Proportional Representation in Citizen Participation

Speaker: Jan Maly, Assistant Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and at the Vienna University of Technology

Type: Lightning Talk

Description:

The majority rules. This fundamental principle organizes our democratic governments and public decision-making. However, when electing more than one candidate or project, as is the case for many participatory processes run on Decidim, the majority rule limits minority voices from being heard. Instead, a proportional voting rule, like in the Spanish parliamentary elections, could help to foster diverse and inclusive outcomes. Yet, how to achieve proportional outcomes in elections without an explicit party structure is a challenging problem.

In recent years, researchers have developed novel proportional voting rules that promise to produce fairer outcomes in citizen participation processes even without explicit party structures. In this talks, I will briefly discuss how proportionality can be conceptualized in citizen participation in general and why it is important. Then, I will focus on the so-called Method of Equal Shares, a proportional voting rule for participatory budgeting that has already been used in several smaller cities in Poland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. In particular, I will discuss how the Method of Equal Shares can lead to fairer and more representative outcomes, based on the data and experience of cities that have already used it. I will conclude by describing how Decidim could implement the Method of Equal Shares and similar proportional voting rules as well as the potential benefits of doing so.

Language of the session: English

Logistical needs: Screen/projector