Innovations in democratic governance: how does citizen participation contribute to a better democracy?
| Author | Ank Michels |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852311399851 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
77(2) 275–293
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852311399851
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Innovations in democratic
governance: how does citizen
participation contribute to a
better democracy?
Ank Michels
Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Abstract
Over recent decades, many countries have gained experience with referendums, citi-
zens’ forums, citizens’ juries, collaborative governance, participatory budgeting, and
other models in which citizens have a more direct say. Citizen participation is usually
considered a valuable element of democratic citizenship and democratic decision-
making. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality
of democracy. This article examines the probability of these claims for a large number of
cases in different Western countries. Four types of democratic innovation are distin-
guished and evaluated according to the extent to which they realize positive effects on
democracy. The findings show that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects
on democracy: it increases issue knowledge, civic skills, and public engagement, and it
contributes to the support for decisions among the participants. The analysis also makes
it clear that the contribution of participation to democracy differs according to type of
democratic innovations; deliberative forums and surveys appear to be better at pro-
moting the exchange of arguments, whereas referendums and participatory policy
making projects are better at giving citizens influence on policy making and involving
more people. But, as I try to argue, since these positive effects are perceptible only to
those taking part and the number of participants is often small or particular groups are
underrepresented, the benefits to individual democratic citizenship are far more con-
clusive than the benefits to democracy as a whole.
Points for practitioners
This article distinguishes four types of democratic innovationand, for each type, examines
the effectsof citizen participation on the qualityof democracy.It offers a systematic analysis
of the contribution of participation to elements of democracy, such as influence on deci-
sion-making,inclusion, skills and virtues, deliberation, and legitimacy. The analysispoints to
a number of positive effects on democracy, but the findingsalso show that the contribution
of participation to democracy differs according to the type of democratic innovations.
Corresponding author:
Ank Michels, Utrecht University, Bijlhouwerstraat 6, Utrecht 3511 ZC, The Netherlands
Email: a.m.b.michels@uu.nl
Keywords
administration and democracy, citizen participation, responsiveness
Introduction
Over recent decades, many countries have gained experience with referendums,
citizens’ forums, citizens’ juries, collaborative governance, participatory budget-
ing, and many other models in which citizens have a more direct say. Most
people would view this as a positive development. Citizen participation is usually
considered a valuable element of democratic citizenship and democratic decision-
making. Also, theorists in democratic theory have argued that a stronger role for
citizens is vital to democracy. In particular, theories on participatory democracy,
deliberative democracy, and social capital make a number of claims: participation
gives citizens a more direct say, it gives a voice to individual citizens and to
minorities, it encourages civic skills and civic virtues, it leads to rational decisions
based on public reasoning, and it increases support for the outcome and the
process. But the fundamental question is whether there is empirical evidence to
uphold this argument. Does citizen participation, indeed, contribute to a better
democracy?
While many academics have written about involving citizens in policy making,
empirical research about the actual effects of participation is scarce. Empirical
studies on, for example, empowered participatory governance (e.g. Fung, 2006),
on deliberative democracy (e.g. Fishkin, 2009; Hendriks et al., 2007), or on citizen
governance (e.g. Van Stokkom, 2006), are mostly case studies on a limited number
of cases and focusing on one or two elements of democracy. The aim of this article
is to assess the contribution of citizen participation to democracy for different types
of democratic innovation. In order to evaluate the impact of citizen participation
on democracy, I developed a framework for studying the relation between citizen
participation and democracy. This framework contains elements from different
theories on citizen participation. Furthermore, this study includes empirical evi-
dence about effects from 120 cases in different Western countries. The focus is on
those forms of citizen participation which are related to policy problems and which
usually are prompted or facilitated by government.
The article starts out by discussing the theoretical claims about the contribu-
tion of citizen participation to democracy as put forward in theories of partici-
patory democracy, social capital, and deliberative democracy. This section
concludes with a framework for analysing the relation between citizen participa-
tion and democracy. In the second subsection, four types of democratic innova-
tion will be distinguished. The method of data collection and analysis is
subsequently clarified, after which, in the third section, the framework is used
to analyse the main findings. The article concludes with some thoughts about the
implications of the findings for our understanding of the contribution of citizen
participation to democracy.
276 International Review of Administrative Sciences 77(2)
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