Today, the ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction journal published our article “Configurations of Digital Participatory Budgeting”. The main goal of this study with Victoria Palacin (University of Helsinki; University of Toronto), Samantha McDonald (University of California Irvine) and Matti Nelimarkka (University of Helsinki; Aalto University) was to characterize the implications of configurations for digital participatory budgeting.
As this goal required an in-depth explanation of an ongoing socio-technical phenomenon, we analyzed 31 participatory budgeting cases of Decidim instances in Spain, France and Finland. We opted to combine quantitative data analysis and an inductive exploratory approach conducted by two independent coders using two rounds of qualitative observation. It has taken over three years to complete and publish this research work, but we are excited about our findings showing the modular flexibility of Decidim and the challenges/constraints when configuring this civic technology to promote participatory democracy.
Abstract:
Participatory budgeting is a democratic innovation increasingly supported by digital platforms. Like any technology, participatory budgeting platforms are not value-free or politically neutral; their design, configuration, and deployment display assumptions and configure participant behaviour. To understand what kinds of configurations occur and what kinds of democratic values they hold, we studied 31 digital participatory budgeting cases in Spain, France, and Finland. These cases were all supported by the same technical platform, Decidim, allowing us to focus on the variations in their configurations. We examined the data from these cases and identified 25 different technical configurations and 15 participatory budgeting configurations. The configurations observed in our cases exhibit individual and community-centred assumptions about expected state-society interactions, as well as open vs managerial approaches to participatory budgeting. Based on these findings, we highlight a dilemma for civic technology designers: to what degree should platforms be open to configuration and customisation, and which political values should be enforced by platform design?
Pablo Aragón 