# Just About Everyone

## Research note 01: When does participation become power?

12 September 2026 · Working research note for discussion

**Question:** Under what conditions does giving people greater influence over public decisions and resources expand their agency, improve their lives and advance justice?

This is an initial desk-research scoping exercise, not a systematic review or an agreed position of a wider team. It draws on research summaries, a paper abstract, a review abstract and institutional frameworks. It identifies evidence worth examining in full and prepares an original inquiry. No interviews or public-opinion research have yet been conducted.

### Why start here?

The founding proposition is that agency, inclusion, dignity and justice should shape both the purposes of policy and the way decisions are made. People should be able to help create a better future. Research must examine the practical consequences of that proposition while keeping its ethical basis explicit.

The first useful distinction is between improvements in services, changes in who holds power, and people's own experience of influence. These can move differently. A programme can provide useful infrastructure without changing authority; a democratic process can be valuable even where its effects on income are unclear.

### Initial evidence register

| ID / source | What the material reviewed supports | Limits and question for us |
|---|---|---|
| E01 · Mansuri and Rao, *Localizing Development* (2013), World Bank publication summary | The review distinguishes participation arising through civic action from participation induced through programmes. Context, elite control, collective action and the state are central to its analysis. | This note has reviewed the publisher's summary, not the full book. How much control remains with the organisation designing a supposedly participatory intervention? [Source](https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/localizing-development-does-participation-work) |
| E02 · Casey, Glennerster and Miguel, GoBifo research, J-PAL evaluation summary | The randomised Sierra Leone study involved 236 villages. In the short run, the programme improved public goods but did not fundamentally change local institutions or decision-making. Women's attendance did not translate into greater subsequent voice in community meetings. | Stronger causal evidence for this intervention, with limited transferability to other settings. Do our proposals change enduring decision rights, or participation within a temporary project? [Source](https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/community-driven-development-sierra-leone?lang=en) |
| E03 · Gonçalves (2014), Brazilian participatory budgeting, paper abstract | Research covering 1990–2004 reports a shift towards health and sanitation expenditure accompanied by lower infant mortality in municipalities using participatory budgeting. | The abstract is promising evidence, not enough for a causal or effect-size appraisal. Read the methods and identification assumptions before drawing stronger conclusions or transferring findings to Britain. [Paper record and abstract](https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v53y2014icp94-110.html) |
| E04 · OECD, *Catching the Deliberative Wave* (2020), executive summary | Comparative work on close to 300 deliberative practices identifies design principles including representative recruitment, support for participation, balanced information and a public commitment to respond to recommendations. | Comparative cases and design guidance do not establish that every assembly improves trust or policy. When can participants set the agenda and secure a substantive response? [Source](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/innovative-citizen-participation-and-new-democratic-institutions_339306da-en.html) |
| E05 · McClean and colleagues, community-business health and wellbeing review (2021), abstract | The review reports positive health, wellbeing and local satisfaction findings. Much of the underlying research is qualitative. | English-language selection and single-reviewer screening are stated limitations. Community business is also broader than a single ownership model. We cannot isolate an ownership effect from this abstract. [Review abstract](https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S1750861421000104) |
| E06 · UNDP, human-development framework | Human development centres people's opportunities and choices, treating income growth as a means. UNDP explicitly connects this approach with the capabilities tradition. | This is a conceptual foundation, not evidence that a particular policy works. Our contribution needs to explain how these purposes change actual decisions. [Source](https://hdr.undp.org/about/human-development) |
| E07 · OECD, policy coherence for sustainable development | The framework calls for consideration of domestic and international objectives, cross-border spillovers and effects on future generations. | A framework's existence does not demonstrate implementation or justice. Who outside the country has standing to challenge decisions that affect them? [Source](https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/policy-coherence-for-sustainable-development.html) |

### Provisional interpretation

Our working hypothesis is that meaningful agency requires usable power: scope to shape the agenda, influence decisions, control some resources and challenge those exercising authority. This is our synthesis for testing, not a finding established across all the sources.

Devolution needs to be examined at several levels. Moving authority from national government to a local authority is different from giving residents power within that locality. Community ownership requires a similar examination of who can join, vote, benefit, disagree and replace leaders. We should investigate when national redistribution and common protections are necessary to make local agency equitable.

The foreign-policy counterpart is to ask whose choices a policy expands or restricts across borders and over time. Shared prosperity is a purpose to investigate; it cannot be assumed that every reform immediately benefits every group. Analysis must identify losses, conflicting rights, compensation options and who decides which trade-offs are acceptable.

### First original study: “When did you actually have a say?”

**Proposed purpose:** identify the difference between being invited into a process and being able to alter a consequential decision. Connect lived accounts with documentary evidence of authority and resources.

Start with an exploratory set of approximately 12–18 interviews across three kinds of experience: residents involved in local decisions in Britain; members of community-owned or community-run organisations; and people involved in community-led development or refugee-led responses. Include people who withdrew, disagreed or were excluded, alongside organisers and participants. These interviews would reveal mechanisms and questions, not estimate population attitudes or support national comparisons.

Before fixing the interview guide, bring together a small founding research circle. Invite people with lived experience, practical organising experience and research skills, including a thoughtful critic of decentralisation. Give them the ability to change the questions and interpretation. Discuss payment, accessibility, language support and attribution with them; do not presume unpaid participation is equally accessible to everyone.

Suggested interview prompts:

1. Tell us about a decision affecting your life that you tried to influence. What happened?
2. Who decided which options were open for discussion? Could you introduce another option?
3. What could you actually change, and what money or authority accompanied that influence?
4. Who struggled to take part, or decided participation was not worthwhile?
5. What happened when someone disagreed with the organisers or local leaders?
6. Did this experience change your influence afterwards? What would demonstrate that?
7. What would you retain, change or put back under a different level of authority?

Seek consent for recording and quotation, offer confidential participation, and return interpretations to contributors. Where available, examine budgets, decision records and governance documents alongside accounts. Record disagreements and unsuccessful examples. Maintain a visible record of changes contributors make to the research.

Perception testing of named policies should follow initial listening. Once proposals are sufficiently defined, test comprehension, legitimacy and trade-offs separately. Reactions to an attractive name cannot establish support for its institutional design. Borough Buddy remains a named candidate; its mechanism has not yet been documented in this research note.

### Next research work and potential collaborators

The next desk-research priority is full-text appraisal of E02 and E03, alongside follow-up evidence and unsuccessful cases. For community ownership, compare a specific model with a plausible alternative, distinguishing ownership from additional finance and support. For foreign policy, select one concrete decision—such as an aid allocation or migration agreement—and trace effects on affected populations and future generations.

Research conversations could begin with authors or teams behind the evidence: Mansuri and Rao on local power; the GoBifo researchers on the distinction between project outcomes and institutional change; community-business researchers at UWE; and practitioners of deliberative processes. These are leads to investigate, not confirmed collaborators. People affected by the proposals should help decide which expertise the project needs.

This initial selection is weighted towards English-language academic and multilateral sources. A fuller review must search locally produced research and community-authored accounts, including relevant African sources, and examine how those sources define agency and justice. The complete manifesto also needs to be mapped against the research before this becomes the think tank's settled agenda.

**Initial output completed:** a seven-source evidence register and a draft original-research design. **Still to establish:** full-text evidence appraisal, an inclusive research circle, a defined first policy case and evidence from participants themselves.