Participation and Co-Governance

Civil society has spent decades improving methods for consultation, organising, representation and collective decision making.  What has changed in recent years is that many of the spaces where this work now takes place are digital and controlled by actors outside the public interest. This shift raises a fundamental question that came up repeatedly in consultations across International  Civil Society Week, MozFest, Web Summit and digital sovereignty forums.

How can civil society maintain meaningful influence when the infrastructure it depends on is governed elsewhere?

Participation in digital environments is often shallow. People can post, comment or react, but they have little influence over how  systems operate, what data they collect, how algorithms behave or how content is moderated. Even digital tools marketed as participatory sometimes replicate the same centralised governance structures that civil society has been pushing back against for  decades.

Co-governance offers a way to respond to this challenge. It focuses on how decisions are made, who gets to shape the rules, and  how communities can exercise real authority over the systems they rely on.

What participation means in digital systems

In the context of digital infrastructure, participation is not simply about speaking or being heard. It is about:

• the ability to influence how decisions are made
• the transparency of rules and operations
• the capacity to challenge harmful outcomes
• having reliable ways to hold system operators accountable
• the presence of inclusive, community anchored processes

When civil society uses digital tools without the ability to influence these elements, participation becomes fragile and easily  undermined.

Why co-governance is essential for decentralised and community owned tech

Most decentralised technologies claim to offer more autonomy to users, but without clear governance models they risk becoming:

• technically decentralised but decision making centralised
• open source but controlled by small elite groups
• participatory in appearance but unequal in practice

Co-governance provides the missing layer. It ensures that communities, particularly those affected by digital harms, have real  influence over:

• rules about data use
• moderation and safety policies
• resource allocation
• development priorities
• oversight mechanisms
• crisis response protocols

Without co-governance, decentralised infrastructure becomes just another technical experiment that does not shift power.

Examples of co-governance relevant to civil society

Several models surfaced across consultations and research. They are not perfectly adapted for the digital world, but they illustrate  how shared authority can work in practice.

Community rule setting: Users collectively shape the policies that govern a platform.
For example, participatory policy making in Decidim and Taiwan’s vTaiwan process.

Shared oversight: Independent community bodies monitor decisions and publicly document changes. 
For example, community driven moderation panels in federated social networks.

Participatory resource planning: Communities have a role in setting priorities or allocating budgets, particularly for digital public  goods or open source projects.

Multistakeholder working groups: Civil society, technologists, governments and affected communities work together on  governance of specific tools or standards.

Challenges and questions to take seriously

Consultations highlighted several open questions that civil society leaders must confront when designing governance systems for  participatory technology:

• How to prevent co-governance processes from being dominated by well resourced actors?
• How to include groups who face access, language or disability barriers?
• How to balance expertise, representation and equity?
• How to sustain participation when resources are limited?
• What decisions should remain centralised for safety or legal reasons?
• How to resolve conflict in shared governance spaces?