Participatory Governance Reform: A Good Strategy for Increasing Government Responsiveness and Improving Public Services?

Participatory governance mechanisms have been widely promoted in developing countries. They are claimed to bring about several public policy benefits, including increased accountability, higher government responsiveness, and better public services. This literature review shows that the evidence on these claims is positive, but limited. Moreover, it indicates that enabling and motivating citizens and public officials to make participatory governance arrangements work as effective accountability mechanisms is a challenging enterprise in most developing countries. Hence, more comparative cross-case research based on medium and large samples is needed for judging whether participatory governance arrangements can increase government responsiveness and service quality. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.