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Political public participation processes (e.g. participatory budgeting or planning groups) are suitable strategies to counter the challenges of representative democracy regarding legitimacy and responsibility (Schwickert & Collet, 2011; Sintomer, Herzberg, & Röcke, 2010; Yang & Pandey, 2011). In particular, the perceived alienation between citizens and government is a trigger for civic discontentment and the loss of trust in political action (Klages, 2007; Märker, 2009; Tofote et al., 2011). Perceived consequences are: decreasing voter participation, declining party memberships, public demonstrations and resource-intensive renegotiations (Kopp, 2010; Roth, 2011; Schwickert & Collet, 2011).
Consultative public participation gains more and more attention at all political levels to counter voter apathy and alienation from democracy (Roth, 2011; Sintomer et al., 2010); especially at the municipal level, towards which this paper is focused. Citizens are directly affected and intensely perceive the thematic relevance at the municipal level. Hence, consultative public participation is a predominantly adopted method at this level compared to other political level (Klages & Daramus, 2007; Roth, 2011).
The instrument of participatory budgeting has, especially, developed worldwide as a 'best practice' of supporting democracy in decision-making (Lerner, 2011; Peixoto, 2009; Sintomer et al., 2010). An increasing number of municipalities include the civil population to enhance the efficiency of public spending processes (Cabannes, 2004). Governments offer services (Anthopoulos, Gerogiannis, & Fitsilis, 2010) and use specialized web2.0 technologies to include citizens in the spending process (Vogt, Förster, & Kabst, in press). These elements of electronic government (e-government) are broadly accepted modes to modernize public administration and to generate participation (Anthopoulos, Siozos, Nanopoulos, & Tsoukalas, 2006). In this context, participatory budgeting is becoming an increasingly used method in Germany. This development is also propped by scarce municipal financial resources (Klages & Daramus, 2006; Sintomer et al., 2010).
However, there is still a gap in the comparative assessment of targeted objectives and the achieved objectives of public participation (Kubicek, Lippa, & Koop, 2011; Macintosh & Whyte, 2008). Non-specific definitions of effects and outcomes, multiple causes of the aims and the predominantly used case-by-case analysis due to a low utilization of the method cause these circumstances (Geißel, 2008; Vetter, 2008; Wollmann, 2006). Thus, the justification of resources for political public participation remains questionable. Moreover, the deduction of recommendation for action and optimization remain often in the framework of case-by-case studies of individual cases, which are generally limited (Kuhlmann, 2005; Vetter, 2008). More importantly, there is still an untapped potential for optimization of recommendations for action. Therefore we focused on the research question: Are there empirically supported factors which influence the success of public participation processes?