Journal article
Democracy by Design: Perspectives for Digitally Assisted, Participatory Upgrades of Society
Journal of Computational Science 2023
TL;DR
Democracy by Design lays out a perspective on how digital systems can support more participatory, fair, and adaptive democratic institutions. It connects civic technology, algorithmic fairness, and social coordination into a broader design agenda.
Why It Matters
The paper is useful as a conceptual anchor for digitally assisted democracy because it treats technology as institutional infrastructure, not only as a participation interface.
Abstract
An interdisciplinary perspective on digital participation, algorithmic fairness, and societal upgrades through technology-enabled democratic systems.
Paper Content
Core Contribution
Democracy by Design frames democratic innovation as a design problem for institutions, technologies, and participatory systems. Rather than treating digital participation as a simple online interface, it argues for digitally assisted democratic upgrades that combine participation, fairness, transparency, and collective intelligence.
Research Use
The paper provides conceptual grounding for civic technology, participatory budgeting, platform governance, and algorithmic support for democratic decision making. It is useful as a broad reference for why democratic systems need both technical and institutional design.