Policy makers are from Saturn,..citizens are from Uranus….: Involving citizens in environmental governance in the Drentsche Aa area

This study investigated, theoretically as well as empirically, the relationship between public support for nature conservation policy - in the sense of citizen involvement - and governance in Dutch nature policy practices. It involved an in-depth case study of the relation between citizen involvement and governance in nature conservation policy in the Drentsche Aa area. We analysed the functioning of two multi-actor platforms as well as the link between the citizens' representatives on these regional platforms and their local-level constituencies. The analysis showed that the governance initiatives that aimed at the inclusion of different actors led to the enactment of various, invited as well as uninvited, forms of citizenship, such as 'passive citizenship', 'stakeholder citizenship', 'assimilated citizenship', 'antagonistic citizenship' and 'creative citizenship'.