Enhancing Citizen Participation Through Democratic Innovation: The Case of “Ahora Madrid” at Madrid City Hall

The last local elections in Spain, in May 2015, have brought electoral turnover in some of the main capital cities, Madrid among them. These new scenarios in the Spanish local politics show -besides the decay of bipartidism-, the political success of civic electoral platforms which were created from the mobilization of social collectives and movements that have emerged in recent years in the context of the high social mobilization triggered by the “movement 15M” (after the civic demonstration in Madrid of May 15th of 2011). The civic electoral platform in Madrid, named “Ahora Madrid” (Madrid Now), won the municipal elections without majority of seats in the Local Council but managed to form government with the support of the traditional socialist party. According to its electoral party manifesto, the new municipal government is engaged with policies of binding citizen consult and deepening citizen participation to the election of representatives at any territorial level of the local governement. The primary objective of reducing the structural socioeconomic differences among the city districts is sought through enhancing citizen participation in the policy decision making. This paper analyses local policy changes concerning participatory democracy with a especial focus on the relationship between local government policy decisions and social movement and organizations supporting it. Do the new local policies for citizen participation really enhance a wider citizen engagement? What kind of democratic innovation they have brought about? The analysis is based on more than two dozen interviews with Madrid City Council Members, local officials and political representatives, social movement’s activists and citizens’ organizations representatives.