In the shadow of legalism: understanding community participation in an overly bureaucratic context

This article describes a project which set out to reform the social welfare system in Tuscany (Italy) and discusses the action research (AR) conducted as part of the process to enable change, citizen participation and reflexivity. The AR approach helped to highlight tensions operating at local and regional levels, enabling actors and researchers to understand how the bureaucratic culture in which the reform is embedded limited nongovernmental organizations’ participation in the policy-making process. The reflective dialog between the local actors led to the emergence of several barriers, which in turn depleted social resources and the general sense of interest. The same barriers also impinged on the AR, strongly limiting its effectiveness. This article highlights the role of AR in bringing to light several paradoxes of participatory policies as well as in discussing the opportunities and challenges of this approach in sustaining local actors to enable change.