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of disaffection, a kind of “precarious citizen type” who shares “a sense of restitution with regard to changes, and mistrusts the ability of the political system to protect them” (Fernández-Albertos, 2018: 22).

However, it is worthy to note another range of negative externalities of the permanent subjection of political decisions to votes. For Bourdieu (2000: 303), opinion polls generate the “illusion that there is a public opinion as the pure additive sum of individual opinions”. Using the same logic of the market of ideas, surveys are used as a tool to learn the specific concerns of a segment of the population. Thus, they are presented as “instruments of political action” created to “strengthen the relations of force that sustain it or make it possible”. Each initiative is submitted to the public opinion market, because it must attract a flow of voters, which leads to the commercialisation of ideas, options and proposals. According to Arenilla (2003: 74), in government by survey “policy is relegated to the benefit of management, or at least there is a high risk of this happening, and the structural decisions of the society are postponed to the benefit of the predominance of the micro”. In “Audience Democracy”, (Manin, 1998) explains how the political system offers generalist solutions and flexible commitments for a “floating voter” (1998: 285) who is seduced by electoral marketing techniques. Critical thinking influences this idea of a permanent survey that allows the ruler to be absent from his or her planning obligations and long-term actions to concentrate on those activities that offer an immediate, short-term return.

1.3. Consultation and participation in the design of public policy

Digital transformation and digital participation options offer opportunities for innovation in public management (Criado, 2016). Arenilla and García (2013: 30-31) conclude that public innovation involves “the development of innovative products or processes that are aimed at solving peoples’ most pressing problems and satisfying their main needs; these represent an improvement in the previous conditions as well as a transformation of the social environment and human relations”. These innovations are aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens in any of its dimensions: design and implementation of public services, quality of the environment, relationships with neighbours, economic and territorial development, control of public finances, accountability, or evaluation of municipal decisions. The catalogue is extensive, although it tends to focus on the idea of increasing citizen participation in activities and political life as a mechanism for restoring the credibility of institutions, social leaders and political parties. However, there are some possible gaps. Innovation through technology carries the risk of pre-selecting what types of citizens are willing to take part in participation processes (Lidén, 2016).

The consultation is an active principle of the open design of public policies through deliberation in the public sphere (Fishkin, 2009). By means of this consultation, an information and participation process is opened, which pursues a decision-making procedure more in line with the interests of society. Social pluralism broadens the base of representation to unions, universities, associations and collectives affected by some cause, parents of schoolchildren, professional associations and NGOs, to mention the most common groups. This is compatible with the neo-institutionalism trend mentioned earlier.

Public consultation is a procedure used in the design of policies that affect citizens in order to have knowledge regarding the opinion of citizens and other interest groups on a specific issue or measure. The design affects the outcome: “The result of a public policy decision-making process depends on the interaction of different types of actors with different objectives and roles. Within a network or framework that may have distinct characteristics, these actors exchange resources, using