ABSTRACT. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are also transforming the process of civic engagement offering a decentralized (but transparent and inclusive) decision-making process. This study investigates the ways of how DAOs transform the civic engagement, in particular, how they empower the communities, increase the transparency and direct involvement in governance. Compared to the old systems, in DAOs the people can vote on their projects as a community in their digital tokens without the presence of a central authority. The paper discusses how DAOs are structured with the use of smart contracts to make their decisions automatic and fair informed. The state of the survey data is that the support is high among the population as many people think that DAOs will enhance transparency and promote participation. More than 50 percent of the surveyed people believe that DAOs empower them, and most of them would participate in local DAOs. Nevertheless, the governance issue, the security issues in smart contracts, and the voting inequity represent the obstacles to large-scale applications. Other trends emerging, such as hybrid DAOs and alternative voting approaches, are also mentioned by the research as focused on making DAOs more accessible and fairer. Offering the vision of applying DAOs to real-world issues and checking how the digital community perceives them, this paper demonstrates how such technology can make civic engagement more democratic and efficient. It also underlines the necessity to focus more on the areas of governance, security, and technical complexity to achieve this potential fully. According to the findings, it is possible that DAOs may re-shape the way communities participate in civic matters providing an example of a decentralized form of governance.

Keywords: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations; blockchain; civic participation; transparency; governance; smart contracts; inclusivity

How to cite: Privitera, D., Prahoveanu, Ș. L., and Izman, M. (2023). “The Role of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations in Reshaping Civic Participation,” Smart Governance 2(4): 39–54. doi: 10.22381/sg2420233.

Received 12 July 2023 • Received in revised form 22 December 2023
Accepted 24 December 2023 • Available online 28 December 2023