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Paper short abstract

This submission investigates the role of data visualisation for agonistic public participation in climate assemblies. By studying Gipuzkoa’s Citizens’ Assembly, it unpacks how the conflict between the promise of sharing power and established procedures was articulated around accountability charts.

Paper long abstract

This article examines how data visualisation operates at the interface between participatory processes and established governance systems. Bridging democratic innovation and transition studies, we argue that climate assemblies can be conceived as moderate-radical niche regimes that simultaneously depend on, reinforce, and challenge incumbent political structures. We integrate perspectives from critical data studies and design to explore how data visualisation can enable—or constrain—the transformative and agonistic role of democratic innovations in the transition of governance systems. Finally, we provide a situated empirical account of the theoretical frameworks through an in-depth investigation of the Gipuzkoako Herritarren Batzarra, a climate assembly in the Basque Country.

The study combines desk research, semi-structured interviews, and observation of the assembly process. Focusing on the accountability phase, generally highly contested, allowed us to unpack the reinforcive, evolutive, and transformative imaginaries that different actors simultaneously held. Data visualisation played a central role, as accountability reports relied on colour coded tables to track acceptance and implementation of recommendations. These visualisations enabled citizens to scrutinise progress and enact their role as “guardians” of the proposals. However, their inscription in a process with a narrow focus on policy implementation constrained their potential for deeper contestation disrupting established governance systems.

The paper argues that data visualisation could support the transformative power of democratic innovations by connecting assemblies with broader publics, and by enabling challenging the conditions of participation from within. However, without intentional design and adequate resources, dataviz risk framing tensions around governance as a background rather than a field of struggle.