Urban Politics in a Global Society Series Editors Richard Stren Department of Political Science University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada Christopher Gore Department of Politics & Public Administration Ryerson University Toronto, Ontario, Canada ‘This is a pioneering study in the feld. It raises the big questions of how ideas of democratic participation spread, and why they “stick” or do not. We don’t have anything comparable in the feld of local government, urban planning or compara- tive politics to rival the spread of this very specifc “tool” of local participation. The trend in urban studies internationally is to move from localized case studies to comparative studies involving different cities and even countries, but this study goes further with both comparative case studies in several continents, and the description and analysis of a general process of diffusion.’ — Richard Stren, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto,Canada