By putting into perspective case studies on purported user participation, the article addresses the following question: while there is increasing recourse to user participation, do local experiments based on it operate differently depending on local policy contexts? In order to answer it, three issues are covered: first, the way in which user participation can be analyzed mainly as a tool to legitimize local politicians and administrators; secondly, the links between user participation and local political projects; finally, from a more general perspective, the contribution of experiences of participation to policy renewal.