Assessing the Effects of Crowdlaw Initiatives: Experiences from Latin America

This Ph.D. project aims to assess the effects of crowdlaw initiatives, or authoring and annotation tools created specifically for online legislative purposes [1]. This entails analyzing the results of public participation on these platforms (outputs); analyzing whether and the degree to which crowdlaw initiatives translate the publics preferences into legislation (outcomes); identifying the factors that can explain these results; and finally, evaluating to what extent these platforms are effective according to participants and the main stakeholders involved. This empirical research will be based on a qualitative, multiple case study, focusing on four experiences in Latin America: The Brazil Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, DEMOS, the petitions on Plataforma ConstitucionCDMX and TuConstitucion. It will be carried out through a series of semi-structured interviews with the main actors and participants of the initiatives, expert interviews and process tracing. Data sources include the initiatives' online platforms and reports, press articles, the pieces of legislation each initiative aimed at impacting, and content from the interviews conducted.