ABSTRACT
The desire to increase the involvement of citizens and users in the management and organization of public services has been a recurring theme within current debates on municipal governance (Gyford 1991; Stoker 1991). In some ways citizen and user involvement may be said to encapsulate the defining difference between current ideas of local governance and traditional views of local government. Within such debate the term “government” is often associated with paternalistic political structures and a single service provider, whereas governance suggests a greater community involvement in the policy-making process coupled to a greater range of user-oriented service providers. Yet while great play is made of the potential that public participation initiatives such as citizens’ juries, user boards or community forums can play in helping to establish this order of governance, evaluation of the impact of these new mechanisms has only recently begun. The aim of this book is to provide some help in this process.
