Civic Engagement and Citizen Participation in Local Governance: Innovations in Civil Society Research
Civic Engagement and Citizen Participation in Local Governance: Innovations in Civil Society Research

Summary/Abstract: The relationship between civic engagement and citizen participation has become recently a key political research. What is less known is the connection between the two and the local governance in civil society research? Does this relationship mattersin terms of society research whether it reflects citizenship? Does it matter whether the civic and political activities explore the membership patterns with a relative impact on group dynamics? This article evaluates the influence of policy process and democratic procedures on civic engagement and citizen’s participation. More precisely, we investigate the extent to which the impact of the models of associational involvement surrounds the notions of “civic engagement” and “citizen participation”. Our findings indicate that while civic engagement is relatively associated to citizen participation and to the other recent innovations in civil society research: civic community, cultural governance and participatory governance. Under these circumstances, civic engagement and citizen participation have become two more consolidated factors in the local building at a time when participation and engagement need to correspond in fact to a participatory policy of self-involvement.

• Details
• Contents