The #DecidimFest22 brought five international speakers from the cities of Barcelona, Brussels, Kakogawa, Monterrey and New York together to talk about democratic cities, their challenges and successes and their use of the Decidim digital platform to advance participatory processes and mechanisms to encourage participation.
After the talk, we were able to speak with Arnaud Pinxteren, Alderman at Brussels City Council (Belgium), Cintia Smith, Secretary for Innovation and Open Government for the Government of Monterrey (Mexico), and Sarah Sayeed, Chair and Executive Director of the Civic Engagement Commission, City of New York (USA), about their main concerns, their achievements and the challenges they have faced in their respective cities.
How do people react when they have spaces to engage in participation and debate?
Sarah Sayeed: In New York, citizen participation has been warmly welcomed
. On many occasions we’ve been asked why we didn’t consult them earlier. People appreciate having the opportunity to speak out, and the fact that the government listens to them and responds. And where we need to do better is in explaining which responses we choose and which we don’t and why, as often people believe that we simply take the responses and don’t give any feedback.
Arnaud Pinxteren: I think it’s an educational process. As it requires participation, it’s common for people to respond aggressively, because a participatory process can cause distress and frustration. The challenge is to reach out to people with a process that’s constructive, and one that helps them to learn about democracy. The government and the general public can listen to each other. We need to foster active listening and collective decision making.
Cintia Smith: I agree with Arnaud that participation often results in complaints. And it’s hard to mobilise people and get them to dedicate personal time to collective decision making. But in the end, people appreciate it. And mobilising public will is a fundamental challenge. We refer to this as shared responsibility.
- Are we ready for direct democracy?
Arnaud: That’s the challenge. But we need time. What we do in Brussels is try to base it on the needs that the people themselves have expressed. Taking these needs as a starting point, we think about things together, and try to respond.
Sarah: We’re redefining the meaning of democracy, because at times the focus is solely on elections. Elections are a good thing, but at the same time here in the US we find that it’s always the same people who take part. And democracy has to be exercised on a daily basis. It can’t just be a question of voting and then seeing what happens. We need to remind people that they themselves can shape political programmes. It’s a question of power sharing. If I’ve been elected, I want to go on talking to you, the people.
- And how can you do that? How can you get people involved and participating in decision making?
Sarah: We ask ourselves how we can link culture, the arts and civic management. When people come to talk to us about politicians, we can see real dramas in terms of how people have been treated by politics. And using culture and the arts to connect with people works. We recently celebrated National Register to Vote day, when people were invited to register to vote, and we played music and offered chocolate. “Revolution can be sweet” was our slogan. It is possible to change the experience, how we live the act of participation.
Arnaud: I don’t think the difficulty lies only in getting the people involved. It’s also hard to get politicians involved. There’s constant criticism, each participatory process is different, and we’re always in a state of tension. We need to educate politicians about the need for participatory processes to generate better outcomes as well, as we know more about people’s needs, and they can give us very useful information.
- How can we ensure that people don’t get tired of questions and the participatory process?
Arnaud: You need to design participatory processes that aren’t too taxing for people. You can’t ask them to go to meetings that go on forever. Meetings need to be short and efficient; if not the feeling will be that it’s too much, and not helpful. There are different ways that we can achieve this: by taking participation into public space, by helping people participate digitally, supporting the process with tablets, by organising simple surveys or virtual meetings that can be attended sitting on the sofa in the lounge.
Sarah: We need to look at what the best approach might be in each case – it depends on the issue to be addressed. A simple survey is fine when we’re not asking about a controversial topic. But if it’s a very sensitive issue, a respectful space is needed to allow an in-depth conversation, because people are going to be angry, and upset. This distinction is an important one. The government needs to provide a safe space to discuss conflictive issues.
- In Barcelona one of the most difficult aspects is communication, making sure that participatory processes reach local residents. Is this the case in your cities too?
Cintia: Establishing the message, the process, the dates, etc. presents a significant challenge.
Sarah: Sometimes people don’t understand how they can participate, or the mechanisms that we make available to them. And sometimes there’s a lack of trust as well. Transparent communication is key.
Arnaud: And the first step is to find out how much people know about whatever it is we’re proposing. Sometimes very basic communication is needed: how our municipality works, and what it is that’s being decided. If we want diversity in participation, starting from scratch is important, to ensure that as many people as possible have the same level of knowledge about the process.
- Can you give us an example of a successful participatory process in your cities?
Sarah: In our case we’ve been very successful in growing participatory budgeting. We started off with $100,000 the first time, with 200 people participating. We thought the project could be extended, and the budgets were increased to $1.3 million, with three more neighbourhoods taking part. Now we’ve raised that to $5 million, and we hope to increase the number of participants as well. We’ve shown that participatory budgeting has an impact, that the project is successful, and that the people really do have a voice that matters.
Cintia: We’ve succeeded in implementing a participatory budgeting process from scratch, with only the procedural rules, in a city that has a population of 1.2 million. Things went really well as the project stage, but not quite so well when it came to voting; we need it to be broader.
- How can we get young people to invest part of their time online in digital participation?
Cintia: We’ve seen very low levels of participation among young people. To improve on this, we’ve decided to take the platform (Decidim) to universities. So that young people can start uploading projects. We need to get the participation age down.
Arnaud: We’re testing a digital identity via an app. It requires a great deal of digitalisation, but if it also connects with digital participation, participating will be just another part of digital identity, not an extra demand that’s being placed on people.
Sarah: In New York, providing Internet access for all is important. 18% of the population don’t have Internet. We’re improving access to technology. And at the same time, we live in the attention economy: people receive too much information, how do we get them to pay attention to us? How do we get them to choose democracy rather than TikTok? We’ll have to ask them!
- Lastly: what are the global challenges that we all share with regard to citizen participation?
Arnaud: The challenge presented by diversity, which is linked to digital and social divides. And also finding effective ways of getting people to participate. Cintia: And making it irreversible. Not all politicians agree with this exercise in citizen participation. Taking decisions sitting at your desk is more comfortable. Drawing the people into these processes is key, so that they’re not taken away from us during the next administration.