Analysing policy actors’ preferences for different modes of governing in local government

Effective citizen participation in policy decision making depends on the support of all democratic actors involved: citizens, but also politicians and civil servants. Drawing on data from over 4,000 respondents, we explore the existence of so-called ‘multi-actor clusters’, that is, groups of people who are characterised by a positive (or negative) stance towards different modes of local policy decision making, irrespective of their formal-institutional role (politician, civil servant or citizen). Cluster analysis shows two large clusters of respondents that clearly prefer participatory over representative policy decision making. The analysis also highlights a substantial cluster of respondents who clearly prefer representative policy decision making modes over participatory ones. Further analysis shows that a democratic actor’s cluster membership is better predicted by individual (ideological) variables (such as left-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), compared to contextual variables (like governing capacity, democratic quality, and social capital of the municipality in which the actors work and/or live). This research is important because it challenges the assumption that citizen participation is to be considered primarily as (part of) the solution for local governance problems like a lack of governing capacity, low social capital or decreased democratic quality in/of specific local communities. In this way, it contributes to our understanding of participatory forms of governance.