Whereas case studies on local democratic innovations are widespread, there are fewer investigations on local citizen participation procedures across a large set of case studies. The purpose of this paper is to present first findings of a pilot study that examines the effects of various dialog-oriented procedures – namely Participatory Budgeting and Local Agenda 21 – in Germany.
In recent years a few attempts have been made to systematize and analyze case studies on dialog-oriented procedures. Most of these studies are available as narrative synopses. These narrative synopses are helpful, but are unable to provide a big picture about actual effects of dialog-oriented procedures. How can up to now scattered findings be accumulated? We suggest a methodological approach novel in this field, namely a statistical meta-analysis of case study findings. However, a multitude of challenges are accompanied by this approach. Findings of mostly qualitative studies cannot be transformed easily into a meta-analytical data set. They need special ‘transformation’ and ‘handling’.
In our paper we discuss the pros and cons of using a large-n meta-analysis to examine case study data in the field of local democratic innovations, and we provide insights into effects of local dialog-oriented procedures on the participating individual (micro), on the deliberating group (meso) and on policies as well as on the whole citizenry (macro).
