This Open Access book explains the philosophy design principles and community organization of
Decidim and provides essential insights into how the platform works. Decidim is the world
leading digital infrastructure for participatory democracy built entirely and collaboratively
as free software and used by more than 500 institutions with over three million users
worldwide. The platform allows any organization (government association university NGO
neighbourhood or cooperative) to support multitudinous processes of participatory democracy.
In a context dominated by corporate-owned digital platforms in the era of increasing social
structuring via Artificial Intelligence Decidim stands as a public or community owned platform
for collective human intelligence. Yet the project is much more than its technological
features. Decidim is in itself a crossroad of the various dimensions of the networked society
a detailed practical map of its complexities and conflicts. The authors distinguish three
general dimensions of the project: (1) the political - shedding light on the democratic model
that Decidim promotes and its impact on public policies and organizations (2) the
technopolitical - explaining how this technology is democratically designed and managed to
produce and protect certain political effects and (3) the technical - presenting the
conditions of production operation and success of the project.This book systematically covers
those three levels in an academically sound technologically consistent and politically
innovative manner. Serving as a useful resource and handbook for the use of Decidim it will
not only appeal to students and scholars interested in participatory and digital democracy but
also to professionals policy-makers and a wider audience interested in learning more about
the Decidim platform. This is an open access book.
