Transforming Towards Personal and Digital Democracy
What is wrong?
Democratic participation is often limited to elections, while major public and technological decisions are made without meaningful community involvement.
Digital communication is shaped by concentrated ownership, surveillance, misinformation and opaque algorithms.
What is working?
- Citizens’ assemblies
- Participatory budgeting
- Community media
- Open-source civic tools
- Digital public consultation
- Cooperative platforms
- Public-interest technology
- Local deliberative forums
Seven discussion questions
- How can democracy become an everyday community practice?
- Who controls the digital spaces where public conversation occurs?
- What does meaningful control over personal information look like?
- How can communities create trusted local information systems?
- Where can citizens participate directly in budgeting and public decisions?
- Which digital tools should be treated as public infrastructure?
- What can participants do locally to strengthen participation and accountability?
Desired outcome
Participants identify one local decision-making process that could become more open, inclusive and participatory.