Citizen Governance

Abstract

Because of its close proximity to the people direct involvement of citizens and community organisations in public governance oftentimes is situated at the local level. Traditionally, in political science most attention has gone out to the participation of citizens at the input-side of systems of governance (voicing demands and providing support), e.g. in public hearings or in interactive policy-making. But increasingly, there is also attention for other modes of civic engagement in public governance. We witness increasing attention for so called community-initiatives where citizens / communities organise themselves to address common concerns, issues and problems. Moreover, we also witness increasing attention for the co-production of public services in local communities. This panel focusses on new developments both in the domain of input-oriented modes of local political participation, but also in the domains of community-initiatives and the coproduction of lpcal services. We welcome papers that shed led on these new developments from a citizens’perspective, but also appreciate papers that reflect upon the possible implications of such developments for the institutional make-up of the local political system and the role orientations of local politicians and local public professionals.