This dissertation considers how governments may create opportunities for communities to solve public problems together. It analyzes how different civic engagement practices produce different consequences in terms of the quality of policy outcomes, ongoing democratic engagement, and community capacity to address public problems. It introduces a new construct, inclusive public leadership practices, which are practices that facilitate adaptive community change through inclusive processes to address public issues. This is an inductively developed construct based upon longitudinal ethnographic research involving participant observation, analysis of texts, and hundreds of interviews with public managers, political leaders, and community activists in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The city was chosen as an exemplary positive case for study due to its unusually strong and longstanding commitment to public involvement in policy-making. The dissertation compares two in-depth case studies of civic engagement processes in the city: citywide environmental stewardship efforts and a neighborhood planning effort to address gentrification pressures.

The analysis enlists practice theory and theories of narratives to analyze leadership practices. It elaborates the literature on collaborative governance, inclusive management, and the nature of public leadership. Key contributions include theorizing leadership as a set of practices that emerge in networked contexts and enable communities to move forward, rather than as a feature of individual leaders. The dissertation also introduces an understanding of public engagement as a narrative, viewing engagement as a particular form of social organization constituted through narration. Previous scholarship has identified several practices through which to enact inclusion. This analysis characterizes five additional practices: engaging diversity through inclusion- and participation-oriented practices; reflectively narrating engagement to provide structure and momentum to emergent democratic processes; resourcing imaginaries inclusively; using goals flexibly to amplify resources; and creating platforms for community action. It identifies the following positive impacts on planning and public policy outcomes from of inclusive public leadership practices: new connections among people and issues that produce new ways of seeing and addressing problems; additional resources to address problems; enhanced leadership; and strengthened buy-in and capacity for ongoing engagement and implementation of related policies and programs.