Emerging technologies and the future of civic participation: OECD policy insights

In a rapidly digitalising world, public trust in governments is declining. According to OECD data, only 39% of citizens across member countries report high or moderately high trust in their national governments. At the same time, people are increasingly calling for greater involvement in public decision-making. In response, the OECD’s latest policy paper, ‘Tackling Civic Participation Challenges with Emerging Technologies: Beyond the Hype‘, explores how governments can use digital innovations – specifically artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and virtual reality (VR) – to reimagine citizen engagement.

This paper, developed in collaboration with Portugal, the Netherlands, and Spain, and supported by the European Commission, provides both a critical assessment and a roadmap. Its central thesis is clear: emerging technologies offer powerful tools to improve democratic participation, but only when used responsibly and inclusively.

The next wave of civic tech

While earlier digital tools helped governments collect feedback or manage participatory budgeting, the OECD now calls attention to a more transformative potential. Artificial intelligence, for instance, can help analyse vast quantities of citizen input, scale up online deliberation, and make complex policy discussions more accessible through natural language processing. Tools like Pol.is and PanoramicAI are already demonstrating how AI can help detect consensus, map public opinion, and bridge citizen assemblies with wider publics.

Blockchain technologies are also under review. Though still experimental, they could enhance trust in participatory processes by supporting secure, anonymous, and auditable electronic voting. The example of Vochain in Spain shows how blockchain protocols can be deployed for secure local referendums, while providing anonymity and auditability without reliance on a central authority.

Virtual and augmented reality, while not yet widely adopted, offer exciting possibilities. These technologies can simulate scenarios to deepen citizen empathy, enable immersive public consultations, and visualise complex policies. However, access and inclusivity remain concerns, particularly in contexts of digital inequality.

Challenges to overcome

Despite the promise, the paper cautions against techno-solutionism. Emerging technologies alone cannot solve longstanding problems in participation. These include a lack of institutional follow-up, opaque decision-making processes, exclusion of marginalised groups, and vulnerability to manipulation or lobbying. Public consultations often end without feedback, reinforcing perceptions that citizen input has little impact. Poorly designed participation models can alienate more than they include.

Moreover, there are growing concerns about the misuse of digital tools. Without transparency, the use of AI and blockchain may deepen mistrust, especially if citizens are unaware of how their data is being used or how decisions are shaped. Emerging technologies can also carry new risks, such as reinforcing social divides, enabling surveillance, or increasing environmental costs through energy-intensive infrastructures.

A framework for responsible innovation

The OECD outlines concrete recommendations to ensure emerging technologies strengthen democracy rather than undermine it. These include:

• Ensuring transparency, open-source documentation, and auditability of digital tools used in participation.
• Guaranteeing inclusive access by offering non-digital alternatives and investing in digital literacy.
• Enabling civic experimentation through dedicated public funding, pilot programs, and cross-sector collaboration.
• Protecting civic freedoms through ethical frameworks and complaint mechanisms.
• Developing robust ecosystems that support open innovation and co-creation between governments, civil society, and technologists.
• Involving the public directly in shaping the governance, deployment, and regulation of new technologies.

Why this matters

At its core, the paper is a call to action. As governments face declining trust and increasing complexity, citizen participation must evolve. Done right, digital technologies can bring people closer to decision-making, making it more transparent, accessible, and responsive. But this requires more than tools, it demands a shift in political will, institutional culture, and societal investment.

Civil society, in particular, has a vital role to play. From demanding ethical standards to co-developing civic tech, NGOs, researchers, designers, and grassroots organisations are key to ensuring that digital democracy is not only efficient but also just and inclusive.

In the words of the report, it’s time to move ‘beyond the hype’ and use emerging technologies not as silver bullets, but as enablers of better governance, rooted in trust, openness, and shared power.

To read the full report, please visit the following link.