Expert, bureaucrat, facilitator: the role of expert public servants in interactive governance

Abstract

Public servants in local governments, including policy experts, are increasingly expected to facilitate public participation and citizens’ initiatives. At the same time, critical research points out that their dominant or hesitant attitude and emphasis on rules and expert knowledge might hamper authentic participation. Based on shadowing and in-depth interviews, this article explores what tensions expert public servants (planners, lawyers, designers and historians) in Dutch municipalities experience when engaging the public, and how they handle these tensions in practice. The analysis shows that for expert civil servants, facilitating interactive governance means constantly finding a balance between their role as a bureaucrat, facilitator and expert. The findings show how expertise can both constrain but also enable facilitation, by mediating tensions between municipal and citizens’ demands. In addition, the findings shed new light on the close relationship between knowledge and trust in interactive governance.