Democracy representation and participation

Building public trust in policing? The contribution of Police and Crime Commissioners, one year on

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John Raine

The ‘Plebgate’ saga, which has now drawn apologies to Andrew Mitchell from three chief constables, has once again raised questions about police integrity and dented public trust and confidence in policing more generally. Building such trust was, of course, one of the Coalition Government’s arguments for introducing Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) – and, as the first anniversary of those elections is now close upon us; it seems timely to consider what difference PCCs have so far made.

It was, we all remember, an inauspicious start; with an embarrassingly low electoral turn-out (averaging less than 12 per cent) because of poor advance publicity on the new PCC role; failure to provide most voters with candidate election leaflets, and choice of a November polling date when no other local or national elections were taking place. Moreover, matters seemed to get worse in subsequent months with critical media headlines concerning the appointment of deputy commissioners and youth commissioners; reports of disagreements and discord with chief constables, and discontent over policy priorities and budget decisions.

But one year on, with PCCs becoming established in their roles, the picture has begun to look rather more settled. It is, for sure, too soon to assess the impacts – beneficial and otherwise – of the new police governance framework. But a recent round of ‘stock-take’ interviews with a small sample of PCCs (including Conservative, Labour and Independent office holders), has highlighted at least two key respects in which the directly-elected model of governance already seems distinctly different from the previous regime of Police Authorities.

First: the new PCCs are giving much more priority to public engagement – they are out and about on a near daily basis, presenting themselves and taking feedback at council meetings, in open public meetings, and indeed, in shopping precincts and market squares around their (very large) patches. They are also all actively exploiting the potential of Facebook, Twitter and other social media in reaching-out and communicating and handling considerably more direct correspondence (email and post) and telephone calls from citizens. Their public profile is already much higher than that of Police Authorities.

Second: there is a stronger sense of ‘local leadership’ to their work. The Home Office has admirably resisted the temptation to try to drive the new system and impose its own perspectives and priorities on PCCs. Although cuts in all police budgets have been driven by reductions in Home Office grants, Westminster and Whitehall have generally allowed PCCs to get on with the job locally as each considers best. As a result, there is more diversity between the PCCs with regard to their approach and priorities in the role than was previously apparent with Police Authorities.

Relationships and accountabilities with chief constables and with other criminal justice and local governance agencies are intriguingly variable, as each PCC brings their own personality and preferred style to the role. Indeed, it is clear that the different career backgrounds and experiences of each PCC are colouring and shaping their approach to the role and their priorities.

By the time of the next PCC elections – scheduled for May 2016 – it will be interesting to gauge the significance and durability of these early signs of change towards stronger democratic engagement and local accountability, and to see what, if any, are the implications for public trust and confidence in policing. At least a more lively public debate and much higher turn-out are surely to be expected next time.

raine

John Raine is Professor of Management in Criminal Justice at INLOGOV. He has been involved in criminal justice research, consultancy and teaching at Birmingham for some twenty-five years and has a strong track record of commissions for the Home Office, Lord Chancellor’s Department/Department for Constitutional Affairs/Ministry of Justice on aspects of policy and practice within the criminal (and civil) justice sectors.

Leading a Council: insights from Warwickshire

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Izzi Seccombe

May 2nd 2013 was a greatly significant day. Not only was I appointed leader of Warwickshire County Council, but, as the first female leader, I felt incredibly proud and honoured to be steering our county borough into the future.

Being leader of such a wide-ranging organisation as Warwickshire County Council is both a privilege and a challenge. On assuming position in May 2013 I quickly learned the importance of co-operation and conversation with both opposition leaders and the district councils, not least because we are an administration that lacks overall control.

Underpinning this administration’s vision are two key pillars; a desire to ensure integrity of services within a constrained budget and an aspiration to drive forward Warwickshire as a centre of economic excellence.

The first pillar is perhaps the trickiest. As leader of an administration which holds no absolute control, careful consideration has to be made into the effects and impacts of key decisions that have ‘domino effects’ for external organisations and the populations we serve as elected members. It is with this in mind that the ‘shaping the future’ programme was born. Engaging with communities is vital and I hope that as many people as possible will participate in this conversation. These are our services and it is vital our values are in line with those of the communities we represent.

As already mentioned, the task of delivering our services for the most vulnerable within a constrained budget is a great one. The transformation of services should involve the integration of the ‘3rd sector’ into traditional approaches, simultaneously maintaining our services and bringing communities closer together. In doing so, we provide an answer to the great demands placed on health and social care (for example) by demographic changes in society.

The second pillar of our administration focuses on economic development and growth. Creating and maintaining valuable jobs is vital in enhancing our economic capabilities. Jaguar Land Rover is but one example where innovation and investment enhance our economy and our outlook for the future. Linked to this, the procurement of skills of our young people within a changing labour market is also an important asset in ensuring economic development. Apprenticeships are increasing; engaging members of society with their local economies, equipping them with valuable skills needed to succeed.

One of the key elements of developing a strong, stable economy is the confidence it gives to our population that they will have jobs that will be sustainable. The role the county needs to play here is in matching the skills of our young people to the job needs within Warwickshire. The Warwickshire economy, has, by and large faired reasonably well through this difficult period. We are now poised to develop a thriving economy for the future.

It is essential for the wellbeing of generations ahead that Warwickshire plays the pivotal part now in shaping our future in this area.

izzi

Councillor Izzi Seccombe became the first female leader of Warwickshire County Council in May 2013. She was elected as Councillor for Stour and the Vale in 2001, and prior to becoming leader was Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families from 2005 to 2010.

Who’ll work with the Lib Dems?

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Chris Game

One of the few perks of my first paid research job was visiting the major party conferences. This was in the early 1970s, when policies were genuinely debated, votes were taken and mattered, and leaders’ speeches didn’t have to be delivered without visible notes.

I recall particularly Harold Wilson, then Opposition Leader and past his prime, but still, it seemed to me, master in that conference hall of all he surveyed. And still, more than a decade after the man’s death, getting himself an easy ovation by quoting one of Labour Conference’s forever favourite sons, Aneurin Bevan.  One such quote, used by Wilson on probably numerous occasions, was: Why look into the crystal ball when you can consult the book?

I was reminded of it this week in relation, as it happens, to the Lib Dems’ conference. There were two polls last weekend – one of Lib Dem members for the Independent on Sunday, one of Lib Dem councillors for BBC1’s Sunday Politics programme – both showing that the respondents would greatly prefer Labour, the devil they don’t really know, to the one they’re currently in coalition with.

Not exactly new news, and, moreover, entirely crystal ball stuff.  Wouldn’t it be more interesting, rather than speculating about what national politicians might do in the event of a future hung parliament, to read the metaphorical book and see what local politicians have actually done when confronted with hung councils? That’s what the rest of this blog is about.

There are currently more than 50 English hung councils, or more than 1 in 7. In the majority of these (28) there are no formal coalitions, alliances or pacts at all, because they’re run by single parties as minority administrations: 16 Conservative, 7 Labour, 3 Lib Dem (Bath & NE Somerset, Stockport, Cambridge), 1 Green (Brighton & Hove), and 1Independent (Isle of Wight).

One of these – Harrow’s Conservative minority administration – came into existence only this week, but in such exceptional circumstances that, even without any significant Lib Dem involvement, it seems worth a couple of parenthetical paragraphs before continuing with the mostly more mundane happenings recounted in the remainder of the blog.

In one of many noteworthy results buried under the post-General Election headlines in May 2010, Labour, under Bill Stevenson, took majority control of Harrow LBC. Last October, Stephenson stood down due to poor health and was replaced by Thaya Idaikkadar, the UK’s first Sri Lankan council leader. At the Labour group’s AGM in May, however, he lost the group leadership to David Perry, prompting allegations of unfairness and “elements of racism”.

Idaikkadar and 8 other councillors left the Labour Party and formed their own Independent Labour Group, leaving Labour and the Conservatives each with 25 seats. Still Council Leader, Idaikkadar sacked his entire Labour cabinet and created a kind of Independent Labour-Conservative minority coalition, but with the two Conservative cabinet members holding only non-executive posts. This ended last Monday at an extraordinary (in every sense) meeting of the Council, called by the Conservative group and at which, with sufficient Independent Labour support, they elected their own leader, Susan Hall, to head a Conservative minority administration.

These were exceptional events, but in one sense they do reflect the reality and uncertainty behind the formation of any minority administration. Even where the party concerned has the most seats and is close to an overall majority, it’s still a risk, and some sort of at least informal agreement will usually be needed to get the party over the hurdle of the annual meeting, as indicated in my blog following this May’s county council elections.

Warwickshire was one example. The Conservatives had lost their majority control of the 62-member council, but remained the largest party with 26 seats. Labour were up to 22, and there were 9 Lib Dems, 2 Greens and 3 Independents.  The Lib Dems and Greens wanted a multi-party rainbow coalition, but, as regularly happens in local government, Labour preferred to do business with their traditional opponents.

They agreed to abstain in the key vote at the annual meeting, allowed the Conservatives to form a minority administration, and in exchange took control of the scrutiny committees. There were accusations, naturally, of a stitch-up, but no cabinet seats were involved, so Labour could argue that they remain free to work and vote with the smaller parties to defeat any policies they wish to oppose.

A similar informal Conservative-Labour arrangement was negotiated in Gloucestershire, but in Lancashire it was the Conservatives who lost out. Labour had failed to regain their majority control, but with 39 of the 84 seats were the largest party. Sensing a lifeline, the Conservatives (35) tried talking with anyone who might be interested in forming an anti-Labour coalition. But the Independents (3) didn’t want an alliance with anyone, which left the 6 Lib Dems agreeing to support a Labour minority administration, its budget, but not necessarily anything further.

It’s by no means always, though, the largest party that calls the shots, and in arithmetical terms perhaps the most remarkable outcome of the May county elections was in Norfolk. The Conservatives were overwhelmingly the largest party – or should have been, with 40 out of 84 seats – but they were comprehensively outmanoeuvred. While their leader thought he had an agreement with the 9 Lib Dems to enable him to form a minority administration, Labour (14) and the Lib Dems had negotiated a (very) minority coalition of their own, with backing from the 15-strong UKIP group.

Here was one example, then, of the kind of arrangement most Lib Dems say they favour. There are others in Cumbria, in Broxtowe (Notts), where the two parties have a power-sharing history dating back ten years now, and, most recently and with some similarities to Harrow, in Worcester.

While most election-watchers’ attention back in May was on the county elections and in Worcestershire on Labour’s ultimately dashed hopes of winning enough seats to recreate the Lab/Lib Dem pact that had run the council in the 1990s, the heavy action was not in County Hall at all, but in the City Council’s Guildhall, where Labour staged a notable coup.

At 9.00 p.m. on Tuesday 14th May, the 17 Conservatives were running the 35-member council as a minority administration, backed by the 2 Lib Dems. Then by 10.00 p.m. they weren’t, having been dramatically ousted by a coalition of Labour’s 15 members, the single Green, and, yes, those same Lib Dems. They described their turnabout as a carefully considered “change of mind”; the Conservatives pronounced it shameless, unprincipled and considerably worse.

There are two other examples of Lib Dem/Labour partnerships. In Colchester the 26 Lib Dems are very much the lead party, so it is presumably their decision to extend their coalition to include the 3 Highwoods Independents, even though not arithmetically necessary for a majority.

In Stroud, by contrast, every vote in the Labour/LibDem/Green coalition counts. The Conservatives in 2012 were comfortably the largest party on the 51-member council and, with 22 seats, might reasonably have hoped to form a majority alliance with the 5 Lib Dems. However, Labour, though starting from only 16 seats, could and did assemble a similar majority in coalition with the 6 Lib Dems and 5 Greens: trickier but apparently more harmonious.

In all, then, there are 7 current examples of Labour/Lib Dem coalitions, compared to just 4 involving Conservatives and Lib Dems – Lincolnshire, Redbridge, Walsall, and Pendle, in all of which the Lib Dems are the minor partners and generally very much so.  Add in North Devon’s Lib Dem/Independent administration, and it turns out that the Lib Dems (12) are involved in at least slightly more of these formalised local coalitions than either Conservatives (10) or Labour (9).

It is interesting that there seems such minimal enthusiasm in local government to follow the lead of the Conservative and Lib Dem parties at Westminster. As to whether it’s significant, or offers any clues at all to what might happen in 2015, the answer I’m afraid must be a resounding NO.

game

Chris Game is a Visiting Lecturer at INLOGOV interested in the politics of local government; local elections, electoral reform and other electoral behaviour; party politics; political leadership and management; member-officer relations; central-local relations; use of consumer and opinion research in local government; the modernisation agenda and the implementation of executive local government.

Bankruptcies, scofflaws and aldermen: differentiated by a common language

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Chris Game

It must have happened to you. You come across a word for, as far as you’re aware, the first time in your life, you learn its meaning, and then read or hear it again in a quite different context just a few days later.

It’s possibly just one of those exaggerated coincidences – like the birthday paradox of needing only 23 people in a room to have better than even odds of two of them sharing a birthday. But, even if it is, my recent experience still struck me as worth sharing in a blog – especially as I rather like the word in question, and without too much contortion can give it a local government slant.

I’ve just returned from an academic conference in Chicago. The paper I presented was mainly about English local government finance, but part of it touched on the usage and meaning of words – in this case BANKRUPTCY; and no, that’s not the ‘new’ word I’ve just discovered!  I wanted to explain why English local authorities, no matter how financially stressed, would not be going bankrupt in the same way as Detroit and several other American cities have done over the past couple of years – and that Chicago itself conceivably could too, were the Illinois state constitution to permit it.

It’s true the B-word has entered UK local government discourse in recent months – in relation, as it happens, to what in population terms are our largest (Birmingham) and smallest (West Somerset) principal councils.  But here it’s used actually or effectively in quotation marks, signalling unusual usage, and indeed signalling is what the recourse to the B-word is mainly about: signalling – to these councils’ residents and taxpayers, but above all to government ministers – that they’re getting close to being unable to meet their legal obligations with the funding foreseeably available to them.

They are not signalling that, to take Chicago’s case, they have approaching $30 billion of unfunded pension liabilities, a now junk-approaching credit rating, and that they’ve managed to set a 2014 general budget with a shortfall of only $339 million. There are several ways in which municipal bankruptcy has a different meaning and different connotations this side of the pond, not least of which is that little clause in successive Local Government Acts requiring local authorities to set their council tax at a level that will balance the budget. US municipalities can and do set deficit budgets, some of them year after year.

Anyway, this bankruptcy stuff meant I was probably at least subconsciously on the lookout for particularly American words and usages – the two countries separated by a common language idea – when I happened upon SCOFFLAW. It’s not remotely a neologism, its meaning is quite easily guessable, and you may well be familiar with it yourself. But, until it crossed my path in three entirely different situations in the space of a few days, I wasn’t.

It originated in the Prohibition era, as a label for someone who literally scoffed at the law and illegally drank, sold or manufactured alcohol.  It’s since been extended to anyone who flouts any law, but it remains very much an Americanism. Indeed, it may be that its widespread usage is concentrated around the Chicago area, because my first sighting was the Scofflaw bar/restaurant in Logan Square, near to where I was staying in Lincoln Park.  Not, disappointingly, as edgy as it sounds. Unless there’s a local ordinance outlawing tractor seat barstools or menus containing exceptionally weird cocktails, chocolate chip cookies, and Brussels sprouts, the name must refer more to historic than present-day custom and practice.

There was no doubt, though, in my second encounter, a couple of days later. State Governor, Pat Quinn, was there on my TV, explaining his new law allowing the Illinois Tollway to post public lists naming and shaming the ‘Top Toll Scofflaws’ and the amount of fines and unpaid tolls owed by each violator.

It’s to such traffic law violations and similar comparatively minor offences that the scofflaw tag seems mainly applied nowadays – but clearly not exclusively.  For, immediately upon returning home, I heard a US diplomat explain on Radio 4’s The World Tonight how, if President Obama were to launch a military attack on Syria without Congressional and/or UN authorisation, it would not only constitute an impeachable offence, but “would bolster the already widely held view that America is a scofflaw nation that acts impetuously and unilaterally outside the framework of international law”. You can see his point: first you’re defying liquor laws, then evading traffic fines, and, before you know it, you’re attacking Syria.

Another word you hear much more of in Chicago City government than over here is perhaps more surprising: ALDERMAN – an office that, except for the City of London, we abolished in the 1970s. Chicago, however, is, one of several US cities that retains them and so, a little oddly, has a 50-member legislative city council comprising entirely elected aldermen (unlike ours, who were indirectly elected) – and that includes the 16 women, who presumably feel they have better things to do than argue about whether they should be alderwomen or even alderpersons.

They almost certainly do, for the contrast between the range of the actual and potential powers of Chicago aldermen and those of the 120 members of Birmingham City Council – with which Chicago is twinned – is hard to overstate. First, some numbers.  The US has nearly 39,000 ‘general purpose’ local governments, compared to the UK’s 434 principal local authorities – but its council memberships are much smaller. While Birmingham’s councillors represent wards with populations averaging 27,000, making them the largest in the country, Chicago’s aldermen represent districts of roughly 57,000, which are easily the smallest of any major US city. New York’s 51 city councillors represent an average of 165,000; Los Angeles’ 15 councillors over 250,000.

As large-scale representatives, but even more so as legislators, Chicago’s aldermen are far better financially compensated and administratively supported than our councillors: an average salary of around $115,000 (£74,000); a staffing budget of some $200,000, to employ typically a chief of staff, a couple of ward services staff, plus maybe a receptionist and a ‘scheduler’; and an additional general office budget of $75,000. And yes, there is a ‘Better Government Association’ that, like our TaxPayers’ Alliance, monitors all this and campaigns for the council to be cut by up to a half.

In truth, though, for aldermen to perform effectively even their legislative role, there would need to be more, rather than fewer, of them, with better, rather than reduced, support. Since Rahm Emanuel became mayor in May 2011, there have been around 30,000 measures introduced to the City Council. Even taking only the 2,000+ proposals flagged by the City Clerk’s office as ‘key’ legislation with a city-wide impact, aldermen lack the time, staff and expertise either to contribute significantly to the shaping of these measures or to scrutinise their implementation.

In practice, then, the mayor drives the city-wide agenda, largely unchallenged, but leaves the aldermen a similarly free rein – in fact, almost a free reign – over what happens in their wards. I noted recently in another blog how US municipalities’ zoning powers enabled them to limit the spread of payday loan stores in a way that many of our councils would like to. Well, in Chicago – far more, I believe, than in most cities – that power is exercised as a kind of unwritten aldermanic prerogative, with the alderman having almost a de facto veto power over any development project in their ward. Which pretty obviously, even without all their other powers, makes them both extremely influential, but also potentially extremely influenceable – and brings us back where we started, to scofflaws.

game

Chris Game is a Visiting Lecturer at INLOGOV interested in the politics of local government; local elections, electoral reform and other electoral behaviour; party politics; political leadership and management; member-officer relations; central-local relations; use of consumer and opinion research in local government; the modernisation agenda and the implementation of executive local government.

Picturing place: citizen participation in the age of social media

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Katherine Tonkiss

The INLOGOV blog has featured a number of insightful pieces on citizen participation in recent months. Most recently, Laurens de Graaf reflected on the limited role of citizens in participatory projects, where they typically act as information sources for elected representatives rather than decision-makers themselves. Previously, Catherine Durose argued in favour of alternative modes of citizen participation in order to move away from often empty, ‘tick-box’ consultation processes. Further, Catherine Jackson-Read reflected on whether local government in its current form can work effectively in collaboration with citizens.

What these posts have in common is a consensus that facilitating effective citizen participation is a significant challenge for local government, and that authorities should look to more novel approaches to facilitating participation beyond the traditional meeting in the drafty village hall.

These posts sprang to mind when I came across a campaign being run by Birmingham City Council’s Fair Brum partnership, ‘Place Matters’. The purpose of this project is to facilitate the participation of citizens in shaping Birmingham’s neighbourhood strategy by submitting photographs of their neighbourhood via social media. The focus is on ‘what is distinctive about different neighbourhoods and what local people value in their local environment’.

Photographs should answer one of the following questions:

  1. What do you like about your area?
  2. What makes your area unique or distinctive?
  3. What would you change about your area?

This novel campaign relates to the idea of ‘place’ in two very interesting ways.

First, the campaign involves a notion of place strongly grounded in the neighbourhood. The idea of citizens telling their local authority and its partners about their neighbourhood in terms of what it is like to live there doesn’t just involve relaying information to assist decision-making, but actually resconstructs what place means to the citizen in their immediate locality and how they interact with that place. In doing so, this creates a vision of place from the ways in which people understand and interpret their lived environment.

Secondly, and conversely, the campaign involves a very expansive notion of place. The act of photographing the neighbourhood and uploading it via social media is a clear step away from engaging citizens in that drafty village hall, and rather opens up the ability to convey ideas about place from the home – very much along the lines of the Gov 2.0 model that Tom Barrance wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It also opens up the possibility of participation to those without English language skills, or to those who are otherwise unable to engage in traditional processes of local democracy. Previous research I have been involved in has highlighted how traditional models of citizen participation can further exclude some of the most underrepresented groups, and alternatives such as this offer the opportunity to overcome such barriers.

I acknowledge that it will still exclude those who don’t use social media, however this is part of a raft of engagement activities and so there will, presumably, be other ways of engaging that don’t necessarily rely on having a Twitter account.

The results of this exercise will be insightful for local authorities and academic researchers alike, in terms of whether it does address that all too common issue that participation activities become tokenistic opportunities to obtain information rather than to engage citizens in decision-making processes. It will be important for the partnership to demonstrate a link between these participation activities and meaningful citizen input into the decision-making process about the neighbourhood strategy. If successful, the exercise will offer fascinating insights both into Birmingham as a city and into citizen participation in the neighbourhood.

me

Katherine Tonkiss is a Research Fellow at INLOGOV.  She is currently working on a three year, ESRC funded project titled Shrinking the State, and is converting her PhD thesis, on the subject of migration and identity, into a book to be published later this year with Palgrave Macmillan.  Her research interests are focused on the changing nature of citizenship and democracy in a globalising world, and the local experience of global transformations.  Follow her Twitter feed here.

Examining citizen participation: theory and practice

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Laurens de Graaf

As a researcher of citizen participation I often discuss the functioning of local democracy with, among others, councillors, officers and citizens. These discussions are showing that knowledge of democratic theory in the field is not often very present.

Partly, this is understandable –if the field consisted of political scientists only, would democracy function at all? But it seems as if limited knowledge about democracy creates some practical problems. To put it more precisely, the perspective on democracy appears to depend on the slogan: ‘where you sit is where you stand’. Councillors see themselves as guardians of democracy, because they are (the only ones) elected, and are the representatives of the people. Officers don’t often understand the (seemingly) irrational decisions councillors make and see democracy often as frustrating for their policy process. Citizens are distant observers and only a few committed citizens are actually participating in democratic processes.

Councillors and officers have been aiming for (more) citizen participation since the 1990s. But what effect does citizen participation have on local democracy?

Citizen participation is vital to democracy

Citizen participation is usually seen as a vital aspect of democracy. Many theorists claim that citizen participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy. Theories of participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and social capital assert that citizen involvement has positive effects on democracy. It contributes to the inclusion of individual citizens in the policy process, it encourages civic skills and civic virtues, it leads to rational decisions based on public reasoning, and it increases the legitimacy of the process and outcome. These aspects are summarized in the table below.

Aspects of democracy Clarification Theoretical Perspective
Inclusion Allow individual voices to be heard (openness; diversity of opinions) Social capital & Deliberative democracy
Civic skills and virtues Civic skills (debating public issues, running a meeting) and civic virtues (public engagement and responsibility, feeling a public citizen, active participation in public life, reciprocity) Participatory democracy & Social capital
Deliberation Rational decisions based on public reasoning (exchange of arguments and shifts of preferences) Deliberative democracy
Legitimacy Support for process and outcome Participatory democracy

Table: Aspects of citizen participation and democracy; a framework for analysis

What councillors and officers are telling me is that they are not fully aware of all these different aspects, but like the overview. It helps them to reflect on democracy from different angels.

Local participatory policymaking in the Netherlands

My article – co-authored by Ank Michels – examines the probability of these claims for local participatory policymaking projects in two municipalities in the Netherlands. However, I think that the claims can also be applied to local democracy in the UK and other countries. The article focuses on the relations between citizens and government from a citizens’ perspective.

The findings show that the role of citizens in participatory projects is limited, serving mainly to provide information on the basis of which the government can then make decisions. Nevertheless, the article argues that citizen involvement has a number of positive effects on local democracy: not only do people consequently feel more responsibility for public matters, it increases public engagement, encourages people to listen to a diversity of opinions, and contributes to a higher degree of legitimacy of decisions. One negative effect is that not all relevant groups and interests are represented. The article concludes that for a healthy democracy at the local level, aspects of democratic citizenship are more important than having a direct say in decision-making.

Reflecting on the functioning of (your local) democracy can be a fruitful exercise once in a while. The framework of analysis that was presented here may help, among others, councillors, officers and citizens to understand democracy more broadly and empathise with (each) other’s perspectives and roles.

A full account of this research is available in my recent article with Ank Michels: ‘Examining Citizen Participation: Local Participatory Policy-making and Democracy’. Local Government Studies 36 (4), 477-491.

Laurens de Graaf is a lecturer at Tilburg School of Politics and Public Administration, Tilburg University, The Netherlands. In the last ten years he conducted theoretical and empirical research with regard to citizens participation and in a broader sense: the functioning of local democracy. He is often in the field moderating workshops and trainings for councillors, mayors, active citizens and (neighbourhood) professionals about their role and their potential added value to local democracy.