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Over the last two decades, the idea that citizen engagement and participation can contribute to improved governance and development outcomes has been mainstreamed in development policy and discourse. Yet despite the normative beliefs that underpin this approach, the impact of participation on improved democratic and developmental outcomes has proved difficult to assess. Where previous research studies have attempted to demonstrate impact, they tend to be limited to single interventions, a small number of country contexts or by various conceptual and methodological constraints.

In this paper, we report on a meta‐case study analysis of a ten‐year research programme on citizenship, participation and accountability which analysed a non‐randomised sample of 100 research studies of four types of citizen engagement in 20 countries. By mapping the observable effects of citizen participation through a …