Much Wants More: How Citizen Participation Change Citizen-Politician Interactions

The discussion on citizen participation has never been broader and expectations about how citizen participation, especially democratic innovations, will revitalize local democracy are high. Interestingly, the connection between different forms of citizen participation and representative democracy is still mostly underworked. This is a case study in a Finnish municipal context where both statutory and voluntary traditional forms of participation, such as hearings and advocacy bodies, as well as newer variants such as citizen budgeting, are used. The focus is on how citizens reflect their views on how politicians should relate to the outcome of citizen participation. The method is qualitative and the data is based, among other things, on citizens' messages to politicians. The results say something about the possibilities of use and status of the different forms of participation in the municipal system, as well as about how the discussion on participation affects citizens' expectations of politicians' responsiveness and how citizens' expectations of participation are changing.