In drawing together these ‘ground-clearing’ studies of local political participation in Merignac and Sevenoaks, we wish briefly to highlight five main themes: the sphere of ‘local political participation’ as an idea and political process; the ‘cartography’ of activities that comprise it; the linkages between participation and certain sociological, political and psychological traits; participation as a response to issues and problems and, finally, the character of non-participation. We will consider each of these aspects in turn.

On the face of it, as chapter 2 made clear, the local political field is very different in the two countries – ‘government’ in Britain and ‘administration’ in France. And yet the evidence, principally on this theme from Sevenoaks, suggests that for the citizenry at least, things might not be so different. For what emerged in that locality was that local issues, and actions taken in pursuit of them, were seen as falling predominantly outside of the ‘political arena’. Indeed, only some 38% of the issues and 12% of the associated actions were unequivocally ‘political’. By these measures, it would seem, British citizens see their local public affairs predominantly in non-political terms – as ‘administration’ perhaps rather than ‘government’?