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The Question of Participation: Toward Authentic Public Participation in Public Administration
Abstract
How can the processes of public participation be improved? This study uses interviews and focus-group discussions to look for some answers. The results suggest that improving public participation requires changes in citizen and administrator roles and relationships and in administrative processes. Specifically, we need to move away from static and reactive processes toward more dynamic and deliberative processes. The article suggests some practical steps to achieve these changes.
... In recent times, due todiminished trust in the government there is a growing demand to fix the accountability of public officials by the process of participation in the administration (King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). When citizens will participate in the process of decision making, more accountability will be fixed. ...
... There is also growing recognition in the views of administrators that without effective public participation policy decisions will be ineffective. In the traditional process of participation citizen's influencewerecontrolled by the administration (King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). There is a need to reverse this process by increasing the abilities of the citizens to face the issues and process with their involvement and this is called authentic participation. ...
... Traditional participation process, Source:(King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). ...
The paper analyses how an effective public involvement can preserve and support the idea of democracy, referring to the contemporary situation in India, where people have low confidence in the institutions. The work reveals the escalating tendencies of citizens’ scepticism towards government and other official structures as one of the key problems that threaten democracies globally. Public engagement was defined as the capacity to restore such confidence and to achieve good decision-making in this context. The empirical research of the study includes a review of the literature and outlines different modes of participation including local self- government, citizens’ assemblies, meetings, initiatives, and referendums. The research study reveals that India has in fact incorporated some of these participative tools in its tradition but the paradox is that India requisite a long way to fill the void created due to non-functioning of participative tools at higher policy making levels. Basically, the study postulates that better processes that facilitate participation in policy-making not only increase people’s confidence in authorities but also make policies more legitimate and acceptable. The conclusion reiterates the necessity of changing the system in an effort to enhance the citizens’ engagement in the process of governance, excluding the electoral democracy and additionally including the deliberative democracy. Thus, this paper offers practical knowledge to the discourse on revitalizing democracy to uncover some measures that can help decrease the trust gap and enhance the entire efficiency of democratic leadership.
... The fact that significant public participation in government requires a targeted effort is well illustrated by the following quote by King, Feltey and Susel (1998): 'Although many public administrators view close relationships with the citizens as both necessary and desirable most of them do not actively seek public involvement. If they do seek it, they do not use public input in making administrative decisions and believe that greater citizen participation increases inefficiencies, delays, and red tape'. ...
... From this standpoint, rural communities, to the extent that they retain some features of close-knit communities, may have an advantage when it comes to public participation. The second set of barriers identified by King, Feltey and Susel (1998) refers to those inherent in administrative processes themselves. Communication is included under administrative processes and was viewed by subjects in the cited research as problematic. ...
... 322). A final set of barriers identified by King, Feltey and Susel (1998) refers to the techniques used in participation. There is a significant body of literature on techniques that do not work. ...
This paper aims to answer the call for studies o Interaction between citizens and government has traditionally taken place in community settings, government meetings, special town hall meetings, written correspondence in letters, emails, or texts, or via a phone call to a government representative. With digital media, citizens can instantly interact with the government. The mobile component of digital media will continue to be important in this interaction. This research operates with the assumption that digital media expresses a paradigmatic shift regarding how to govern and how to communicate. Digital media clearly is transforming the way governments think, plan, and carry out their policies but more importantly, how they communicate public policy. Our research intends to understand how local government institutions in rural settings use digital media and other communication channels to communicate with their citizens. The research employs a comparative perspective by investigating rural communities from the US and Romania. This was achieved by undertaking a content analysis of local government’s websites and social media platforms, as well as collecting primary data through interviews with representatives of local government, to assess the ways they use digital media, traditional media, and other communication tools, and whether they viewed them as effective strategies.
... This hypothesis is especially relevant for governments because it implies that two conflicting values, pluralism, and rational bureaucracy, can coexist. The tension emerges because opening the decision-making process to citizen participation can undermine the quality, effectiveness, or timeliness of expert bureaucrats' decisions (King et al., 1998), but if the crowds turn out to be wiser than the wisest expert, then this tension dissipates. Regrettably, current evidence supporting the wisdom-of-crowd hypothesis is mostly anecdotal, and scant empirical evidence does not support this hypothesis (e.g., Simmons et al., 2011). ...
... Public managers may be wary of opening to participation through crowdsourcing platforms. The literature on public management has shown that the public managers' decision to adopt, resist or ignore citizen participation is a function of their personal belief in the value of participation, their assessment of the citizens' added value to the task at hand, and their assessment of the additional efforts they have to undertake to incorporate the citizens' contributions (Yang and Callahan, 2007;Berner et al., 2011;Irvin and Stansbury, 2004;Zhang and Feeney, 2019;King et al., 1998). In crowdsourcing platforms, this tension is born of the possibility that the democratisation of decision-making can undermine the effectiveness and timeliness of bureaucratic decisions (King et al., 1998). ...
... The literature on public management has shown that the public managers' decision to adopt, resist or ignore citizen participation is a function of their personal belief in the value of participation, their assessment of the citizens' added value to the task at hand, and their assessment of the additional efforts they have to undertake to incorporate the citizens' contributions (Yang and Callahan, 2007;Berner et al., 2011;Irvin and Stansbury, 2004;Zhang and Feeney, 2019;King et al., 1998). In crowdsourcing platforms, this tension is born of the possibility that the democratisation of decision-making can undermine the effectiveness and timeliness of bureaucratic decisions (King et al., 1998). Some bureaucrats, for example, may be dealing with complex problems in which specialised knowledge or skills are needed (Berner et al., 2011;King et al., 1998). ...
Literature in crowdsourcing has focused primarily on understanding what is crowdsourcing and how it is composed, but we still do not have enough clarity about how and why crowdsourcing is expected to benefit governments. So, why use crowdsourcing? To clarify this question, in this article, I map and
integrate the scholars’ and public managers’ perspectives about the expected benefits from crowdsourcing in government. I find 16 explanations about how and why crowdsourcing benefits governments. Besides clarifying the areas of opportunity from government crowdsourcing, the findings provide insights for
future research on these propositions.
... Ideally, citizen participation will be linked to the governance of public organisations (Edelenbos et al., 2010) to ensure citizens have genuine opportunities to influence public decision-making (Font et al., 2017;Fung, 2006). However, informal citizen participation processes often run in parallel or are an "add-on" to formal decision-making processes (Edelenbos, 2005;King et al., 1998). Interaction elements play a key role in creating a functioning organisation in terms of embedding citizen participation. ...
... A collective mindset on the value of participation has also been acknowledged. That mindset values and supports democratic ideals, such as promoting fairness, equity, a sense of community, role of civil society and deliberative forms of interaction (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000;King et al., 1998). A participatory culture also highlights the responsibility of public organisations to empower employees and citizens and organisation's role as a collaborator, communicator and public interest channel (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2000). ...
... Second, the results illuminate several issues linked to an organisational culture that is supposed to support the ideas and initiatives of citizen participation. Issues such as the shared understanding of underlying democratic values, organisational attitudes, the adoption of novel ways of working and an appreciation of the knowledge produced by citizens are also present in the empirical case of this study (see Cuthill and Fien, 2005;B€ acklund, 2007;King et al., 1998). In addition, our empirical data add to the notions of previous studies by pointing to the importance of traditions. ...
Purpose
This study observes the organisational environment of fostering citizen participation in the context of local government. Creating systems of influential citizen participation requires the consideration of organisational prerequisites. This study asks which organisational elements contribute to successful citizen participation in local government.
Design/methodology/approach
The data consist of interviews with 14 key actors who work for the city of Helsinki. The interview content was subjected to abductive content analysis and reflected in the analytical framework based on previous literature on citizen participation. The analysis complements and adds insights to the existing literature.
Findings
This study illuminates three crucial elements of influential citizen participation: organisational structures, organisational culture and adequate resources. Additionally, the results revealed management to be a crucial enabling element. The findings highlight the importance of seeing citizen participation as an issue of governance and as a systemic part of the administration requiring intentional management efforts.
Originality/value
The study illustrates the key elements (structures, culture and resources) that should be considered when creating an influential citizen participation system. Additionally, the empirical analysis highlights the importance of management, which has been understudied in previous studies concerning citizen participation.
... As such, community participation plays a significant role in the public policy formulation process. Their primary function is formulating, defining, and implementing policies that directly affect them (King et al., 1998). The public also has a fundamental right to develop public policies affecting their lives. ...
... Achieving effective participation requires recognizing the role and management of the community in the decision-making process. King et al. (1998) also emphasized that genuine participation involves two main aspects, namely, the active involvement of the community in the decision-making process and the recognition of the role of the community in determining the outcome. They argue that genuine participation can improve the efficiency and fairness of government decision-making processes. ...
This study aims to analyze the extent to which community participation influences the public policy process in Indonesia. The public policy process is a series of actions and decisions that lead to developing and adopting specific public policies. Community participation is critical in this process as it helps shape, define, and implement policies that directly affect them. This study uses qualitative research methodology with data collected through in-depth interviews, document review, and participant observation of stakeholders directly involved in public policy development. The results of this study show that although community participation has a vital role in the policy formulation process, there are still several barriers, such as Lack of information, limited community technical capacity, and other structural issues that affect the level and quality of participation. This study highlights the need to increase transparency and openness of information, educate and build community capacity, and increase community participation in policy formulation. This study contributes to the literature on the role and impact of community participation in the public policy formulation process, especially in the Indonesian context.
... Many public agencies funding infrastructure projects require community engagement, and many businesses have included such practices as part of their social responsibility and infrastructure delivery (USACE 2019). While robust community participation in infrastructure planning is vital, ineffective practices, such as placation or symbolic participation (i.e., checking the box), consultation without follow-up and action, public hearings, and opaque decision-making (Arnstein 1969;King et al. 1998), often prevent agencies and communities from reaping these benefits. Instead, these ineffective practices deteriorate community trust in decision-makers and the planning process (Coleman 1988;1990;Newig and Fritsch 2009;Pretty and Ward 2001;Putnam 1995), contribute to perceptions of unfairness (Abelson et al. 2003;Carr et al. 2012;Lee 1986;Renn 1992), and negatively impact the quality of responses (Abelson et al. 2003;Coote and Lenaghan 1997). ...
... Technology has opened the field to have more diverse voices at the decision-making table." Evidence in the literature supports this observation that some groups, disproportionally historically marginalized communities, more often encounter these specific barriers to participation (King et al. 1998;McBride et al. 2006). However, the lack of demographic information accompanying attendance makes it difficult to measure how virtual engagement formats may have improved representation of these marginalized groups. ...
... They are a recognised, pivotal and often required, part of policy and planning making process in the UK, and more widely (Klinke 2009, Baker et al. 2005. Much of the empirical research on public hearings (Innes & Booher 2004;King et al. 1998;Baker et al. 2005), indicates that they are ineffectual, unsatisfactory, and illegitimate ways of formulating decision making. Yet the verdict on public hearings may well be different if we view them as part of a wider deliberative democratic process. ...
... Yet, Innes and Booher (2004: 419), among others (Baker et al. 2005;King et al. 1998), believe existing methods of public hearings are ineffective and illegitimate ways of formulating decision making, despite being ideally positioned to make an impact. Hearings have been accused of being tokenistic and ineffectual processes (Young 2000: 4), described as a ritual: ' a largely symbolic activity with little concrete meaning' (McComas et al. 2010: 122), and of failing to accommodate a satisfactory level of debate between officials and citizens (Kemp 1985: 177;Lando 2003: 76). ...
Public hearings are used widely in policy and decision making. Hearings have been subject to criticisms in some academic quarters. While some of these criticisms are valid, hearings have been overlooked in terms of the democratic value at a relational level. It has been suggested in theory that they are valuable for a deliberative approach to democracy, yet very little evidence exists to support this or to illustrate how hearings can best be utilised as part of a deliberative democratic system. This article contributes to the deliberative literature in two key ways. First, I introduce the democratic standards set out by Smith (2009) in a comparative framework, the Democratic Standard Enactment Index (DSEI), which offers a systematic way to analyse public hearing’s capacity to enact core democratic norms inclusiveness, popular control, transparency and considered judgement. Second, using four case studies, I highlight the strengths and weaknesses of hearings, evaluate how effectively they can be coupled with other democratic institutions, and consider where there are best placed to contribute to a deliberative democratic policy making process. Overall, the democratic norms are consistently fulfilled by the hearings. Their limitations can be overcome by changes to the format and by linking the hearings with other participatory and deliberative processes. The findings provide important nuance to our understanding of the role of public hearings as part of a deliberative democratic system.
... However, empirical studies examining the degree of Mozambican citizens' satisfaction with their involvement in administrative processes are lacking. The absence of studies on the effectiveness of such channels is a potential threat to ongoing administrative reforms, as without research evidence, they can be only symbolic rather than authentic (King et al., 1998;Nair, 2016). ...
... In their model, citizens' participation level derives from the role they play in the process and varies in terms of citizens' power to administrators' autonomy. Regardless of the presented rationales, and as King et al. (1998) posited, citizens' knowledge is of the utmost importance for effective and authentic public participation because it helps participants know what is best for their communities. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: ...
Studies aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of channels for participating in administration have been conducted mainly in democratic, developed countries. However, outcomes from those settings may not apply to developing or less developed countries where democracy has yet to be consolidated. In Mozambique, which has an authoritarian regime, the effectiveness of participatory channels from the public point of view remains unexplored. Therefore, based on participants' motives for participation, this study empirically examines citizens' perception of channels for participating in administration with specific reference to Gaza Province and suggests that policy makers and administrators design participation channels for local governments to ensure and protect citizens' authentic participation in administration.
... The involved entities are necessary in this domain as their requirements are fundamental to answering forensic questions. This study presents two general stakeholder survey approaches: the brainstorming method based on Bryson [13] and snowballing as introduced by King et al. [14]. Only the first seems applicable, as the stakeholders in automotive digital forensics involve criminals, making a snowballing method including all stakeholders impossible. ...
The rise of connected services in modern vehicles, combined with the target of software-defined vehicles, makes new approaches to secure the automotive ecosystem necessary. One of these approaches is implementing computational trust models within vehicles to secure interactions in a way inspired by the intuitive concept of trust. Involved stakeholders and their relations are essential to creating a system representing trust. We identified relevant stakeholder groups involved in the communication of modern cars and characterized them based on their lifecycle phase, the user agents and devices used to communicate, and their relations and roles. Furthermore, we describe the necessity for trust in the automotive ecosystem, the connection between trust and authorization, and the trust relations between the stakeholders. The results are thus a basis for designing general trust management systems for the automotive ecosystem.
... But unfortunately there are many times that we feel our voice and wills are not heard". The arguments for promoting the participation of residents derive from the belief that active participation is much more preferable than passive participation (Arnstein, 1969;King et al., 1998). With the involvement of residents, the proposed policies is much easier to keep up with their preferences while the public shares the responsibility for the sometimes difficult decisions that local authorities have to make. ...
While the general economic environment is uncertain, many cities turn to branding in order to gain tourist and economic growth. Heritage can play a significant role for brands because it can
strengthen an emotional connection to local communities by reestablishing this connection to the past. A brand name represents something not epidermal but with deeper essence. Yet,
many branding campaigns focus just on logos or slogans. The case of Hippocrates in the city of Larissa, central Greece, provides a different approach on how a brand name can be formed on
a steady basis although this name has a global resonance.
... Collaboration toward greater transparency and accountability in public budgeting best practices also extends to citizen participation. While it is recognized in theory and practice that the public must be more involved in public decisions, many administrators are wary about public involvement with some even finding it problematic (C. S. King et al., 1998). Cucciniello and Nasi (2014) feel that citizens are hardly involved in the government's decision-making process with decisions usually motivated by efficiency. ...
Cross-sector collaboration has become a major emphasis in collective action as governments, private corporations, and nonprofits work together to tackle today’s complex issues. The existing cross-sector collaboration literature primarily addresses major events like natural disasters, e.g., hurricanes and wildfires, and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a significant gap in the public administration literature regarding cross-sector collaboration in addressing underlying social and financial issues. This paper discusses the need for public budgeting best practices through cross-sector collaboration in three areas: (1) equity; (2) transparency and accountability; and (3) ethics. Through the collaborative governance theory, each sector—public, private, and nonprofit—can contribute to the integration of resources, networks, and approaches for the benefit of citizens. This paper concludes by highlighting key implications for theory and praxis, including an increase in public trust and a greater emphasis on inclusivity in the budgeting process.
... Once again, the public hearings were manifested as "poor mechanisms for deliberation" (Adams, 2004;King, Feltey, and Susel, 2008;Kemmis, 1990;Checkoway, 1981). They only allowed the political decision-makers, including the grand architects, to turn away the public's minds (Tepper, 2004) from factual issues of the city-making and futurecity imagining process. ...
The present study is an effort to tap the relationship between narrative practices and
strategy-making in the context of city planning of Tirana (TR030). It tries to do so by
providing answers to the following questions: How strategy emerges from stories
narrated by contending parties in an urban planning context? What power devices are
accommodated in the stories of strategy? What rationality serves as a selection
criterion for effective strategic storytelling? Coupling narrative paradigm with
qualitative grounded theory this inquiry extracts a conceptual framework for
describing and explaining the triumph of the narrative rationality of the strategy�makers and the justification and mystification of a pre-set imagination of the future of
the city. Three are the major findings of the study. First, for a narrative rationality to
succeed in a social setting, a narrative ecosystem must be established in advance.
Second, good reasons underpinning narrative rationality are informed by values
embedded in stories. Third, the narrative effect of the stories is only warranted by a
unitary narrative rationality farmed in a friendly ecosystem.
Keywords: Strategy-as-practice, narrative practice, narrative ecosystem, narrative
rationality, power relations.
... CP refers to the collaboration (Biswas and Roy, 2020) of individuals or communities in the planning, designing, implementing, and maintaining projects and policies (Kiss et al., 2022). These projects and policies aim to encourage co-production between citizens and the government (King et al., 1998). CP is an essential element that impacts the prospects for sustainability (Koontz, 2006). ...
The Environmental Sustainability Performance (ESP) in Agricultural Activity (AA) is a topic of great interest due to its essential role in the future of society. Efficient resource management and capacity building among people engaged in AA are essential for reducing environmental impact and achieving long-term sustainability. In this regard, a model was developed based on AA and its relationship with ESP by reviewing the relevant scientific literature. The model was then empirically validated by surveying coffee crops in the Valle del Cauca region of Colombia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the causal relationships between the theoretical constructs, measured using a 28-item survey instrument grouped into five blocks. The survey was administered to 692 administrators, managers, and owners of coffee Agricultural Producing Units (APUs), and the data were validated and analyzed using the partial least squares technique (PLS-SEM) and SmartPLS Version 4.0 software. The results indicate that Business Associativity (BA), Agricultural Management (AM), Citizen Participation (CP), and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have a direct and positive relationship with ESP. Moreover, this study found that the relationships between AM and BA, ICT and AM, and ICT and CP generate significant indirect effects associated with ESP. Finally, the study discusses the impact of agricultural management on ESP and its effects on other variables.
... The leaders always search for suggestions that enable the organisation to accomplish its vision and aims. Scholars such as: King, Feltey, and Susel (1998) assume that the degree to which citizens' opinions are taken into account in the decision-making process of an organisation may be shaped by the leadership styles of those with real authority in the organisation. Scholars such as: Bass and Steidlmeier (1999); Groves and La Rocca (2011) emphasize that it is more likely to produce strong beliefs in stakeholder perspectives due to the moral foundation and ethical principles that anchor transformational leadership (Ufua, Salau, Ikpefan, Dirisu & Okoh, 2020). ...
... The leaders always search for suggestions that enable the organisation to accomplish its vision and aims. Scholars such as: King, Feltey, and Susel (1998) assume that the degree to which citizens' opinions are taken into account in the decision-making process of an organisation may be shaped by the leadership styles of those with real authority in the organisation. Scholars such as: Bass and Steidlmeier (1999); Groves and La Rocca (2011) emphasize that it is more likely to produce strong beliefs in stakeholder perspectives due to the moral foundation and ethical principles that anchor transformational leadership (Ufua, Salau, Ikpefan, Dirisu & Okoh, 2020). ...
This paper explores how the inclusion of stakeholders in the public sector through transformational leadership system can enthrone good governance. The application and inclusion of stakeholders in executing humanitarian programmes and projects in the public sector serve as drivers to good governance for transformational leadership system in the competitive and comparative administration and management structures in Nigeria.
... Ennek a feltárása különböző részvételi módszerrel (participative methods) történhet, amelyben min den partner véleménye megjelenhet (Géring et al. 2018;King et al. 1998). Azért fontos ez, mert az egyetemeken, amelyeket Clark (1986) "farnehéz" (bottom-heavy) szervezeteknek, Mintzberg (1991) pedig szakmai bürokráciának nevez, az alkalmazottak egyetértése nélkül szinte lehetetlen bármi féle fenntartható szervezeti változtatást elérni (Géring et al. 2018). ...
Az elmúlt évek gazdasági, társadalmi változásai, valamint a technológiai innovációk egyre gyorsabb ütemű fejlődése a felsőoktatás környezetét is jelentősen átalakítja. A változások új kihívásokat fogalmaznak meg a felsőoktatás működésével, az oktatók felsőoktatásban betöltött szerepével kapcsolatban is. Tanulmányunk az egyetemi oktatás jövőbeli víziójára, a digitális környezetben megvalósuló fejlesztésre, ezen belül is az egyetemi oktatói szerep változására, valamint az oktatói kompetenciák fejlesztésének és az oktatói munka értékelésének összetett kérdéskörére fókuszál. A „backcasting” módszerrel végzett kutatásunk eredménye arra hívja fel a figyelmet, hogy a humánerőforrás és a minőségi feladatvégzéshez szükséges oktatói kompetenciák folyamatos fejlesztése a felsőoktatásban sem váltható ki még a legjobban kidolgozott értékelési rendszerrel sem.
... Political scientists have long debated the value of public participation in policymaking, separate from political participation like voting, finding a spectrum in the quality of different types of participation and characteristics of participation mechanisms (Bishop & Davis, 2002;Creighton, 2005;Yang et al., 2011). Similarly, a substantial body of work has focused on how to design participation systems to be most effective, such as how to get beyond shallow opportunities to comment after issues have been framed and the contours of decisions have already been made (King et al., 1998;Yang et al., 2011). Especially in administrative decision-making and management, which includes most permitting and agency rulemaking, opportunities for public participation tend to focus on comments on proposals and drafts. ...
Advances in environmental policy are closely intertwined with public participation and social movements. Individuals, organizations, industries, businesses, and other interested parties engage to exert influence in environmental decision-making. Their participation takes many forms in different systems and political arenas, ranging from comments on proposed regulations to lobbying to outside-system protests, with a wide range of effectiveness. This chapter reviews engagement in environmental policy, including what comprises good participation, decisions, and outcomes. Evolving forms of participation are considered amid contemporary challenges like climate change, focusing on activism and social movements, as well as the influence of polluting industries and interests aligned with them. A section focuses specifically on the environmental justice movement, which has served a critical role in achieving gains and shaping the broader environmental movement, although inequities in pollution-related harms persist. Across environmental issues, from the adoption of foundational environmental laws to contemporary issues at local, national, and international levels, it is apparent that an engaged public can wield significant influence. A fundamental lesson from environmental policy is that challenges to status quo systems, as are necessary to address issues like climate change, require substantial and sustained social movement participation.
... Lastly, successfully engaging low-income and minority communities in citizen participation processes has proven to be a challenge in various cities (Baum et al., 2000;Ziersch et al., 2011;Pak et al., 2017). An array of factors may contribute to this phenomenon, such as feelings of exclusion, distrust towards the government, and language barriers (King et al., 1998;Van Ryzin et al., 2004;Foster-Fishman et al., 2009;John, 2009). These differences in participation rates may also apply to requestbased services. ...
... Apart from implementing tourism development plans in the public interest, there are several other benefits of stakeholder involvement in the process. They include: letting people voice their interests and empowering them by involving in the decision-making process, the realization of shared responsibility, imparting education to the public on important issues and topics, improvement in the rightfulness of decisions and their acceptability, generation of new ideas, increase in trust value and reduction of conflicts between the stakeholders (Jankauskaitė-Jurevičienė & Mlinkauskienė, 2021) (Aas et al., 2005) (Sharma & Sharma, 2017) (Timothy, 1999b) (Byrd, 2007) (Beierle, 1998) (Simrell King et al., 1998 (Carmin et al., 2003) ( Fiorino, 1990) (Steelman, 2001). In this context, overcoming the disregard for the interdependence of heritage, tourism, and stakeholder collaboration for decades (Sacareau, 2007), developing countries like India are now attempting to acknowledge and implement this mutuality in development plans (Reed, 1999) (Timothy, 1999a) (Aas et al., 2005. ...
The colonial hill towns in India inherited the predominant architectural style and cultural mannerisms from a mother country before undergoing transformations that reshaped their authentic cultural landscapes. In developing countries like India, the negligence of colonial tourism concerning stakeholder involvement is a perpetual phenomenon. As the primary custodians of heritage, stakeholders have a significant role in tourism management plans. Thus, the present study comprehends the stakeholders’ perceptions of heritage in the colonial hill town of Mussoorie, India, through in-depth interview surveys. The qualitative Inductive research approach is implemented for data synthesis. Findings elucidate that involvement of the stakeholders in Mussoorie’s tourism, and heritage management can provide a remedial impact to the large–scale destruction imposed on the colonial lineage for decades. The research will inform practitioners and researchers about a methodological approach to developing the relationships between the heritage's tangible and intangible aspects for preparing holistic development plans.
Anecdotal and empirical evidence points to a decline of citizen trust in government in the U.S. Distrust of government related to fiscal matters often occurs because information about accountability is not communicated. This study examines factors that may influence citizen perceptions of their local government's fiscal accountability. We focus specifically on seven local governments in the Hampton Roads, Virginia region of the U.S. We measure citizens’ perception of local government finances using survey responses to five questions related to responsible spending, financial reporting, and educating and informing citizens of government finances. Our study examines the relationship of levels of transparency, information accessibility, and participation opportunities to citizens’ perceptions of government's fiscal accountability. We expect that residents in cities with high levels of transparency and information accessibility and participatory processes will perceive their local government's fiscal accountability more positively. However, our results do not support these expectations since the level of perceived fiscal accountability is non-variant across the cities irrespective of the varying levels of transparency, information accessibility, and participation opportunities. These findings suggest there may be different values associated with a range of administrative activities thought to be critical antecedents for informing and engaging citizens to enhance perceptions of accountability.
Efforts to make public administration more efficient and more democratic need not take place entirely within government. For example, “budget work” by nongovernmental organizations and other types of civil-society collectives is one way in which government fiscal policy and administration can potentially be made more transparent and thereby more democratically accountable. A logical framework and an exploratory analysis of 72 organizations doing budget work based in 26 countries illustrate some of the ways in which the practice of budget work can be pursued in response to specific political and economic contexts and goals. Consistent with the framework, certain transparency-related goals and activities are common to virtually all of the organizations across differing normative conceptions of democracy, and some correlations are apparent between organizational designs and goals and organizational environments and between organizational activities and goals.
Social justice is a fundamental value in public policy, but empirically examining this intricate concept remains a persistent challenge. Recent studies have made early attempts to examine how policy design choices consider distributive justice but have overlooked how procedural justice considerations have been integrated into policy designs. Drawing on policy design and participatory governance literature, this study develops a procedural justice score to empirically measure and compare policy design features of renewable energy siting policies across U.S. states. We focus on policy goals, settings, and calibrations of policy instruments, and the congruence between policy goals and instruments. We do not find consistent policy congruence, which implies that policymakers can view procedural justice as both a normative goal associated with democratic ideals and an instrumental goal facilitating a successful and sustainable energy transition. While most states fall short in designing a fair, inclusive, and participatory process, there is a growing trend toward adopting participatory approaches in renewable siting.
Desert environments face the challenge of promoting sustainable tourism while balancing economic growth with cultural and environmental preservation. In the context of rapid global tourism expansion, effective destination management becomes crucial for positive economic impact and long-term preservation. This study aims to identify key factors influencing the sustainability of tourism. It explores the interactions between local stakeholders, the supply of tourism products and services, and tourism governance. Utilizing structural equation modeling through the PLS-SEM method, data was collected from 150 stakeholders in desert environments. The findings reveal that the involvement of local tourism stakeholders and the supply of tourism products and services significantly impact sustainable tourism in the desert environment. However, we observe a lack of influence between tourism governance and sustainable desert tourism. The novelty of the study lies in the identification of promotional factors for sustainable desert tourism. The originality of this study lies in its in-depth exploration of the mechanisms for promoting sustainable tourism.
The implementation of Smart Cities and Smart Regions is characterized by a high level of participation. While adults are often involved, children and young people tend to be under-represented. In consequence, ideas and suggestions of children and young people are not considered. This article reports on participation of pupils in a Smart City project. The main contribution is a methodical approach to involve students in a participatory way by developing future scenarios for a smart city. The approach was tested in three different types of schools. A total of 730 pupils were involved. Through the participatory method, a total of 606 ideas for a smart city/smart region were derived.
This exploratory paper challenges the prevailing 'participatory orthodoxy' in design and politics by questioning whether participation alone is enough to envision alternatives that resonate with collective aspirations. We argue for complementing emancipatory PD discourses with the idea of prefiguration and introduce 'ludic prefiguration' as a holistic and dynamic framework that interweaves elements of game design, cooperative play, and iterative collective playtesting to foster a deeper level of collaboration across the creative and political spectrums of design. This framework advocates for interactions that are not only playful but also 'inefficient' in their exploration, thereby redefining the influence of play on decision-making and questioning traditional perceptions of efficiency in design. At the heart of this approach is an activist commitment to radical imagination and meaningful inefficiency, seeking to reshape the contours of participation and pave new prefigurative pathways in democratising design and politics.
Municipal reformers often call for more public participation in the budget process. However, few studies have surveyed the viewpoints of budget practitioners on the efficacy of public involvement in municipal budgeting. In this paper, we report a survey administered by e-mail to budget directors in cities that won the Government Finance Officers Association's (GFOA) distinguished budget presentation award in 2011. The survey is based upon the research of Berner (2004) and the theoretical framework developed by Ebdon and Franklin (2006). We find that budget directors in the sampled cities view traditional participation methods, such as the public hearing, as the most effective, compared to more interactive and participatory methods. This viewpoint stands in contrast to the scholarly literature's normative arguments and empirical evidence that meaningful public input must be solicited early in the budgeting process through interactive methods.
This theory-building essay aims to conceptually articulate the valuing of the transfer of citizens’ nonadministrative knowledge to government. Two ways of valuing, instrumental and normative, are identified and examined in public administration literature. I argue that public administration lacks an understanding of the distinctive normative or democratic significance of citizens’ nonadministrative knowledge. To fill this gap, selected critical theory, postmodern, and pragmatist philosophical approaches to the valuing of citizens’ knowledge are examined in relation to two kinds of knowledge transfer in citizen-government exchanges: administrator knowledge transfer and citizen knowledge transfer. The review suggests that the normative valuing of citizen knowledge transfer requires the empirical and proactive examination of contemporary forms of citizens’ knowledge; that administrator and citizen knowledge transfers should be investigated as interconnected phenomena in an integrative approach, which implies a greater attention to conflict over knowledge; and that the greater normative valuing of citizen knowledge transfer could stimulate its instrumental valuing.
This paper serves as a renewed call for public management scholars and public leaders in liberal democracies to be the champions of accountability standards that are explicitly and implicitly inherent to liberal democratic forms of governance. This call is particularly salient amid increasing populism, polarization, and democratic backsliding. Drawing from the historical and contemporary political and legal philosophies of small‐ l liberalism and democracy advanced throughout the ages, we define a set of seven liberal democratic accountability standards focusing on matters of authority, rights, tolerance, truth claims, and professional deference. We then consider how these standards relate to some of public administration and management's ongoing considerations of the politics‐administration dichotomy, citizen engagement, and network governance, and make the case for more explicit focus on liberal democratic accountability standards in public management scholarship.
Recent years have seen a rapid growth of interest in the inclusion of citizen participation in the work of public institutions, advancing a well-established literature in public administration, which aims to reconcile the goals of public bureaucracies with those of democracy. Consequently, a rich body of literature and empirical work has emerged, which explores the extent to which the aspirations of the literature are reflected in practical experiences of participatory initiatives. In this article, we argue that this literature would benefit from a deeper connection with democratic theory. In particular, we suggest that our ability to make assessments over the functioning of citizen participation initiatives would be strengthened by a closer engagement with the contributions made by social choice theorists. We aim to promote a constructive dialogue, suggesting that considering social choice perspectives in analyses of participation might allow the claims made by proponents of citizen involvement in public administration to be strengthened considerably.
This study uses survey data from Kyoto citizens in Japan to examine the factors affecting citizen evaluations of local government finances. In particular, it probes whether information delivery alters citizen perceptions of government finances. In the pre-information condition, fiindings indicate that citizens who rate performance, compliance and respect for rights, and accessibility to government information evaluate government finances more highly. The impact of information delivery formed the focus of this inquiry, and the results confirmed the learning effect of the modification of citizen perceptions after accurate financial information was received. Those who have higher or lower prior beliefs about the government are also more likely to revise their beliefs in cases of overestimation or underestimation when provided with information based on accurate fiscal indicators. In addition, when information is provided to citizens who have low accessibility to government information, they are more likely than other citizens to improve their evaluation. This study offers key directions for the exploration of the learning effects of information delivery by local governments and recommends methods for constructing desirable relationships between citizens and governments through such efforts.
Points for practitioners
This study elucidates the learning effects of the information provided by government officials on citizens. The finding that citizens dissatisfied with their access to government information evaluate the government more highly after receiving accurate information from the government is particularly significant. In addition, citizens focus on the performance of services provision, adherence to established rules and observance of the rights granted to them.
Kamu kurum ve kuruluşlarının varlık nedeni kamusal hizmeti sunumudur. Kamu örgütleri bu hizmet sunumlarını belirli politikalar doğrultusunda yapmaktadırlar ki bu politikalar kamu politikası olarak ifade edilmektedir. Bu bağlamda kamu politikası, içerisinde pek çok unsuru barındıran kararlar bütünü olarak tanımlanabilir. Alınan kararlarda dönemin şart ve gerekliliklerine göre pek çok husus etkili olabilmektedir. Bu anlamda değişen dünya konjonktürü ve yönetim anlayışı başlangıçta özel sektörde kendisine yer bulan stratejik yönetim anlayışını kamu yönetimine de hâkim kılmıştır. Son yıllarda geliştirilen ve stratejik yönetim sürecine şeffaflık ve kapsayıcılığı dâhil eden açık strateji yaklaşımı kamu kurum ve kuruluşlarının politika yapım süreçleri için önemli bir potansiyel sunmaktadır. Çünkü günümüz kamu yöneticisi-vatandaş ilişkisi hesap verebilirlik, şeffaflık, açıklık, katılım gibi ilkelerin varlığını gerektirmektedir.
Belirtilen bağlam içerisinde bu çalışmada öncelikle kamu politikası hususuna değinilmekte, ardından sırasıyla açık strateji yaklaşımı ve katılım konuları açıklanmaktadır. Sonuç kısmında ise kamu politikalarının oluşturulmasında açık strateji yaklaşımı ile katılımın önemine değinilerek genel bir değerlendirme yapılmaktadır.
This study investigates the causal relationships between satisfaction with services, trust in public organizations and the voice orientation of citizens through the perspective of the New Public Management. The moderating role of ethical public administration in these relationships is also investigated. Survey methodology with a sample of 586 citizens from Diyarbakır city is used to analyze proposed hypotheses. According to linear regression analyzes, political efficacy level of citizens is positively affected by satisfaction with services and trust in public organizations variables. On the other hand, political participation is only impacted by satisfaction with services positively. No significant relationship can be found between satisfaction with services and political participation. Public administration ethics has a positive moderator role on the relationship between satisfaction with services and voice orientation behaviors (political efficacy and political participation). It also positively moderates the relationship between trust in public organizations and voice orientation of citizens (political efficacy and political participation). This research provides findings about the New Public Management outcomes from different country contexts through first-hand data.
Public Participation is a local, diverse, complicated and dynamic concept. So, the existing theories in the field of public participation in urban planning which has been developed in the global North countries are not in the line with the characteristics of the planning environments of developing countries, moreover they have not enough efficiency in these countries. Whereas, in theory, most of the research noticing to public participation in the urban planning environment in Iran have adopted the positivist approach to evaluate the existing theories and have aimed to determine the Importance of known variables and their impact on public participation. In the other part of these researches have been tried to evaluate the consequences of participatory processes. These researches attempt to deal with this complicated and abstract phenomenon through shrinking it to numbers and figures within the framework of existing theories, without considering the characteristics of planning environment. Accordingly, there is a contradiction in understanding that is riddled with misunderstandings and ambiguity about the concept of participation and its effectiveness in the urban planning environment in Iran. From an empirical point of view, due to the essence of this concept and the variety of its understanding and practice in different structures, the contemporary experiments that are based on the theories, models and experiences of other countries, over-reliance on the techniques of participation and merely emphasized on the objective conditions of the formal structure of the planning environment, not only have not decreased the gap between theory and practice, but also have resulted in practice in trapping participation into a vicious and faulty cycle. Therefor this research tries to recognize the informal structures of urban planning environment which affect public participation, through discovering the experience of people and planners in public participation and the meaning of it in the urban planning environment of Iran. This research can be categorized within the interpretive paradigms. Epistemologically, it emphasizes on the interaction between the researcher and the participants and the closest possible objective distance. This research uses ‘manifest inductive qualitative content’ analysis methodology. Data gathering has been done using in-depth unstructured interviews. Choosing participants (interviewees) has been targeted towards developing the concepts and continued until theoretical saturation. 22 individual in-depth interviews and 2 group interviews have been conducted with planners and people who had experience in participation. Being aware of the interactive characteristic of the concept of participation, some field surveys have been conducted during the procedure of the study in order to develop the concepts further. The findings of the study demonstrate that the most important concept in the understanding and practicing of participation for the people and the planners, simultaneously, is “refusal from participation”, which is a different concept than the concept of refusal argued in former theories in the field of social sciences. Finally, by achieving an in-depth understanding of the components of the participatory planning environment, this research, that has considered the current conditions of the planning environment of the country, underscores the areas requiring intervention to fill the gap between theory and practice in participation.
İdari reform politikalarının sonucu olarak kamu yönetimlerinin rollerinde ve
toplumla olan ilişkilerinde değişim yaşanmaktadır. Vatandaşların yönetsel
süreçlere aktif katılımını içeren yönetsel demokrasi idari reformların ortak
hedefidir. Çalışma, kamu yönetiminin değişim sürecinin önemli bir ekseni olan
yönetsel demokrasiyi incelemektedir. Çalışmanın ilk bölümünde kamu yönetiminin
değişim gereği ve boyutları üzerinde durulmuştur. İzleyen bölümde ise geleneksel
yönetimden günümüze kadar yaşanan değişim sürecinde kamu yönetimi ile
yönetsel demokrasi ilişkisi analiz edilmiş ve elde edilen bulgular değerlendirmeye
tabi tutulmuştur.
We know that deep scientization (DS)—the misrepresentation of political issues as technical/scientific ones best handled by experts—can unduly limit public deliberation and lead to policy misdesign. Yet, tools for investigating DS remain lacking. This article develops a new approach to diagnosing DS that works by identifying where experts have used their discretion to construct policy claims that contravene existing, shared epistemic standards. This approach's value is demonstrated through a case study of U.S. chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) policy. The study shows that, whereas government experts originally developed CFS as a research construct, they have since used their discretionary power to recast CFS as a serious disease requiring new policy interventions. This epistemically unjustified transformation of CFS has limited public discussion of important value‐laden policy questions and arguably yielded poor policy outcomes. The approach developed here can also be used to uncover DS in other policy areas.
Related Articles
Carlsson, Lars. 2017. “Policy Science at an Impasse: A Matter of Conceptual Stretching?” Politics & Policy 45(2): 148–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12196 .
Lemire, Sebastian, Laura R. Peck, and Allan Porowski. 2023. “The Evolution of Systematic Evidence Reviews: Past and Future Developments and Their Implications for Policy Analysis.” Politics & Policy 51(3): 373–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12532 .
Luján, José Luis. 2023. “Evidence‐based Policies: Lessons from Regulatory Science.” Politics & Policy 51(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12543 .
Tourism can profoundly affect the quality of life (QOL) of residents living in tourism host communities. In recent decades, the concept of sustainable tourism destination management has become more widely known and applied. In this chapter, we examine resident perceptions of how tourism impacts QOL in the Thompson-Okanagan region of British Columbia, a certified and celebrated sustainable tourism destination. Impacts to eight dimensions of QOL are examined, including the Recreation Amenities, Community Pride and Awareness, Economic Strength, Way of Life, Natural and Cultural Preservation, Community Well-Being, Crime and Substance Abuse, and Urban Issues domains. Similarities and differences across domains and between residents with differing levels of tourism affiliation, income, geographic distributions, and demographic characteristics are described and compared against observations of other sustainable or more traditional tourism destinations. Generally, residents perceive positive impacts of tourism on their QOL, yet some issues, such as Urban Issues, and potential inequities are highlighted. The implications of these resident perceptions on sustainable tourism destination management are discussed, and effective strategies for engaging with residents and measuring perceived impacts to their QOL are recommended. Monitoring residents’ perceptions of these impacts provide meaningful indicators of sustainable tourism development that can assist managers and stakeholders as they strive to achieve net positive impacts of sustainable tourism.
Resumo: O artigo resulta de investigação, em perspetiva comparada, sobre as atitudes e o pensamento de cidadãos participativos (CP) e cidadãos pouco participativos (CPP) relativamente à participação pública. Procura acrescentar aos problemas escrutinados na literatura, uma visão crítica e contrastada dos cidadãos sobre as perguntas de investigação: i) Porque é que os cidadãos não participam mais? ii) Como aumentar a participação dos cidadãos? A pesquisa combina análise qualitativa intensiva, a partir de um número limitado de entrevistas e "focus groups", com os resultados de um inquérito digital, no município de Valongo. Os resultados sugerem que há aprendizagens a fazer a partir da posição de menor envolvimento dos CPP na esfera pública e da sua disponibilidade para participarem, e, de uma maneira mais transversal, que há lógicas de proximidade importantes para a solicitação da participação que precisam de ser entendidas, exploradas e melhoradas. Palavras-chave: Participação, Cidadãos Participativos, Cidadãos Pouco Participativos, Redes de Proximidade. Introdução Este artigo resulta de investigação em torno das atitudes e expetativas dos cidadãos relativamente à participação pública. Quem lida com a participação pública está confrontado com o desafio central de garantir o efetivo envolvimento da comunidade e de gerar confiança nos cidadãos relativamente aos seus protagonistas políticos e aos processos de decisão (Bobbio, 2019; Fernandes-Jesus et al., 2019). Por sua vez, os cidadãos querem ser ouvidos, mas também que os seus contributos tenham consequências na ação concreta resultante dos processos nos quais anuem participar. Na procura de respostas às questões de investigação-Porque é que os cidadãos não participam mais? Como aumentar a participação dos cidadãos?-a pesquisa explora muitas das questões, problematizadas na literatura, relativas à capacidade de envolvimento e à eficácia da participação pública. Questiona-se o papel essencial da facilitação, quer quanto à forma como decorre a interação, no que se refere à linguagem e à informação que deve ser fornecida, quer quanto ao cuidado de integrar e organizar a variedade de contributos e interesses dos participantes para credibilizar os processos participativos e legitimar a ação coletiva (Bobbio, 2019; Bryson et al., 2013; Wolf et al., 2020). Debatem-se, igualmente as questões da representatividade e do acesso às arenas de discussão pública e a processos participativos, e os níveis de abertura à definição da agenda e dos termos do debate, bem como a capacidade de produzir resultados práticos, visíveis e responsivos, enquanto catalisadores da mobilização dos cidadãos e da criação nestes de um sentido de propósito para o seu envolvimento em iniciativas participativas (Albrechts, 2016; Wolf et al., 2020). No entanto a maior relevância desta investigação decorre do seu propósito de distinguir e confrontar as posições de cidadãos que participam ou têm maior propensão para se envolverem em processos participativos (Cidadão Participativos-CP) com as daqueles que não participam ou são pouco participativos (CPP). Apesar de a problematização da não-participação não ser o objetivo central da investigação, o
We use responses to a large-scale national survey designed to oversample political activists to investigate the extent to which participant publics are representative of the public as a whole. Building upon the finding that while voters differ from nonvoters in their demographic attributes, their attitudes as measured by responses to survey questions are not distinctive, we consider a variety of political acts beyond voting that citizens can use to multiply their political input and to communicate more precise messages to policymakers. In addition, we consider not only respondents' demographic characteristics and policy attitudes but also their circumstances of economic deprivation and dependence upon government programs. Although activists are representative of the public at large in terms of their attitudes, they differ substantially in their demographic attributes, economic needs, and the government benefits they receive. Furthermore, in terms of the issues that animate participation, groups differentiated along these lines bring very different policy concerns to their activity.
General managers are expected to strive for organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Depending on their emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness, they produce four basic approaches to public sector general management: the directive approach, the reactive approach, the generative approach, and the adaptive approach. This paper explores the generative approach, in particular its use of public deliberation as an alternative way to establish public policy and set bureau direction. Two case studies help distill the basic elements of public deliberation. The first case documents the use of public deliberation in significantly reducing a school district budget. The second case illustrates how public deliberation aided in crafting state educational policy. Although it is risky and expensive, public deliberation in these two cases illustrates how opening up policy-making to stakeholder participation can be highly successful. The paper concludes with implications for public management theory and practice.
Information is a source of power in the planning process. This article begins by assessing five perspectives of the planner's use of information: those of the technician, the incremental pragmatist, the liberal advocate, the structuralist, and the “progressive.” Then several types of misinformation (inevitable or unnecessary, ad hoc or systematic) are distinguished in a reformulation of bounded rationality in planning, and practical responses by planning staff are identified. The role and ethics of planners acting as sources of misinformation are considered. In practice planners work in the face of power manifest as the social and political (mis)-man-agement of citizens' knowledge, consent, trust, and attention. Seeking to enable planners to anticipate and counteract sources of misinformation threatening public serving, democratic planning processes, the article clarifies a practical and politically sensitive form of “progressive” planning practice.
Conflicts over the siting of risky facilities are increasingly common and often lead to political gridlock. Community opposition to projects that involve localized costs and diffuse benefits, especially when experts judge the risk to be minimal or the facility essential, is typically characterized as the NIMBY syndrome (for not in my backyard). Yet the behavioral dynamics of the NIMBY response have not been studied systematically. This paper considers several formulations of the NIMBY construct, and uses a content analysis of public testimony in nuclear waste repository hearings to test key propositions related to it. Public opposition to a high-level waste repository was found to be nearly unanimous, but many of the characteristics associated with the NIMBY response were not present. The public was moderately well informed about technical aspects of nuclear waste disposal, was not inordinately emotive in its testimony, and exhibited concern for potential environmental, economic, and other impacts that extended beyond the local area. We discuss the implications of these findings for conceptualization of the NIMBY syndrome and for public policy responses to it.
The Clinton scandals. The Rise of militia and patriot groups. The proliferation of?trash? TV. Record U.S. trade deficits. Isolated events, or is there some connecting thread? Susan Tolchin says it's anger?mainstream, inclusive, legitimate public anger?and it's not going to vanish until we as a polity acknowledge it and harness its power. How to tap into this pervasive political anger and release its creative energy without being swept away by its force is the dilemma of the 1990s for government leaders and citizens alike. The second edition of this acclaimed volume has been completed revised and updated to account for the ways in which recent events have contributed to the history, causes, and consequences of anger in American politics today. The book embraces positive solutions to problems we are all entitled to be angry about: economic uncertainty, cultural divisiveness, political disintegration, and a world changing faster than our ability to assimilate. Tolchin's solutions incorporate a renewed sense of community, enhanced political access, and responsive rather than reactive government.
Habermas outlines three aspects of advanced capitalist societies: the economic system, the administrative system, and the legitimation system. The economic system consists of the market-regulated systems of production and consumption within the private sector and the support of military and space-travel in the public sector. The administrative system consists primarily of the state apparatus as it regulates the economic and social order. Finally, the legitimation system becomes necessary to support the other two stystems when their logical support is no longer self-evident. When flaws in the political system are revealed, advanced capitalism must contend with what Habermas calls a "legitimation crisis," in which the legitimizing system does not succeed in keeping an acceptible amount of loyalty from the populace.
How can good listening help public administrators be more responsive to the public? In public administration, responsibility is lauded as the essence of bureaucratic professionalism while responsiveness tends to connote inappropriate political bias. Yet too much reliance on administrators' sense of responsibility threatens democratic accountability and puts too much faith in bureaucratic expertise. This article argues that practicing responsiveness by developing the ability to listen skillfully reduces the tension between administrative effectiveness and democratic accountability. The experience of listening involves openness, respect for difference, and reflexivity. Developing the capacity to listen well promotes accountability by helping administrators to hear neglected voices and engage in reciprocal communication with the public; it promotes effectiveness by deepening our understanding of complex situations and facilitating imaginative approaches.
Despite an increase of citizen participation at local levels during the 1960s-70s, a growing literature indicates that these efforts are having only a limited impact. This article describes a novel form of citizen participation which as been developed by the Center for New Democratic Processes over the last decade. These "Citizens Panels" are modeled after the jury system and are similar to a process which has been developed independently by a team of West German social scientists. It is the belief of the authors that this process can overcome many of the deficiencies of other approaches to participation. Six criteria are suggested for a successful method of participation. These are applied to a project run throughout Minnesota in 1984, where 60 randomly selected individuals examined the impact of agriculture on water quality and made recommendations to project sponsors, including several state agencies. Although the project met some criteria better than others, the authors conclude that Citizens Panels have high potential for a variety of uses.
Can the work of policy analysts and program evaluators be made more relevant to the citizenry? Peter deLeon believes it is possible to reduce the isolation of analysts, who often produce assessments and recommendations that seem out of touch with the needs and wants of the public they serve. He calls for a "participatory policy analysis" that would open the process to greater input and involvement in situations where such an approach is feasible. While admitting that such democratization is more difficult in practice than in concept, deLeon notes that the legitimacy of the policy analyst's endeavor is what is at stake.
This paper presents a theory of citizen cynicism concerning government and, based on a national survey, examines the extent of cynicism and the extent to which public officials can reduce the level of cynicism by adapting better communication strategies, improving public participation in decision-making, and enhancing government's reputation for efficiency and effectiveness.
Journal of Democracy 6.1 (1995) 65-78
As featured on National Public Radio, The New York Times, and in other major media, we offer this sold-out, much-discussed Journal of Democracy article by Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone." You can also find information at DemocracyNet about the Journal of Democracy and its sponsor, the National Endowment for Democracy.
Many students of the new democracies that have emerged over the past decade and a half have emphasized the importance of a strong and active civil society to the consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic activists alike have lamented the absence or obliteration of traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive reliance on the state. To those concerned with the weakness of civil societies in the developing or postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies and above all the United States have typically been taken as models to be emulated. There is striking evidence, however, that the vibrancy of American civil society has notably declined over the past several decades.
Ever since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, the United States has played a central role in systematic studies of the links between democracy and civil society. Although this is in part because trends in American life are often regarded as harbingers of social modernization, it is also because America has traditionally been considered unusually "civic" (a reputation that, as we shall later see, has not been entirely unjustified).
When Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, it was the Americans' propensity for civic association that most impressed him as the key to their unprecedented ability to make democracy work. "Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition," he observed, "are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types -- religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America."
Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes.
Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated body of research on the sociology of economic development has also focused attention on the role of social networks. Some of this work is situated in the developing countries, and some of it elucidates the peculiarly successful "network capitalism" of East Asia. Even in less exotic Western economies, however, researchers have discovered highly efficient, highly flexible "industrial districts" based on networks of collaboration among workers and small entrepreneurs. Far from being paleoindustrial anachronisms, these dense interpersonal and interorganizational networks undergird ultramodern industries, from the high tech of Silicon Valley to the high fashion of Benetton.
The norms and networks of civic engagement also powerfully affect the performance of representative government. That, at least, was the central conclusion of my own 20-year, quasi-experimental study of subnational governments in different regions of Italy. Although all these regional governments seemed identical on paper, their levels of effectiveness varied dramatically. Systematic inquiry showed that the quality of governance was determined by longstanding traditions of civic engagement (or its absence). Voter turnout, newspaper readership, membership in choral societies and football clubs -- these were the hallmarks of a successful region. In fact, historical analysis suggested that these networks of organized reciprocity and civic solidarity...
Professor Schlozman feels that unless one also assesses three long memos that accompanied the report by the APSA's Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, one should refrain from commenting. She accuses me in my response to the Task Force reports (Bennett 2006) of “not bother[ing] to read the full materials on which … [I comment]” (Schlozman 2006, 55). Schlozman indicates she'd be “interested in … [my] reactions to the whole report instead of an abbreviated version” (55). Since she asks, here goes.
The heated controversy over “citizen participation,” “citizen control”, and “maximum feasible involvement of the poor,” has been waged largely in terms of exacerbated rhetoric and misleading euphemisms. To encourage a more enlightened dialogue, a typology of citizen participation is offered using examples from three federal social programs: urban renewal, anti-poverty, and Model Cities. The typology, which is designed to be provocative, is arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens' power in determining the plan and/or program.
The importance of public consultation and participation in local planning is acknowledged by the planning profession in the United States, yet anthropological research on the practice of planning in western North Dakota boomtowns during the 1980s reveals that the institutional procedures and formal apparatus of planning work to enforce dominant bureaucratic forms of organization, ideology, and discourse in ways that marginalize other ones. Although efforts and mechanisms to involve residents in planning were in place, local voices were accorded less authority when they used local conventions of negotiation and rhetoric. This paper argues for greater cultural sensitivity in matters of power and communication in planning practice.
The legitimacy of policy making at the regional level, as with policy making at more conventional levels of government, depends on the quality of representation. Citizen appointments and voluntary committees bypass the expense of the electoral process, but lack value when restricted to token advisory roles in potential conflict with other, “financially articulate” interests. Experience shows that lay citizen representatives can make sound decisions on the technical issues that typify regional problems, when information is properly shared. Regional entities must demonstrate the will to establish their legitimacy.
Even though a citizen participation component is included in nearly every major local government planning and policy initiative, most citizen participation techniques have been judged to be less than adequate tools for informing policy makers about the people's will. Recently, having planners or policy analysts work closely with long-standing citizen panels composed of a randomly selected sample of community members has been proposed as one appropriate response to many of the inadequacies of traditional techniques. In this article, staff from a municipal government policy analysis unit describe and critique a yearlong citizen panel project focused on developing a transportation master plan in a university community. They argue that panels can overcome many of the limitations to effective citizen participation. The authors also suggest that panels can work well, but only if policy analysts assume more pro-active and advocacy roles than those routinely found in local government.
Full the list of publications citing this article (n=216), please see my google scholar citation page, http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=sM8NoacAAAAJ
This article examines the case for a participatory policy analysis. An idea advanced mainly by democratic and postpositivist theorists is increasingly becoming a practical concern. Criticizing conventional conceptions of science and expertise, theorists advocating participatory democracy argue that the conventional model of professionalism based on a practitioner-client hierarchy must give way to a more collaborative method of inquiry. While such arguments have largely remained in the domain of utopian speculation, recent experiences with a number of wicked policy problems have begun to suggest the viability, if not the necessity, of participatory research methods. Through two case illustrations of a wicked problem, the so-called Nimby Syndrome, the essay seek to demonstrate that collaborative citizen-expert inquiry may well hold the key to solving a specific category of contemporary policy problems. The article concludes with some observations on the possibilities of bringing participatory research more fully into mainstream policy science.
Coping with the practical problems of bureaucracy is hampered by the limited self-conception and the constricted mindsets of mainstream public administration thinking. Modernist public administration theory, although valuable and capable of producing ever more remarkable results, is limiting as an explanatory and catalytic force in resolving fundamental problems about the nature, size, scope, and functioning of public bureaucracy and in transforming public bureaucracy into a more positive force. This original study specifies a reflexive language paradigm for public administration thinking and shows how a postmodern perspective permits a revolution in the character of thinking about public bureaucracy. The author considers imagination, deconstruction, deterritorialization, and alterity. Farmer's work emphasizes the need for an expansion in the character and scope of public administration's disciplinary concerns and shows clearly how the study and practice of public administration can be reinvigorated. David John Farmer is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University.
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You have printed the following article: The Question of Participation: Toward Authentic Public Participation in Public Administration Cheryl Simrell King
You have printed the following article:
The Question of Participation: Toward Authentic Public Participation in Public
Administration
Cheryl Simrell King; Kathryn M. Feltey; Bridget O'Neill Susel
Public Administration Review, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Jul.-Aug., 1998), pp. 317-326.
org/sici?sici=0033-3352%28199703%2F04%2957%3A2%3C124%3APDAAAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X The Listening Bureaucrat: Responsiveness in Public Administration Camilla Stivers Public Administration Review
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The Listening Bureaucrat: Responsiveness in Public Administration
Camilla Stivers
Public Administration Review, Vol. 54, No. 4. (Jul.-Aug., 1994), pp. 364-369.
The Democratization of the Policy Sciences Peter deLeon
The Democratization of the Policy Sciences
Peter deLeon
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Kay Lehman Schlozman
Citizen Activity: Who Participates? What Do They Say?
Sidney Verba; Kay Lehman Schlozman; Henry Brady; Norman H. Nie
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