ABSTRACT
This chapter conceptualizes 'democratic quality' of participation and co-production. It focuses on the current knowledge about the determinants of democratic participation and co-production. Looking at the literature, democratic quality of participation can be made more specific by looking at concepts like equity, inclusion (or exclusion), (lack of) impact while participating or co-producing, and empowerment of participants or co-producers. The literature on participation in general provides us with some answers to the question under which circumstances co-production is democratic in nature or not. The literature also provides us with some first assumptions on potential drivers for democratic co-production: professional support, a sense of competency and salience may be important to lift target groups over the threshold. Care is needed, however, in translating knowledge from the broader participation literature to more specific co-production and co-creation research, as there may be empirical differences between general citizen participation and specific co-production, in terms of 'who's in', and what 'representativeness' means.
