In recent years, attention has increasingly been focussing on the quality of local democracy. Through the transfer of central government tasks to the municipalities, the importance of local government for citizens in the Netherlands has increased. This also places higher demands on the way local democracy functions. For various reasons, it is not easy to meet these demands. The debate on the quality of local democracy can be reduced to two basic questions: what is local and what is democracy? Instead of answering these questions, the authors of the article (editors of this new series) demonstrate what knowledge is needed to do this. They outline broadly the agenda for a local democratic audit, for which this article is an introduction. After a short theoretical discussion of the importance of local democracy, the authors point out those knowledge gaps that still exist in their opinion. They do so on the basis of current research. After identifying the key relations in local democracy, they present an agenda for further research.

In imitation of the G1000 in Belgium in the Netherlands G1000-meetings were held in Amersfoort, Kruiskamp, Uden and Groningen and a citizens summit in Amsterdam with a similar design. In this article the authors investigate the design of these citizens summits and their contribution to a number of important democratic values. What is the diversity of the participants, the influence on policies and the quality of the discussions during the citizen summit? Their research shows that the diversity of the group of participants is rather limited. The selection method that is chosen, whether a lottery selection or an open invitation, doesn’t make much difference for the diversity of the group of participants. In addition the influence of citizens summits on policies and politics is nearly absent. The subjects that come forward at citizens summits hardly ever come back in the local policies, not even at the citizens summit in Uden, where the municipal council has taken the initiative to organize a G1000. Finally, in general the participants qualify the discussions at the table during citizens summits as constructive and inspiring. The specific form of the dialogue has only little influence on the extent to which the participants feel themselves heard and feel free to say whatever they want.