ABSTRACT

Direct citizen participation practices have thrived with the understanding that representative democracy cannot be the solution to some problems alone. When citizen participation is accepted as a process of citizen’s influence on governmental actions such as decision making, public policy etc., the matters of participation process including the selection of participants, how participants communicate, the effect level of participants in decision making, participation tools play an important role in the success of participation process.

This article primarily summarizes the extensive literature on citizen participation. Then, it examines the conceptual framework for the design of the citizen participation process, which is considered an important tool in the success of direct citizen participation but not given much space in Turkish literature.