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The objectives of public consultation can clash with other policy objectives, partly because the norms underpinning public consultation clash with other institutional norms within the policy process. This phenomenon is evident in the case of selecting a site for a lowlevel nuclear waste disposal facility in Australia. This case shows how the results of consultation processes are moulded by the process design, which in turn is constrained by a range of policy process norms to which governments adhere. The case confirms some recent critiques of participatory practices. It also suggests that reconciling potentially competing policy process norms will be an important exercise in institutional design if elected representatives wish to mitigate citizens' alienation from their governments.Community consultation is meant to be a touchstone of modern democracy. It is supposed to make government both more responsive to the community and more legitimate in the eyes of that community. Questions about the place of public participation in modern democracy have spawned a literature that spans politics, public administration and planning (Arnstein 1969;

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