This paper discusses the contradictions of citizen participation in regeneration. Focusing on the south Wales Valleys, it observes that the creation of the Welsh Assembly in 1999 created a window of opportunity for a radical, bottom–up programme of ‘non-prescriptive’ regeneration, Communities First, which invoked active citizenship to address democratic deficit and economic crisis. Drawing on interview and policy evidence, the analysis shows how the programme became captured by a New Labour policy agenda shifting the priorities from citizen representation to ‘community activation’. This trajectory is interpreted in the light of Jones’ and Ward’s analysis of the ‘crisis of crisis management’, in which the state attempts to offset repeated failures to address economic crisis by a series of political-level ‘fixes’ that in turn create new problems. In the case discussed, these fixes take the form of risk management measures, which the paper discusses using the concepts of the risk society (Beck) and reflexive government (Dean).