Plataformas digitais e governança urbana : o efeito COLAB em Niterói

Abstract

This thesis analyzes how digital government platforms reconfigure the relationships between power, participation, and territory within contemporary urban governance, taking as its empirical object the use of the COLAB platform by the municipality of Niterói (RJ), Brazil. Departing from the understanding that digital platforms do not operate as neutral tools, but rather as sociotechnical infrastructures that structure governmental practices, the study examines COLAB as an integrated system composed of three interdependent layers: the COLAB App, oriented toward citizen participation; COLAB Gov, used by public managers for the organization and processing of demands; and the Monitor, responsible for data visualization and analysis through indicators. The research draws on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that articulates critical studies of digital platforms, urban governance, technopolitics, and symbolic power. Methodologically, it adopts a qualitative approach, combining bibliographic review, documentary analysis, examination of platform interfaces, and empirical analysis of territorial data produced through the platform’s use. The findings indicate that the centrality of data and digital systems produces a specific form of technical power that reorganizes management and participation practices, while simultaneously displacing political conflicts into technical and symbolic layers. The study demonstrates that although the platform expands communication channels and generates administrative efficiency gains, it also selectively reorganizes participation, reinforces socio-spatial inequalities, and contributes to processes of depoliticization. It concludes that the case of Niterói reveals an ambiguous and contradictory form of platform-mediated urban governance, in which different modalities of power intersect and contest the territory as the central arena of digital government.