"This timely book carefully interrogates the increasingly fraught intersections of the digital, the city, and democracy. It is a book that will endure, bristling as it is with thoughtful reflection and insight on the democratic challenges that unfold amidst the ordinary, troubled and generative digital worlds of cities as different as Madrid, Taipei and Helsinki. Amidst the work of policymakers, activists, and engineers, what emerges is a hopeful exploration of what 'digital democracy platforms' might enable."
- Professor Colin McFarlane, Durham University
"This vital book moves beyond a universal analysis of the effects of social media platforms on liberal democracy. Through an in-depth examination of civic platforms in Finland, Spain and Taiwan, Tseng provides a compelling and nuanced empirical and theoretical analysis of the contingent relationship between platforms, place and democracy."
- Professor Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University
Reimagining Democracy in the Digital and Urban Age
How can democracy adapt and thrive in a world reshaped by artificial intelligence and digital platforms?
In Liquid Democracy, author Yu-Shan Tseng offers a bold new framework for understanding democracy as a dynamic, fluid process. Challenging the idea that AI and digital tools are inherently anti-democratic, this innovative volume bridges theory and practice to investigate various “liquid conditions,” a novel concept capturing how political action flows and transforms like water within the intersections of urban spaces and digital technologies.
Through an in-depth comparative study of three groundbreaking digital democracy platforms - Decide Madrid in Madrid, OmaStadi in Helsinki, and vTaiwan in Taipei - Tseng explores how digital platforms can foster participatory governance, pluralism, and alternative democratic futures. In-depth chapters critically examine the interactions between humans, algorithms, and urban systems, revealing how digital tools reconfigure the boundaries of political participation, decision-making, and collective action. Throughout the text, Tseng offers fresh insights into how democracy emerges under contingent conditions shaped by technology and geography.
Drawing from years of ethnographic fieldwork, Liquid Democracy is essential reading for master’s and PhD students in geography, political science, and urban studies, as well as scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in digital governance, smart cities, civic technology, and algorithmic politics.
Table of Contents
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
