CITIZENS’ implication in local public decision-making – CITIZENS

We combine different approaches – quasi-experimental methods, axiomatic and algorithmic approaches, experimental economics – to contribute to the field of research on voter behaviour.

We provide a summary of the determinants of abstention, highlighting its socially differentiated nature (Mille, 2025). We show that territorial fragmentation amplifies local political representation according to an empirically validated “two-thirds rule” (Le Maux and Paty, 2025). We also show that increasing the size of municipal councils does not affect participation or public spending, but reduces disproportionality under the effect of the majority bonus (Le Maux et al. 2025). We highlight a negative and lasting causal effect of intermunicipal integration on municipal participation, linked to a decline in local powers and fiscal resources (Di Porto et al., 2024). Finally, we show that the current rules for allocating intermunicipal seats frequently lead to overrepresentation of large cities, despite the principle of proportionality (Abidi Perier and Merlin, 2025 SCW).

With regard to participatory budgets, new methods have been proposed that better verify their fairness and representativeness than the usual methods, from both a theoretical and empirical point of view, after analyzing results based on real data (Yang et al., 2024; Boehmer et al., 2024). Finally, we present an open space for participatory budgets (Faliszewski et al., 2023).

The project has enabled us to identify how citizens' preferences are shaped by the voting and deliberation instruments through which they are expressed. Distributive preferences evolve more as a result of collective deliberations than individual deliberations (Tarroux et al. 2025). The meaning of the ratings given by voters varies with the rating scales, even in majority judgment, which is known for its absolute language (Delemazure et al. 2025). Understanding of how majority judgment works is weaker than for other rules and varies greatly depending on the level of education (Baujard et al. 2025). Some voting rules thus appear less inclusive, due to the difficulties some voters have in knowing how to vote.

The work carried out as part of this project has raised new research questions about contemporary transformations in local democracy. There is a clear need for further analysis of the effects of large-scale territorial reforms, such as incentives for municipal mergers, on voter turnout, taking into account significant territorial differences, particularly between rural and urban areas, and the role of electoral competition. There is also the question of citizen representation, particularly women in local government: even if the parity rule applies at the local level, there is still the question of women's access to leadership positions (list leaders, mayors).

The new methods of inter-municipal elections that we have proposed need to be studied further; they are also relevant, beyond inter-municipal cooperation, in all contexts where representatives need to be appointed in “nested” collectives. The methods proposed and studied for participatory budgets now seem to be converging towards optimal methods from a theoretical point of view, but much remains to be done in terms of assessing their feasibility and acceptability by local authorities and citizens.

Certain properties that have been little studied have emerged as essential for citizens: agency, understanding of voting rules, and satisfaction with the voting experience. The research prospects opened up by the project legally concern the fine-tuning of democratic deliberation procedures, including the presence of third parties.

The CITIZENS project is continuing, notably with the CONDORCET project of the PEPR MathsVives led by Antoinette Baujard on voting rules and the ANR AESOP project on ethical and social preferences.

Since abstention has been a growing phenomenon for many decades, the ambition of this project is to study the institutional determinants of citizens’ implication in local public decision-making. First of all, we want to explore the impact of decentralisation on electoral participation and more precisely using quasi-experimental approach assess how the different forms of decentralisation and the different modalities of local governance could bring citizens and elected officials closer together at the local level. We also want to determine which electoral systems favour or infringe the perception of closeness between citizens and the administration or elected authorities, or which design of the deliberative process may improve citizens empowerment. The research team of CITIZENS will combine different approaches – quasi-experimental method, axiomatic and computational approaches, and experimental economics – to contribute to this rapidly evolving field of research on voters’ behaviour.