

Citizen initiatives also differ from regular coproduction, because citizens take the lead as initiators, and government acts as follower or facilitator instead of citizens being involved in the production process under (strict) conditions and frameworks set by governments (Brandsen and Honingh 2016 McLennon 2018 Voorberg et al. As such, citizen initiatives differ from the politically oriented, more passive, ballot initiatives, which include public voting or forcing legislative bodies to consider subjects of the initiatives.
CITIZEN ACTIO FULL
In Arnstein’s famous ladder of citizen participation ( 1969), citizen initiatives can normatively be placed at the highest level of citizen power, citizen control, meaning citizens being in full charge of a specific program or institution. In the literature, we see that citizen initiatives are often approached as a specific form of citizen participation (Arnstein 1969) and co-creation (Voorberg et al. In some countries, like the Netherlands and the UK, economic and political uncertainties have led to public retrenchments and receding governments, which at the same time have embraced a political ideology that sees community self-strength as answer for societal problems (e.g., Brandsen et al. Although in Western Europe the government is still the primary provider of public goods, some governments increasingly aim to shift this responsibility to the community. It is especially the changing role of the state that has increased the current attention for citizen initiatives (cf. They often arise as self-reliance responses to the failure of the state and market to provide public goods (Teasdale 2012) and fill the gap caused by receding governments. Citizens control the aims, means, and actual implementation of their activities, but they often link to governments and other formal institutions, as their work field contains public domain and they, therefore, find themselves in institutionalized settings (Bakker and Denters 2012 Edelenbos and Van Meerkerk 2016 Healey 2015).

In this research, we refer to their activities with the concept of citizen initiatives, which is a form of self-organization in which citizens mobilize energy and resources to collectively define and carry out projects aimed at providing public goods or services for their community. 2013), and grassroots initiatives (Ornetzeder and Rohracher 2013). These initiatives are named in different ways in the literature, such as social enterprises (Cheng 2015 Teasdale 2012), self-organization (Anttila and Stern 2005 Van Meerkerk et al. With their initiatives, citizens often have the ambition to form a durable cooperation and they have a hands-on approach (Edelenbos and Van Meerkerk 2016). They take matters into their own hands by tackling wicked issues, such as urban revitalization, well-being, and sustainability.
CITIZEN ACTIO HOW TO
Ethics aside, if you want a situation where you can get paid to learn how to be really good at cold sales, this is a job worth checking out.Nowadays citizens contributing to the provision of public services and goods have become a marked trend in Western states (e.g., Bailey 2012 Healey 2015). I had suspicions while I was working for them and I have learned more about the company since I have stopped working there that has made me seriously doubt the companies integrity. I am still not convinced that this company does anything they say they do. There is no security and a constantly looming threat that if you are falling a little behind, it will be your last week. The downside to it is that they throw you into the deep end and if you cannot raise the minimum weekly amount of money for more than one week in a row, you're out luck and you will be let go. This job made me feel more confident in myself and my own capabilities. This job taught me sales, how to talk to people confidently and get what I want from them, how to brush off getting mean comments constantly aimed at you personally and then getting a door slammed in your face, and that I am physically capable of walking around in freezing rain with the flu for 5 hours.
