To say that democracy is under pressure is like kicking in a door that is wide open. Many (local) governments are therefore working to innovate that democracy. A frequently used way to escape the democratic malaise is to give citizens more direct input into government and policy. In practice, citizen participation comes in many different forms, from referendums and citizen surveys to citizen panels and consultation meetings, to citizen budgets and experiments with co-creation in which citizens and government join forces to develop and deliver public services. The many experiments with citizen participation have not escaped the attention of researchers in Public Administration and Political Science: there is a growing range of insights into this form of democratic innovation. In this special issue the guest editors, Albert Meijer, Frank Hendriks & Bram Verschuere, present the state-of-the-art contributions of Dutch and Flemish researchers from various universities.

This article considers three recurring reservations about democratic innovation in the Netherlands – (1) ‘things aren’t that bad, are they?’; (2) ‘innovation is not always improvement’; (3) ‘it’s a hopeless task’ – in weighing up three important motives for democratic innovation: (1) the persistent problems with responsiveness, listening and follow-up capacity of democratic politics in particular; (2) the problematic combination of administrative ‘hurry up and wait’ in the polder; (3) the rise of new working methods that can contribute to collective strength. In the final analysis, there are valid reasons to invest in democratic innovation in the Netherlands, but also to proceed critically, selectively and in an integrated manner. It is unrealistic to expect that a single instrument – such as a randomly selected citizens’ council or a corrective referendum – will be able to meet the multifaceted need. Smart democratic innovation is investing in public learning: not an attack on representative democracy but an investment in its sharpness.

Democratic innovations aim to give citizens more say in policy and political decisions. But what is the influence of democratic innovations on policy, citizens, politicians and democratic legitimacy? This article presents international research into the influence of various forms of democratic innovations. It shows that this influence is often limited. Expectations are often high, especially when it comes to the influence on policy. But the results of democratic innovations rarely lead to substantial changes in policy. In a critical reflection on the research findings, the article then discusses some theoretical and methodological challenges in research into the influence of democratic innovations; the risk of manipulation and instrumentalisation of democratic innovations; and the problem of selective policy influence. The contribution concludes with a number of lessons for practice.

The Participatory Value Evaluation (the Dutch abbreviation is PWE for ‘Participatieve Waarde Evaluatie’) is a democratic innovation that has been applied more than 80 times in the Netherlands. The essence of a PWE is that residents take the place of a policymaker and give advice on policy dilemmas. This article determines the distinguishing elements of a PWE by comparing PWE with other methods such as the referendum and the citizens’ council. In addition, this article describes experiences with the PWE of policymakers and participants in nine cases. Policymakers appreciate that the PWEs provide concrete, usable insights. Because participants in the PWE experience the same dilemma as policymakers, their advice can be translated into policy more easily. Policymakers appreciate that a large and representative group participates in the PWE. This also includes constituents that they normally do not see at offline participation moments such as residents’ evenings. For example, people with a nuanced opinion (‘the silent middle’). Policymakers consider PWE to be an efficient citizen participation method and appreciate the focus that the design process of a PWE provides. Participants are generally very positive about their participation in the PWE. However, there is a group of participants who have a greater need to provide advice outside the policy options offered.

In the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium), the municipal council plays an important role in promoting various forms of citizen participation. It is therefore important to know how council members view different forms of participation. In this contribution, we mainly focus on two forms. On the one hand, we will look at deliberative forms, such as citizen panels and citizen summits, in which citizens discuss a specific theme and ultimately provide advice. On the other hand, we study aggregative forms, such as referendums, in which citizens can individually make their voices heard on a policy proposal through a vote. Both forms have the potential to strengthen democratic processes and increase citizen involvement, but the way in which they are deployed and followed up depends on political support. Our findings show that council members in the Netherlands and Flanders seem to have more support for deliberative forms of participation than for aggregative forms. This support translates into various advantages and disadvantages that municipal council members identify for both forms and which we link to democratic values: inclusion, citizenship, influence on policy, deliberation and legitimacy.

In this article, the authors analyse the extent to which the perceptions of councillors regarding their traditional roles of representing, setting frameworks and monitoring are influenced by citizen participation in local policymaking. Based on open survey questions, they highlight the explanations councillors give regarding a perceived increase or decrease in the importance of these three roles. Divided opinions about the changing importance of the representative role appear to be mainly due to different views on what citizen participation actually entails. There is, however, general consensus on the value of an integral final assessment by the council in which the general interest is central. Many councillors also attach importance to setting clear frameworks in advance and monitoring both the course of the participation process and the implementation of the outcomes of citizen participation afterwards. In addition, they asked councillors about new roles related to citizen participation, which shows that councillors see a facilitating role for themselves. They want to give substance to this in various ways: motivating residents to participate in participation processes, providing participants with substantive information, guiding participation processes, and communicating with residents and the municipality.