Councillors' attitude to citizen participation in policymaking as a driver of, and barrier to, democratic innovation

How can elected representatives' attitude to citizen participation in policymaking function as a driver of, and barrier to, democratic innovation? This paper aims to answer this question and empirically assess local councillors' views on innovative efforts to enhance citizens' participation in interactive governance processes in Norway. Unlike the bulk of previous research, which has focussed on the potential impact of citizen participation, this paper contributes to the understanding of what politicians think of the innovative measures. With councillors acting as gatekeepers with respect to democratic innovation, investigating their attitudes can help clarify why democratic renewal is or is not being prioritised. The findings of this empirical study on attempts to introduce new participatory initiatives in four Norwegian municipalities indicate that local politicians see an urgent need to innovate in order to increase public problem-solving capacity and efficiency; however, they are less concerned about strengthening democracy in and of itself. In addition, established democratic structures prevent elected representatives from seeing it as desirable or possible to involve citizens more directly in policymaking - even when they acknowledge that there are good reasons for doing so. Furthermore, councillor's attitudes may more generally affect democratic innovation at the local level of government since politicians decide whether and how to promote innovations in a local representative democracy.