Output Democracy in Local Government

In western democracies, an increasing share of local public engagement is directed toward the output side of government. Apparently, input-oriented channels of participation have lost some of their appeal, specifically voting and party membership. At the same time, public sector offers opportunities for influencing one’s everyday life in the capacity of user or consumer of public services, particularly in the middle and northern European countries, where local government is highly service intensive. Our paper aims at exploring what characterizes the participants of this output democracy. First, to what degree does efforts at influencing public services directly constitute a distinct form of participation, different from traditional input participation? Second, since public sector is frequently is inciting participation directed at government’s output side, is the threshold lower for this kind of participation? Third, is there contextual variation in the degree to which local residents aim their engagement directly toward public services?