Functions of a Bureaucratic Ideology: “Citizen Participation”

Bureaucracies are users of ideologies, aimed at target groups for the purpose of energizing these groups toward acting in the interest of the bureaucracy and groups who are in a position to use it for their own ends. The ideology of “citizen participation” is inspected, as it is used by urban renewal and community action program bureaucracies. The intended and unintended consequences of both acceptance and rejection of the ideology are considered, for both the target group—the poor—and the organizational proponents of the ideology. The fate of an ideology depends upon its uses.