Public participation in environmental decisionmaking has become an accepted part of Western societies over the last three decades. Whereas on a simple level every democratic process based on aggregating individual preferences contains an element of public participation, the literature on...

We explore the theory and practice of participation in EU biodiversity governance, focusing on the implementation of the Birds and Habitat directives and Natura 2000 at the EU and member-state levels in the cases of France and Germany. We identify three shifts in EU biodiversity governance which...