The Egg First or The Chicken First: Examining the Reciprocal Causal Relationship between Citizen Participation and Government Performance

摘要

Citizen participation and government performance are two primary themes in the literature of public administration. Although tremendous attention has been paid, the link between citizen participation and government performance is still controversial. While literature in Public administration has shown that citizen participation has potential to either improve or disrupt government performance, few literature steps on the impact of government performance on citizen participation. This article attempts to link these two stories together, discussing factors influencing citizen participation and government performance and proposing a methodological framework to empirical capture the reciprocal causal relationship between citizen participation and government performance. First, based on literature review the ambiguities of the impact of citizen participation on government performance and the impact of government performance on citizen participation are presented. Then a simultaneous equation model is proposed to empirically capture the reciprocal relationship between citizen participation and government performance. In this model, factors influencing citizen participation and government performance can be tested with methodological advantages.