-op I co-founded has been working on a tool called Loomio. Workplaces, government departments, co-ops, and political parties around the world use Loomio to involve members and citizens in bottom-up decision-making. We focus on small groups, usually less than 500 people. At that...

By: Richard D. Bartlett May 3, 2017
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Participatory Democracy, Taiwan

vTaiwan: Public Participation Methods on the Cyberpunk Frontier of Democracy

In the midst of the signal failure known as the US electoral season, here’s something to be inspired about: a true story about rational deliberation on a national scale.

By: Liz Barry Aug 11, 2016
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Civic Tech, Participatory Budgeting, Participatory Democracy

New Book Looks at Participatory Budgeting as Civic Tech Trend

Last week the Ash Institute For Democratic Governance and Innovation published Civicist contributor Hollie Russon Gilman’s first book, Democracy Reinvented: Participatory Budgeting and Civic Innovation in America. What follows is a short Q&A with Gilman about her new book and what the future may hold for participatory budgeting and other...

By: Jessica McKenzie Feb 1, 2016
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