Participation is a major issue in environmental research and policy. Public Risk Perception and European Environmental Policy (PRISP), a cross-national inquiry on people's orientations about chemical risks, offered the opportunity to investigate some aspects; Tn two Italian case studies, interest was focused on the relation between experts and lay people and the function of participation. A key objective was to explore people's opinions about deliberative democracy. This is a currently much-debated alternative to the prevailing 'strategic' forms of democracy, based on the aggregation of preferences or bargaining among conflicting interests. Is there a role for an open confrontation aimed at reaching the common good? Results show that public interest is highly rated, participation is mainly connected to citizenship and understood as a form of co-operation. In a third case study, interest was focused on the analysis of a specific form of collective action according to the 'Critical Mass' rational choice model. In this case, it is argued that a small group of citizens may reduce the costs of starting-up a collective action aimed at pursuing the preferred social goals, i.e. at governing public goods.