Highlighting public-service actors’ deliberately tokenistic or self-serving efforts, existing literature has shown that public participation often involves the co-optation of sympathetic citizens. In contrast, our study demonstrates that participatory advocates may discredit and marginalize critical voices despite their own inclusive, democratic ideals. We analyze the entangled legitimacy claims of participating citizens and “inviting” public-service actors, capturing (a) the often-unintended dynamics through which the inclusion of particular participants legitimizes the exclusion of others, while illuminating (b) the tenacious propensity of participatory initiatives to establish “constructive cooperation” as the norm for participation and, subsequently, to normalize exclusionary practices.

现有文献强调公共服务行为者故意象征性或自私的努力，表明公众参与通常涉及同情公民的增选。相比之下，我们的研究表明，尽管有自己的包容性民主理想，但参与式倡导者可能会诋毁和边缘化批评声音。我们分析了参与公民和“邀请”公共服务参与者的纠缠合法性主张，捕捉 (a) 经常出乎意料的动态，通过这种动态，特定参与者的加入使排除其他人合法化，同时阐明 (b) 参与的顽强倾向将“建设性合作”作为参与规范并随后使排斥做法正常化的举措。