The idea for the thesis grew out of Torres Sepulveda’s own experience as an information activist in Mexico, where he founded an organisation that helped marginalised communities gain more influence over political decisions affecting their lives. Despite clear legislation on access to public information, requests for data were regularly refused or delivered in a quality too poor to be usable. That experience led him to study the role of information and data in political participation.

Around 2008, the concept of open government gained popularity: governments would proactively make information available so citizens could use it to participate in decision-making. According to Torres Sepulveda, that trend came with a shift. Data became not just a means for political participation, but increasingly a requirement for it. Anyone wanting to be politically active is now expected to back up their case with data showing why government action should change. Alongside traditional forms of activism, such as demonstrations, a newer form is gaining ground: data activism, in which citizens collect and analyse information to strengthen their political arguments.

This shift brings a new problem, Torres Sepulveda argues. As data becomes more important for being heard by government institutions, not everyone can make equal use of it. Participating effectively in an increasingly data-driven form of politics requires knowing which data exists, where to find it and how to use it, skills that not everyone has. This raises a fundamental question about the idea of open government itself. Information can be available to everyone, but that does not mean everyone can act on it. Open data creates new opportunities to exert influence, while at the same time raising new barriers.

One reason data has become so central to political debate, according to Torres Sepulveda, is the widespread belief that data is objective. Figures and datasets are often seen as a way to separate facts from opinions and political convictions, which makes an argument appear more neutral and therefore more persuasive. But Torres Sepulveda pushes back on that assumption. Data is never separate from politics, since it is people who decide what gets measured, how it is categorised and what conclusions are drawn from it. Treating data as neutral fact risks losing sight of the choices and assumptions behind it.

The discussion has gained extra weight with the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, which Torres Sepulveda sees as part of a much longer development: the growing role of data in society. AI depends on vast amounts of data to function, yet questions about who collects that data, who has access to it and who benefits from it remain largely unanswered. Attention is already shifting to AI before those earlier questions have been resolved, a pattern in which one issue is overtaken by the next before it has truly been addressed.