The past two decades have witnessed the rapid diffusion of participatory planning models, including Community-Driven Development and Participatory Budgeting. Despite enormous funding outlays, studies paint a mixed picture about whether and when these programs “work” to improve welfare, governance, or social change. To better understand these questions, our paper takes an in-depth approach to understanding the sub-national application of a single participatory planning intervention implemented across Northern Kenya, using qualitative process tracing to understand the mechanisms operating across five counties. Our findings suggest the potential for participatory planning interventions to succeed is contingent on three factors which are insufficiently understood by both practitioners and academics. (1) At the institutional level, participatory planning interventions need to address genuine governance gaps by fulfilling functions that are not met by formal or informal institutions. (2) The rule-based design of participatory institutions often requires adaptation at the sub-national level in response to contextual factors, and the success of this adaptation mediates whether rules function as intended. (3) Ground-level implementers exercise far more discretion than officially recognized during implementation, suggesting they function as a poorly understood source of variation between and within programs.

过去二十年见证了参与式规划模式的快速传播，包括社区驱动的发展和参与式预算。尽管资金支出巨大，但关于这些项目是否以及何时“发挥作用”改善福利、治理或社会变革，研究描绘了一幅复杂的图景。为了更好地理解这些问题，我们的论文采用深入的方法来了解在肯尼亚北部实施的单一参与式规划干预措施在地方的应用，使用定性过程追踪来了解五个县的运作机制。我们的研究结果表明，参与式规划干预措施成功的潜力取决于实践者和学者尚未充分理解的三个因素。(1) 在机构层面，参与式规划干预措施需要通过履行正式或非正式机构无法满足的职能来解决真正的治理差距。(2) 参与性机构的基于规则的设计往往需要在地方层面根据背景因素进行调整，而这种调整的成功与否会影响规则是否按预期发挥作用。(3) 基层实施者在实施过程中行使的自由裁量权比官方认可的要大得多，这表明他们是项目之间和项目内差异的一个鲜为人知的来源。