Liquid Democracy

List of Figures and Table x

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: Approaching Democracy from the Field xv

1 Democracy in the Age of Platformisation 1

1.1 Reproblematising Democracy in the Age of Platformisation 1

1.2 Meeting ‘Differences’ of Democracy at the Intersections 3

1.3 Democratisations, Occupy Movements and Global Circulations 10

1.4 A Liquid Comparison and Epistemology 14

1.5 Liquid Conditions for Democracy in Digital and Urban Worlds 21

2 Dissolving Democratic Theories into Larger Worlds 25

2.1 Correct Ontologies, Normative Claims and Universal Assumptions in Democratic Theories 28

2.1.1 Aggregative democracy 28

2.1.2 Participatory democracy and consensus democracy 29

2.1.3 Radical democracy 31

2.1.4 Digital democracies the slippery tyranny of normative principles 34

2.1.5 Feminist and post-colonial democracy 36

2.1.6 Post-structuralist democracy Jacques Derrida 38

2.2 Democracy In-The- World Ontologies: More- Than-Human, Liquidity and Multiplicity 39

2.2.1 Democracy as convergent movements: between different powers and times 44

2.2.2 Plural democracy keeping political boundaries fluid 47

2.2.3 Everyday/ordinary democracy 48

2.3 From a Correct Democracy to Democratic Multiplicity 54

3 DDPs at Comparative Conjunctures 56

3.1 Movements, Calculus and Futures 56

3.2 Convergent Democratic Movements Underpinning the DDPs 58

3.2.1 Madrid: between political consensus and (dis) alliance for democracy 60

3.2.2 Taipei: political consensus for democratisation and neoliberal development 65

3.2.3 Helsinki: political consensus around Finlandisation and neoliberal urbanisation 69

3.3 On Risk Calculus and Democratic Futures 73

3.3.1 vTaiwan: securing an undivided democratic future against geopolitical tension 74

3.3.2 Decide Madrid and OmaStadi: global neoliberal futures for the simple majority 77

3.3.3 Uncounted democratic futures in urban and digital worlds 80

3.4 Orienting Towards Different Democratic Futures 82

4 Frictions for Care Democracy 85

4.1 Gamification as a New Digital Solution and Environment for Democracy 85

4.2 Friction as Contestations 89

4.2.1 Decide Madrid 90

4.2.2 OmaStadi 92

4.2.3 vTaiwan 95

4.3 Tactical Friction: Power, Knowledge Inequalities and Care 97

4.3.1 Decide Madrid 98

4.3.2 OmaStadi 102

4.3.3 vTaiwan 104

4.4 Frictions as Ordinary Rhythms for Care Democracy 106

5 Algorithmic Reordering for Plural Democracy 109

5.1 Reordering as a Liquid Condition for Plural Democracy 109

5.2 vTaiwan: Reordering Plural Opinions for Uber Legalisation 111

5.2.1 Plural Opinions from Algorithmic Reordering 112

5.2.2 Human in the Making of the Binary Propositions 118

5.3 Decide Madrid: Reordering Issues into Urban Services and Infrastructures 121

5.3.1 (Re)ordering majoritarian urban issues 123

5.3.2 En Route to Institutional Implementation 125

5.4 Reordering in Decision-Making for Liquid Plural Democracy 131

6 Urban Thrown-Togetherness for Ordinary Democracy 134

6.1 Introduction 134

6.2 Challenging Neoliberal Trends in Helsinki 137

6.2.1 A social experiment for the everyday struggles of drug abusers 137

6.2.2 When welfare services fade away the elderly’s struggles over budget-cutting 140

6.2.3 Fighting against time to save an urban cultural space from decay and privatisation 143

6.3 Decide Madrid: Collective Presence for Alternative Urban Futures 146

6.3.1 A la Nave Daoiz y Velarde 147

6.3.2 Weaving layers of knowledge into alternative urban futures the Legazpi market 150

6.4 Thrown-togetherness in Liquid Temporal-Geographies for Ordinary Democracy 153

7 Moving on with Liquid Democracy 157

7.1 Seeing Democracy Like Water 157

7.2 Becoming with the Liquid Worlds for Policymaking 166

7.3 Where to Look for Democratic Futures 171

References 175

Index 194