ICT-BASED PARTICIPATION IN MUNICIPALITIES: FROM CITIZEN EMPOWERMENT TO THE OPEN CITIES NETWORK

Abstract

The Spanish local elections in 2015 brought to many Spanish
cities what has been labeled as “city councils of change”: city councils
whose mayors and governing representatives come from parties emerging
from the 15M Spanish Indignados Movement. This research focuses on the
socio-political environment where this phenomenon takes place, specifically
in Madrid and Barcelona, the two major cities of the state and featuring
“city councils of change”. Our research revisits e-participation since the
beginnings of the XXIst century onwards and most especially in the aftermath
of the 15M Movement, proposing that recent ICT-based participation
initiatives in such in municipalities could be far from just polling the citizens
and be, instead, the spearhead of a technopolitics-aimed network of cities.