Citizen involvement in public policy: Does it matter how much is at stake?
通过荷兰参与式预算的实地实验，研究涉事利益大小（即公民可决定的公共资金数额）是否影响公民参与意愿，发现更多资金通常不会提高参与意愿。
Abstract Public administrations increasingly try to find new ways to involve citizens in policy‐making. However, many democratic innovations draw in only a fraction of the public. Why? I hypothesize that we observe such low participation rates because there is often not enough at stake for citizens. I test this with a preregistered survey experiment on citizens' intentions to participate in participatory budgets in the Netherlands. I fielded the experiment among a sample of citizens that had just experienced a participatory budget ( N = 225) and among a population‐based sample ( N = 1369). I operationalized the stakes as the amount of public money about which citizens can decide. The results show that more money generally does not increase citizens' intention to participate. Supplementary analyses confirm the experimental findings and provide reasons how and why the stakes involved (do not) matter for citizens' involvement.