LNELecture Notes in Education, Arts, Management and Social Science3083-10912705-053XBio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.26689/LNE.v4i7.15948ArticleOptimizing Citizen Participation in Government Performance Evaluationhttps://artdesignp.com/journal/LNE/4/7/10.26689/LNE.v4i7.15948GuoZiwei2026472026-07-26Citizen participation helps to improve the accountability and responsiveness of government performance evaluation, but in Chinese practice, citizen participation remains largely at the symbolic level. The existing institutional arrangements face constraints such as distortion of evaluation data, non-standard procedures, and insufficient use of evaluation results. Based on Smith’s policy implementation model, this study analyzes the four root causes of this gap: vague policy design, insufficient commitment of implementing agencies, limited citizen ability, insufficient mutual trust, and a government-centered administrative environment. Based on this, the study proposes to clarify the rules of participation, ensure the accessibility of performance information, broaden the channels of participation, strengthen the capacity building of citizens, and improve the implementable feedback mechanism to promote citizen participation from symbolic to substantive.Citizen participation, Government performance evaluation, Smith’s policy implementation model

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