For better or for worse? A systematic literature review on the effects of local participatory arrangements and their preconditions

Local governments in many political systems are experimenting with new ways to involve citizens in policy-making in the hope that participatory arrangements can ‘cure the democratic malaise’ (Newton, 2012), contribute to increased levels of effectiveness of the policy-making process and ultimately lead to a greater problem-solving capacity of local government. However, the broad variety of democratic innovations applied at the local level has made it increasingly difficult for scholars and practitioners to estimate the effects and the conditions under which these occur. This is apparent in the extant literature aiming to take stock of these developments. Existing reviews are limited to a specific form of participatory arrangement (van der Does & Jacquet, 2020), initiator of a participatory process (Igalla, 2019) or a specific actor (Migchelbrink & Van de Walle, 2021). Scholars already analyzed the potential impact on democratic attitudes of individual participants or aspects of policy outcomes (Boulianne, 2019; Michels, 2011; Geissel & Hess, 2018). Still, these findings could be complemented with a broader take on the effects that exceeds individual actors or specific arrangements. To help fill this gap, we conduct a more encompassing systematic literature review. By wielding the PRISMA method we aim to find an answer to the question: What effects of local participatory arrangements are observed throughout the literature? And under what conditions did specific effects occur? To delineate the scope of our review, we focus on empirical contributions over the past decade regarding participatory arrangements where local governments act as initiators. Our first aim is to provide an overview of observed effects throughout the literature. We initially screen if the effects under study relate to legitimacy (e.g. more inclusive participation, increase in perceived legitimacy, increase in external political efficacy,…), democratic skills and virtues (e.g. civic skills, increased knowledge, political engagement,.…) or effectiveness (e.g. achievement of collective goals, increased problem-solving capacity,…). All the while, remaining vigilant for additional effects. Secondly, we aim to gain more insight into the conditions under which certain effects occur. In our analysis we include, but do not limit ourselves to, three levels on which such conditions could be situated: 1) the arrangement itself (e.g. mode of decision-making, mode of participation, participant selection methods,…); 2) its local institutional environment (e.g. level of embeddedness, level of involvement by political actors,…) and 3) contextual conditions (e.g. policy domain or past experience in organizing participatory processes). In sum, we aim to contribute to more clarity on the effects of local participatory arrangements in specific circumstances and simultaneously provide an overview of existing gaps future research can build on.