Digital Models of Citizens Participation in Spain at Municipal Level

This contribution examines municipal digital platforms for citizens’ participation (DPP) in Spain. Firstly, we contextualize DPP within a recent history of democratic participation in the country. Then, we discuss the design challenges besetting DPP from a socio-technical perspective. In the final part, we examine Spain’s three main examples of functioning municipal DPP: Decide Madrid, Decidim Barcelona, and Decidim Valencia. From all of the above, we draw some conclusions that may help produce design and evaluation criteria for these digital tools supporting and furthering grassroots democracy.