But Is It for Real? The British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly as a Model of State-Sponsored Citizen Empowerment

Amy Lang
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Amy Lang: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, alang@ssc.wisc.edu

Politics & Society, 2007, vol. 35, issue 1, 35-70

Abstract: Emerging forms of empowered participatory governance have generated considerable scholarly excitement, but critics continue to ask if such initiatives are “for real†: Are participatory governance processes sufficiently independent? Do citizen participants make good policy choices? An in-depth look at the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform suggests that real citizen empowerment depends on both the institutional constraints of the participa-tory setting and how citizen interests and arguments for policy outcomes crystallize over the course of a participatory process.

Keywords: citizen deliberation; participatory governance; electoral reform; British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:polsoc:v:35:y:2007:i:1:p:35-70

DOI: 10.1177/0032329206297147

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