000			01819pab a2200205 454500
008			180718b2011 xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aRoyoa, Sonia
245			_aCitizen participation in German and Spanish local governments: A comparative study
260			_c2011
300			_ap.139-150.
362			_aFeb
520			_aIn recent decades, citizens have become more and more disenchanted with the traditional institutions of representative government, detached from political parties, and disillusioned with old forms of civic engagement and participation. This has favored a renewed interest in citizen engagement and citizen participation and a growing re-emergence in academic and political discourse of ideas and values of community, localism, ad citizen participation. This article analyzes the main objectives and the actual implementation of citizen participation initiatives in the local governments of two European Continental countries, Germany and Spain. The aim is to find out the factors that affect the possible decoupling between the objectives and the "real" uses of citizen participation. Our results show that most local governments in these two countries are using citizen participation only to increase the level of perceived legitimacy or to comply minimally with legal requirements, without really taking advantage of citizen participation to enhance decision-making processes. These findings confirm that institutional theory becomes the rationale to explain the implementation of citizen participation in these two European Continental countries. -Reproduced.
650			_aLocal government
650			_aWorkers participation
700			_aAceretea, Basilio
700			_aYetanoa, Ana
773			_aInternational Journal of Public Administration
908			_aN
909			_a96617
999			_c96617 _d96617