Comments on: New Municipalism: A video explainer https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/new-municipalism-a-video-explainer/2018/09/26 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:07:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: Devin https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/new-municipalism-a-video-explainer/2018/09/26/comment-page-1#comment-1602800 Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:07:44 +0000 https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=72760#comment-1602800 IMO this is propaganda. The municipal socialists who won power in Barcelona have gone on an international tour (Fearless Cities) trying to frame municipalism as socialist but it’s not. It’s decidedly non partisan because it’s about open government and participatory democracy.

Try running a participatory democratic process wearing the hat of any political ideology (capitalism, socialism, etc). It doesn’t work because people don’t participate when they think the process is partisan. Trust and openness is key. Ask the municipalists running Madrid, where they’ve got 500,000 people using their citizen proposal and participatory budgeting website.

At the foundation of Madrid’s success is non-partisanship. They play the role of a trusted facilitator of the public will, not an enlightened ruler who knows what’s best for their people.

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