This unique book explores the growing practice of participatory democracy and uses comparative analysis of cases in the UK, the Netherlands and Italy to show how policy makers, practitioners, students and academics can communicate more effectively.

Koen Bartels is Lecturer in Management Studies at Bangor University (Wales), where he teaches courses in public administration and qualitative research. His research interests are social and democratic innovation, urban governance, participatory democracy, practice, communication, sociology of knowledge and interpretive policy analysis. He has published on public encounters, communicative capacity, practice, volunteering, leadership and action research in various public administration and public policy journals.