How to make democracy works on the internet

Everything has changed. My live has changed and so has yours. This article is an evidence of the reality that I am referring to. Probably you don´t even know who I am and maybe we have never met each other before but I am talking to you even so, and you will be able to answer me. Internet has made society to evolve into an era in which everybody can post his or her opinion about any topic and in which relationships between persons are completely changed. This shift does not just include people but also institutions. Considering this, it is obvious that political campaigns and public debates cannot take place with citizens behaving in a passive way.

The web site, which was created last September, is called “Madrid Decide” (Madrid Decides) and it includes a platform where people can present different topics that they want to talk about. 

Cass Sustein wrote an article called “The Daily We” that talks about democracy and The internet. Is this new reality favourable to democracy? Are people getting more extreme thoughts because of getting involved in some like-minded sites? Should political parties promote spaces for citizens to debate? The new town hall government of Madrid —, which is ruled by a party called “Ahora Madrid”— is trying to create a common sphere where politicians and citizens can change and create the city in which they want to live. Manuela Carmena, the mayor, said that she wants the city to benefit from the collaboration between the government and the people. The web site, which was created last September, is called “Madrid Decide” (Madrid Decides) and it includes a platform where people can present different topics that they want to talk about. 

“The city that you want to live in will be the city that you have always wished.

There are cities that are being governed directly by their citizens, they debate about the topics that concern them, they propose ideas to improve their lives and they have a call in everything that government want to make. Madrid is already one of them”

Furthermore, the government officials have an account too, so they can answer and talk to people in an easy way. However, the most innovative part is the one called “Propuestas ciudadanas” (Citizen Proposal) where people can just write what they want to change or the measure that they would like to include in the program. After that,the users — who must be registered in the council and be over sixteen — vote on the different proposals. If any of the proposal get more that the two per cent of support, the council will discuss about it and after that there will be a new vote. For it to become true, it just need to have the majority of the support. The site has been a success since the beginning. It has around two hundred twenty nine pages full of citizen´s proposals and the ones that are having more support appear in the beginning of the page. Additionally, people can make comments under each possible future measure and debate about it.

 People stopped being passive actors to start getting involved in an actual way and in a topic as important as building their own city is

 If we come back to Sustein´s theory, it will be normal to think that people who comment and get involved in that site are the ones who have the same ideology as this political party´s. Nevertheless, different opinions about the same topic can be found in the web. 

In this post a citizen propose people to be able to get priority attention in public healthcare by paying a previously established amount of money. He arguments that with this system people will be able to avoid ques.

This are some of the replies that this proposal has received. In them people criticise the suggestion of paying to get some preference because they said that that is immoral and they also argument that public healthcare purpose is not to make distinctions between fellows because of their economic capacity. Nevertheless, there were also some comments that supported this idea.

This user said that he/she thinks that this is a good proposal because Social Security will be able to get more economic incomes.

In this online platform, Ahora Madrid was able to make convergence works. People stopped being passive actors to start getting involved in an actual way and in a topic as important as building their own city is. Web users not only read but they create content. The reason why this platform was such a success is because it has a really good incentive for people to participate: try to improve their live´s quality.

As it is said, convergence is not the aim but a process we must get through and for it to work we must cooperate. The strong point of this initiative is that people are being heard. They do not just comment the things that they do not agree in order to make themselves feeling better but they can contribute to change their society, at least in a local level.