journal article
Open Access
Feb 05, 2024
Configurations of Digital Participatory Budgeting
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
Vol. 31
No. 2
pp. 1-28
·
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
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?
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?
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References
88
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Showing 50 of 88 references
Metrics
10
Citations
88
References
Details
- Published
- Feb 05, 2024
- Vol/Issue
- 31(2)
- Pages
- 1-28
- License
- View
Authors
Funding
KONE Foundation
Cite This Article
Victoria Palacin, Samantha McDonald, Pablo Aragón, et al. (2024). Configurations of Digital Participatory Budgeting. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 31(2), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3635144
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