The “tokenization” of the eParticipation in public governance: an opportunity to hack democracy

Abstract

Currently Distributed Ledger Technologies-DLTs, and especially the Blockchain technology, represent a great opportunity for public institutions to transform the channels of citizen participation and reinvigorate democratic pro-cesses. These technologies allow the simplification of processes and provide a strong security management of the data stored in its records, guaranteeing the transmission and public transparency of information . Therefore, the possibility of developing a new citizen governance model using this technology as a BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) platform emerges. G-Cloud solutions would facilitate a fast deployment in the cities and provide scalability to foster the creation of Smart Citizens within the philosophy of Open Government. The development of an eParticipation model that can configure a tokenizable system of the ac-tions and processes that citizens exercise in democratic environments is an op-portunity to guarantee greater participation and thus manage more effective lo-cal democratic spaces. Therefore, a Blockchain solution in eDemocracy plat-forms represents a great opportunity to claim a new pattern of management amongst the agents that participate in the public sphere.