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Hacking Democracy: Co-Creating Innovative Tools for Participatory Politics
Last Updated: 2026-06-03 00:07:38
Abstract
The course explores how digital tools and participatory methods (such as participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, and remixing) can strengthen civic engagement. Students from diverse fields collaborate in teams of 3-5 people to design and prototype innovative open-source tools that enhance participation, deliberation, and transparency.
Objective
The course enables students to understand and apply participatory democratic methods and to develop digital or methodological tools that improve inclusion, deliberation, transparency, and collective decision-making. Emphasis is placed on designing open, innovative, value-sensitive and human-centered participatory systems.
Content
The course is organized as a hackathon. At the beginning, lecturers introduce participatory democratic methods such as participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, and remixing. Students discuss the challenges and potentials of these approaches, focusing on how technology can be used to improve participation, deliberation, and transparency. Participants form small interdisciplinary teams (of 3–5 students) and select a problem related to participatory democracy. Possible topics include designing platforms for citizens’ assemblies, developing AI-assisted tools for deliberation or fact-checking, building opinion integration systems, or creating remixing interfaces for citizen proposals. Throughout the course, teams prototype their ideas using open-source technologies, assisted by instructors and facilitators. The process emphasizes iterative design, testing, and collaboration across disciplines. On the final day, each team presents its prototype with a short pitch. The course promotes open collaboration, creativity, and critical reflection on how technology can support more inclusive and effective democratic participation.
Resources
Literature
Helbing, D., Mahajan, S., Carpentras, D., Menendez, M., Pournaras, E., Thurner, S., ... & Bettencourt, L. M. (2024). Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance. Philosophical Transactions A, 382(2285), 20240113. Helbing, D., Mahajan, S., Fricker, R. H., Musso, A., Hausladen, C. I., Carissimo, C., ... & Pournaras, E. (2023). Democracy by design: Perspectives for digitally assisted, participatory upgrades of society. Journal of Computational Science, 71, 102061. Carpentras, D., Hänggli Fricker, R., & Helbing, D. (2024). Empowering minorities and everyone in participatory budgeting: an agent-based modelling perspective. Philosophical Transactions A, 382(2285), 20240090. Mahajan, S., Hausladen, C. I., Sánchez-Vaquerizo, J. A., Korecki, M., & Helbing, D. (2022). Participatory resilience: Surviving, recovering and improving together. Sustainable Cities and Society, 83, 103942.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- DS , DR
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Registration & Places
- Signup End
- 24.08.2026
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture with exercise | Hacking Democracy: Co-Creating Innovative Tools for Participatory Politics | No time listed | 40 h semesterly |
Offered In
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Science in Perspective (In “Science in Perspective”-courses students learn to reflect on ETH’s STEM subjects from the perspective of humanities, political and social sciences. Only the courses listed below will be recognized as "Science in Perspective" courses.)
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Type A: Enhancement of Reflection Competence (SiP courses are recommended for bachelor students after their first-year examination and for all master- or doctoral students. All SiP courses are listed in Type A. Courses listed under Type B are only recommendations for enrollment for specific departments.)
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Doctorate Humanities, Social and Political Sciences (More Information at: )