Putting the Public Back into Governance: The Challenges of Citizen Participation and Its Future

Th e past two decades have seen a proliferation of largeand small-scale experiments in participatory governance. Th is article takes stock of claims about the potential of citizen participation to advance three values of democratic governance: eff ectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice. Increasing constraints on the public sector in many societies, combined with increasing demand for individual engagement and the aff ordances of digital technology, have paved the way for participatory innovations aimed at eff ective governance. Deepening legitimation defi cits of representative government create opportunities for legitimacy-enhancing forms of citizen participation, but so far, the eff ect of participation on legitimacy is unclear. Eff orts to increase social justice through citizen participation face the greatest obstacles. Th e article concludes by highlighting three challenges to creating successful participatory governance: the absence of systematic leadership, the lack of popular or elite consensus on the place of direct citizen participation, and the limited scope and powers of participatory innovations.