Local civil society organisations’ appreciation of different local policy decision-making instruments

ABSTRACT

In societies with a neo-corporatist tradition, organised interests like civil society organisations (CSOs) are largely embedded in the policy-making process. However, as (local) governments increasingly experiment with new forms of democratic innovation, this challenges the traditionally privileged position of CSOs in the policy-making process. We investigate the attitudes of local CSOs towards different types of policy decision-making instruments with an increasing level of decision-making power by individual citizens. Cluster analysis and a subsequent multinomial logistic regression analysis on survey data show that the extent to which CSOs appreciate increased participation of individual citizens is related to an organisation’s role in democracy (policy influence) and relationship with local government (financial dependence).

KEYWORDS:

• citizen participation
• civil society organisations
• local government
• democratic innovations
• quantitative research

Disclosure statement

The authors have no relevant (non-)financial interests to disclose.

Data availability statement

The data are available upon request from the corresponding author https://osf.io/wfrgs/?view_only=496f136afca344cd8925b5ad65f0c39b.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval for this research project was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Ghent University (Ref: UG-EB 2022-A).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

Notes

1. The data for the present study was collected as part of a broader survey. In another part of the survey, we included questions that measured whether respondents had read the given information correctly. More specifically, in that part of the survey, respondents were presented with four different scenarios. For each of these four scenarios, participants were asked which of four roles citizens played (answer options were provided and the scenarios were screened on the same page) Respondents who failed more than 3 of 4 comprehension checks were assumed to have filled in the survey without reading the information and questions properly, and were therefore excluded from our analysis.

Additional information

Funding

information: This research is part of the larger project “The changed face of local democracy? The impact of citizen participation on roles, relationships and legitimacy perceptions of democratic institutional stakeholders” (funded by Ghent University Special Research Fund - BOF21/GOA/008). More information: https://participatievedemocratie.be.