So-called citizens’ initiatives (CIs) are considered as an innovative governance arrangement for solving community problems. In such initiatives citizens themselves initiate and engage in collective actions aimed at the solution of community problems. In this paper we ask a twofold question: a) what are the policy and attitudinal effects of participation in CIs (at the level of individual participants and at the level of the local political system)? And b) how can we explain the effects of CIs? In this paper we will address these questions on the basis of an empirical analysis of 134 CIs in 23 municipalities in the Dutch province of Overijssel and a mix of data: including surveys amongst the CI initiators and a panel of local opinion leaders, data on the municipal participation policies, and about the social and political structure of the municipalities.
