The project „Embedment of citizen participation in local governments“  elaborates on  factors explaining differences concerning the integration of citizen participation in administrative structures of local governments. Whilst there are municipalities characterized by a system-wide embedment of citizen participation in terms of guidelines, and/or positions for citizen participation, others  use legally mandated instruments only. To answer our research question, we conducted expert interviews with staff responsible for citizen participation in 20 German mid-sized towns located in one German federal state, and collected secondary data from the respective cities. We analyze these data applying qualitative content analysis and  fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The objective of this research is to support local governments striving for the embedment of citizen participation in their administrative structure.