From the World Bank to the Occupy Movement, support for greater citizen participation in social policy decisions has become ubiquitous. However, the plurality of competing participatory logics that explain this rise in support for participation from groups with such divergent world views is often overlooked, so; how contested is the idea of public participation? This paper outlines a Q method study with a range of actors, from activists to senior civil servants, involved with participatory initiatives in health, housing, and social security policy in the UK. Using factor analysis, it demonstrates that participatory practice is constructed in multiple ways with significant disagreements over the purposes of participation and the power the public should be afforded. These contrasting approaches are then situated within broader social and political theories of democracy and public administration, providing a novel approach to bridging the theory and practice of public participation.
