doxa.comunicación | nº 28, pp. 17-36 | 27

January-June of 2019

Juan Luis Manfredi Sánchez and Luis Mauricio Calvo Rubio

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

During the gathering of suggestions, any person registered in Madrid has the option of presenting their investment1 ideas through the Decide Madrid website or in the 26 Citizen Services Offices distributed throughout the city, as well as in local forums. To make a proposal through the website –and also to vote in the following phases– it is necessary to verify the user account, providing census information and furnishing the system with a means of communication -telephone number or postal mailing address - in order to be able to receive a code that will have to be introduced later in the website to validate the account. This process can also be carried out in any of the 26 Citizen Services Offices.

During this period, face-to-face debates are convened to present and discuss proposals. According to the operating rules of the participatory budgets, each district is allowed to choose how to organize these “spaces for face-to-face public discussion and proposals”. These internal rules have been utilised for similar processes in smaller territories using self-regulation guides, such as those of the districts of Arganzuela, Latina, Tetuán and Usera, which the City Council of Madrid itself sets as an example “in the event that they might serve as an inspiration for other areas”.

Table 1. Main participatory budget sizes for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Source: www.decide.madrid.es. Prepared by the authors.

These regulations, which are offered as a sample, limit the proposals that can be submitted by each neighbour to three. In addition, the creation of different bodies to encourage participation and debate are established. Thus, the districts of Arganzuela and Tetuán constitute what are known as the Grupo Motor abierto (Open Motor Group), which anyone can join for the purpose of promoting the activities. In the latter district, there is also an Evaluation Committee composed of specialists and citizens who evaluate the proposals.

Any citizen can present his or her ideas to both the city as well as to any number of districts he or she wishes. In the former case, they must meet one of three requirements: they must not be located in a specific district, they must affect several districts in an equal manner, and they must affect elements that are considered relevant to the majority of the inhabitants.

Of the proposals submitted, the City Council eliminates those that do not meet the feasibility criteria of the open call. Municipal specialists estimate the costs of each initiative and exclude those that exceed the amount allocated to the city or district in question, as well as those that are not investment expenditures. They also check that each measure falls within