The Renewal of State‒Citizen Cooperation

The concluding chapter draws from the analyses and findings from the rest of the book and puts forward a set of key recommendations for politicians, officials, advisors, and civic activists to help them steer clear of common pitfalls and adopt reliable practices to reconnect state and citizens. These cover how to focus on making citizen engagement a lever for change, so that citizens are confident that their involvement will make a difference; how to identify and publicise the value of democratic cooperation, especially in quantifying the social, political and economic gains more consistently and explicitly; how to select appropriate and feasible involvement approaches in the light of different circumstances; how to cultivate inclusive community relations on a sustained basis; and invest in the development of civic leadership so that the necessary skills and understanding are in place. The chapter closes by pointing to how policies for strengthening state-citizen cooperation have succeeded and can be replicated on a large scale in different countries.