This article highlights the phenomenon of participation. The first section of this paper is structured in terms of the Ideals of Participation: what the policy makers try to achieve by introducing civic and community participation in policy formation and implementation and also the Practice of Participation: what are the actual discrepancies between policy intentions and policy outcomes regarding participation. Thesecond section of the paper is based on the theory of two (2) empirical Case Studies in which the ideal and practice are studied and analysed based on the conceptual framework and compared to conclude the findings.