As citizen participation and participatory governance have become central concepts in the cultural policies at EU level, we are interested in understanding what this entails in practice. While, generally speaking, participation has been deeply scrutinized in political science and public administration literature, how citizens become participants in a process of co-creation of culture, who benefits from this participation and why is rarely discussed. By focusing on the European Capital of Culture initiative, which has become widely recognized as one of the most prominent EU cultural initiatives, we offer a thorough analysis of the participatory practices and of the challenges to participation that unfolds over the development of the ECoC projects. Adopting a Systematic Literature Review, we discuss the variety of participatory practices in real cases of ECoC, many of which, however, cannot be labelled as practices of “participatory governance”. We contribute to the stream of research on citizen participation, highlighting the selective practices that are hidden under the veil of inclusivity. These results are valuable both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.