01999nam a22001457a 4500 525631 525631 240401b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Blok, S., Buuren, M.W.V. and Fenger, H.J.M. 51475 The public value of citizens’ initiatives: Evidence from a Dutch municipality American Review of Public Administration 53(7-8), Oct-Nov, 2023: p.263-279 Active citizens who take initiative are generally regarded as desirable. However, the precise reasons why citizens’ initiatives are considered valuable and what their value consists of remain unclear, vague, and often unanswered. In this study, we used Q methodology to explore how civil servants, local politicians, and societal actors in a Dutch municipality view the public value of citizens’ initiatives. The analysis reveals four distinct views of the value of citizens’ initiatives: a view that values intangible results, a view that values a hands-on mentality, a view that values acting out of a sense of purpose, and a view that values citizens organizing and acting out of their own interests. Theoretically, we distinguish between material, immaterial, and process-oriented interpretations of values, and empirically this distinction shows that across the four value views, the process-oriented values are the most disagreed upon. Finally, we find common ground between the value views that we label “selfish collectivism.” This is the view that appreciates citizens’ initiatives for solving problems for the sake of the community, not for their altruism, but because they are self-serving. The strong differences in value views suggest that there is a risk that subsequent policy language and instruments based on these views could lead to conflict between the actors involved.- Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02750740231175162 American Review of Public Administration PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 400689 IIPA IIPA 2024-04-01 53(7-8), Oct-Nov, 2023: p.263-279 AR131427 2024-04-01 AR