Citizen participation in local government has the potential to augment local political efficacy, that is, the expectation among citizens of being able to wield effective political action. Locally, political efficacy is a product of the way councillors respond to citizen engagement and the attitudes they have to the means available to citizens to engage in politics and about what drives that engagement. Political efficacy is linked to councillors' willingness to transmit citizen attitudes to others in the governance network and to the way in which they perceive their role as a councillor and political representative. The article reports the findings of elite research which examined how councillors reconcile their role as an elected representative with citizen engagement and whether such engagement provides councillors with a way to influence governance networks.
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