Blockchain Civic Tech for Smarter Cities: Governance Challenges from a Multistakeholder Ecosystem Perspective

Recently, many governments have attempted to develop more inclusive and participatory urban development processes through civic technology. CivicTech platforms support urban development by engaging citizens in urban matters decisions in more meaningful ways. Blockchain has been used as a digital technology for CivicTech platform as its unique features of decentralization, traceability and immutability ensure data integrity and reliability. Currently, there is a lack of a systematic guidance on the governance of blockchain-based platforms that accompanies their design and implementation. The lack of a clear governance design causes strategic uncertainty and hinder cooperation among the involved stakeholders. Therefore, the scope of the paper is to identify a number of governance trade-offs and related solutions in order to overcome the problems which could emerge during the design and implementation of a blockchain-based civic tech platform for citizens engagement. Through the analysis of the case study of BBBlockchain, a blockchain-based CivicTech platform used by urban planners to improve the transparency of urban development and better involve citizens in decision making, the paper contributes to the literature of blockchain governance in the public sector.