Hubert Heinelt This book is the result of a conference on "Democratic and Participatory Govemance: From Citizens to ‘Holders’?" held in Florence in September 2000. The conference which had been organised by Bemard Gbikpi, JUrgen Grote and Philippe Schmitter was part of the project "Achieving Sustainable and Innovative Policies through Participatory Govemance in a Multi-Level Context" funded by the European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme on Research and Development. The project’s empirical focus is on specific policy areas – water supply and EMAS (i.e. the EU environmental management and audit scheme) – and takes account of different territariallevels of govemment. The objective is to analyze old and new forms of govemance to identify those being conducive to innovative and sustainable policies which, themselves, are based on the core values of dialogue, negotiation, active citizenship, partnership and subsidiarity. This also implies identifying the conditions that support the creation and maintenance of these forms of govemance. And last but not least, the project also aims at looking out for opportunities of EU intervention to promote these conditions in a way such that participatory forms of govemance can be achieved.