How can democracy-driven governance turn into techno-populism? Arguing on the case of Ahora Madrid

This chapter analyses how “Ahora Madrid” (Madrid Now), the municipalist electoral platform that emerged from the 15-M or Indignados movement in the Spain capital city, after winning elections in May 2015, tackled social and territorial inequalities through a model of participatory governance that intended to deepen and broaden local democracy. Despite the Ahora Madrid' City Council strived at creating a model of democracy-driven-governance, we wonder to what extent has participatory governance really been expanded as a method of democratization rather than a management tool? Based on empirical evidence collected from face-to-face interviews and participant observation from 2015 until 2019, municipal opinion poll surveys, and official reports, this research develops a critical analysis of the most outstanding policy initiatives implemented by Ahora Madrid with the aim of fighting inequalities and promoting citizen participation. Three characteristics enabled the participatory governance drift to technopulism: the plurality of collective action’ traditions coexisting within the 15M movement that hampered the institutionalization of the Ahora Madrid’ political platform; the conflicting visions of citizen participation conveyed by the two City Council departments in charge of implementing participatory governance, and, finally, the technopopulist leadership of the mayor. Thus, technopopulist governance can arise as an unintended consequence of democracy-driven-governance.