From 15M to the institutions. The participatory policies of Ahora Madrid (2015-2019)

In 2011, the indignant movement put the democracy at the center of the political agenda, asking for a "real democracy now" against politicians who "do not represent us." The arrival to the municipal governments of many citizen platforms between 2015 and 2019 has been an opportunity to see different proposals for political articulation inspired by 15M. In this article, based on the trajectories of the political promoters and the genealogy of the participatory tools that were put in place, we analyze the participatory system created by Ahora Madrid and explore to what extent it translated the democratic ideals of the movement. The participatory system, with operational limits that we explore, halfway to the digital and deliberative environments, finally proposed a political alternative that offered citizens mechanisms to make proposals and set the political agenda outside the representative institutions.