The discourse on the role of civil society and citizen participation in promoting social and economic development is not novel. In fact, such a discussion can be found in Plato‘s Republic where his concepts of assembly, voting, and freedom are all basic tenets of modern day democratic states and citizen engagement. In the 1990s, the rise of civil society and diverse social movements became an influential force in development. Many countries have renewed their focus on participatory approaches to strengthen their society‘s social capital, to improve community development outcomes, and to improve governance systems. Jamaica is one these countries and explicitly includes ―strengthen [ing] the process of citizen participation in governance‖ as part of its Vision 2030: National Development Plan. The focus on promoting citizen participation raises the question of what individual characteristics are associated with participation in community development projects. In this paper, I use 2006 survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to analyze what individual characteristics are associated with the likelihood of participation in community development projects in Jamaica. The results from the logistic regression model indicate that location, sex, job type and language spoken at home impact an individual‘s likelihood of participating in community development projects in Jamaica
