Brussels Voice – Can Participatory Democracy Replace the Right to Vote?
One in three people living in Brussels is non-Belgian. This means they cannot vote in regional elections. This year, Commissioner Brussels is working with the regional parliament to set up a citizen panel of international citizens of Brussels. The goal: to give them a voice in how the city where they live is run. Democracy Technologies spoke with project officer, Bryn Watkins, about what they hope to achieve and why it’s complicated
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FIDE Event: The Deliberative Wave is Here to Stay
Head of Cabinet of the Vice President for Democracy & Demography at the European Commission, Colin Scicluna, put it simply, “We have adopted the deliberative approach”. He acknowledges that their experience with the Conference on the Future of Europe convinced the Commission to “trust in these types of processes” and has helped them realise the […]
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Leading the World in AI Regulation – Is the EU’s AI Act Up to the Challenge?
As the EU’s ambitious Artificial Intelligence Act gets the green light from the European Parliament, we take a closer look at what exactly it involves and reflect on some of the challenges it faces.
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‘Saving Democracy for Real’ – Panel Discussion
A panel of experts sat down recently at the Democracy Technology Convention in Poland, to tackle just this question and offer some solutions. The discussion benefited from the insights and expertise of EU Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, Director of Transparencia Brazil, Juliana Sakai and Courteney Mukoyi, Founder of the Justice Code Foundation Trust. The problem, […]
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From Clicktivism to Hacktivism
New technologies provide a range of different participation levels that may favour a broadening, rather than a deepening of engagement. Yet this, according to Dr. Bas Baccarne, senior researcher at imec-MICT-Ghent University, is not necessarily a bad thing.
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What Makes Participatory Budgeting Work in Rybnik?
DT: What motivated you to start Participatory Budgeting in Rybnik? Piotr Kuczera: Participatory Budgeting in Rybnik started in 2013. But the initial idea came in 2009-2010 when a local NGO – the Social Initiatives Development Centre (CRIS) – implemented an innovative citizen participation project aimed at two very different districts of Rybnik. The goal of […]
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Lessons from Ghent
The city of Ghent in Belgium has a long history of citizen participation and have found that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to participation.
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Doing Deliberative Democracy Right
What does good practice in deliberative democracy and open government look like, in practice? Democracy Technologies took the OECD’s 11 point checklist of Good Practice Principles and checked them against the Barcelona Youth Forum.
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‘Fluid’ Representation, Improved Deliberation and ‘Liquid Democracy’
Moritz Ritter is the Managing Director of Liquid Democracy - a Berlin based non-profit based on the concept of the same name. Here, he talks to us about the importance of creating more 'fluid' forms of political engagement and improving both deliberative and representative processes through technology.
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Why Open Source is a Must for Digital Participation Platforms
Public interest needs to be at the heart of every decision we make regarding democracy technologies. Our democracies depend on the trust of voters and their faith in the democratic process. The best way to cultivate trust is through openness. That’s why open source is the natural fit for digital democratic solutions.
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Why its Time for a New Approach to Civic Tech
As the leader of an organisation working every day on democratic innovation and citizen participation, it feels like the wave of civic tech innovation we saw at the start of the decade has lost momentum.
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Antwerp’s 10 Conditions for Good Participation
The City of Antwerp has developed training materials to guide less experienced city employees through the process of setting up their first participation projects. The "10 conditions for good participation" are part of this guide, and serve as a checklist for anyone starting a new participation project.
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“The evolution of democracy is linked to technology”
Interview with Silvia Caparros, CEO of Scytl, specialist in online voting. The electoral company, Scytl, are experts in providing highly secure solutions for online voting and electoral modernization. CEO, Silvia Caparros, talks about the technology and the services they provide in order to improve and expand democracy.
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“The Vote is the Currency of Democracy”
“The vote is the currency of democracy. If you lose trust in the Euro, the economy goes down and if you lose trust in the vote, then democracy goes down.”
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How Cascais includes elderly people in digital participation
Governments are digitalising fast, but not everyone is online. Elderly people are often excluded from online participation. International institutions and governments are aware of this problem and are acting on it. One example is the Portuguese city of Cascais.
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