Panel discussion: Innovative deliberative democracy projects in Bogota and Barcelona
When people are asked whether they live in a democracy, they often respond based on the state of their national government, and whether it’s responsive to election outcomes. Perhaps we should answer instead by thinking about the state of democracy in our citizens and town. Local democracy is the level of democracy in which most human beings participate. But we don’t have the same rankings, measures and data to compare cities on democracy that institutions like V-Dem or Freedom House for our nations.
How do you know if your town or city is a democracy? One way to understand the question is to examine cities that are considered leaders in local democratic practice and innovation. Two instructive urban leaders in democracy are Barcelona, in the Spain’s autonomous Catalonia region, and Bogota, the national capital of Colombia.
The “fearless city” of Barcelona, crowned the first European Capital of Democracy in 2022, has advanced too many democratic innovations to list here. Among them are development of citizens assemblies and participatory budgeting, careful planning and democratic transformation of public spaces and facilities to encourage participation, and the building of an online participation and idea platform called Decidim, which is so robust that it’s being used in dozens of cities around the world.
Meanwhile, Bogota in the 21st century has developed youth democracy, experimented with new ways of public consultations (including the Itinerant Citizens Assembly), and advanced novel strategies for strengthening civil society organizations that advance democratic practice at the community levels. Bogota is a world leader in using data for democracy and innovation, and has drawn international notice for turning a country club into a public park, creating new people-driven systems to relieve women of care burdens, and adopting widely copied innovations that increase access to transportation (from walking school buses to its Transmilenio rapid bus service).