Scoping review of community engagement innovations and democratic governance

The role of public participation can be a potent means for governments on different levels to realise key democratic values (Fung 2015). By including a variety of narratives and the voices of marginalised communities and groups, participatory practices and co-creation have potential to lead to and strengthen citizen’s trust in democracy and overall life satisfaction, by contributing to the creation of public policy that best fits local needs (Collins et al. 2023). Increasing emphasis on inclusivity and participatory initiatives can be witnessed in European political culture in recent years, along with, and in part as a response to, the challenges faced by democratic systems from populist and anti-democratic forces. Indeed, numerous forms of community engagement projects are ongoing, and innovative processes are being developed. This paper presents the preliminary results of a scoping review, which aims to map and chart the developments in the last ten years in Europe in innovative citizen and community engagement initiatives and practices of co-production. We discuss the scoping review methodology and the challenges of reviewing these types of practices and projects, as the language and concepts used to describe them are varied. In the review, we focus in particular on key challenges and best practices reported in the articles, and the role of different participants, stakeholders and groups involved in the engagement processes. We discuss the review results in light of the potential of the practices to advance the four ‘democratic goods’ of inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgement and transparency (Smith 2009).