The changing face of local democracy? The impact of citizen participation on attitudes, roles, relationships and legitimacy perceptions of democratic institutional stakeholders

New initiatives of citizen participation change the nature of local democracy. This research wants to bring a more comprehensive understanding of how participation has an impact on the roles of politicians, civil servants, citizens and civil society actors in the policy-making process, the relations between these actors, and the legitimacy of local democratic public policy making in the eyes of these actors.