Does Participatory Governance Matter?: Exploring the Nature and Impact of Participatory Reforms

On May 9-10, 2011, twenty scholars and practitioners from seven countries gathered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to assess what scholars and policymakers have learned after nearly three decades of the widespread adoption of participatory governance institutions. The “third wave” of democracy was accompanied by decentralization, not just in new democracies but also in older, better-established democracies. This decentralization provided government reformers, civil society activists, and ordinary citizens with the opportunity to establish new institutional arrangements that alter how citizens engage each other and government officials.

The purpose of this workshop was to establish the conceptual and methodological approaches that will allow us to assess the impact of participatory governance on the lives of citizens, the organization of civil society, the contours of state reform, and, most broadly, the quality of democracy. Workshop participants expressed cautious optimism about the potential for the new institutional formats to make meaningful changes to their environments. However, properly managing expectations of what participatory institutions can accomplish is important, given that these institutions are inserted into incremental policymaking processes where the rate and intensity of change is likely to be slow. In the context of high demand for scarce public resources, it is vital that scholars and policymakers develop a solid base of evidence that shows how and if participatory institutions are producing the intended benefits.