Dialogue Oriented and Direct Forms of Citizen Participation – So What?

Using retrospective qualitative interviews and quantitative information from different actors (politics, administration, citizens, local newspaper) from 10 local communities in Baden-Wuerttemberg our paper investigates comparatively the consequences of dialogue oriented and direct democratic forms of citizen participation in local politics: Do dialogue oriented or direct democratic forms of citizen participation make a difference? As there are many local communities currently experimenting with different forms of citizen participation, we take the chance to systematically investigate their consequences referring to the literature in the field, that forumlates high expectations up to the one that more citizen participation will cure "the democratic malaise". Whether or not these expectations can be held and under which circumstances they occur are the two research questions we want to answer.