Slotbeschouwing: geen levende lokale democratie zonder scepsis

In a final view the other guest editor draws conclusions on local democracy based on the analyses of the Local Election Research presented in this special issue. The good news is that the basic attitude of the Dutch people about their local democracy, their local institutions and their local government is quite positive. A picture of trust and satisfaction arises from the data that are available. However, the picture is much less positive if we look at the local democracy from the perspective of the monitoring citizen. The outcomes of municipal elections are largely dictated by national party preferences, which is both harmful for the process of representation before and the control and accountability after the election of the municipal council. In addition, the level of political participation at the local level is rather low and the participants are not a balanced reflection of the population, even in new forms of participation that are especially designed to break the dominance of the permanent participation elite.