In environmental governance, participatory modes of political decision-making and planning are becoming more prevalent. A rationalist model of governance would assume that instrumental rationales prevail in choosing participatory process designs. Some argue, however, that public policy-makers also follow administrative or governance ‘culture’. The concept of participatory governance culture assumes that historically grown institutional traditions, rationales and routines predetermine administrative practice. This paper empirically maps whether differences in participatory approaches can be explained by variation in participatory governance cultures. We study participatory governance in implementing the participatory provisions of three EU environmental directives in German federal states. Results indicate that although statutory requirements play a role in implementation process design, state-specific patterns can be observed. Studying participatory governance cultures seems viable to (1) enrich the theory of participatory planning through greater attention to governance cultures and to (2) offer an explanatory model on variation in implementation processes within one policy field.

在环境治理中，政治决策和规划的参与模式正变得越来越普遍。理性主义的治理模型会假设工具理性在选择参与式流程设计时占上风。然而，有些人认为，公共政策制定者也遵循行政或治理“文化”。参与式治理文化的概念假设历史上发展起来的制度传统、原理和惯例预先决定了行政实践。本文凭经验描绘了参与式方法的差异是否可以通过参与式治理文化的变化来解释。我们研究了在德国联邦州实施三项欧盟环境指令的参与性条款时的参与式治理。结果表明，虽然法定要求在实施过程设计中发挥作用，但可以观察到特定于州的模式。研究参与式治理文化似乎是可行的：（1）通过更多地关注治理文化来丰富参与式规划的理论，以及（2）提供一个关于一个政策领域内实施过程变化的解释模型。