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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.
... Public participation is "the process by which public concerns, needs, and values are incorporated into governmental and corporate decision making" (Creighton 2005). Public participation has been recognized for quite a long time to be critical in local government planning and decision-making for a variety of reasons (Arnstein 1969;Tri and Thuy 2021;King et al. 1998;Yang and Pandey 2011). Not only does public participation lend a sense of democratic legitimacy to local government, but it also combines the skills, knowledge, and experience of the public to formulate better ideas and make more informed decisions. ...
... In the context of planning and local democracy, government accountability can be enhanced and trust in the government can be improved via public participation (Fakolade and Coblentz 1981;Wang and Wan Wart 2007;Yang and Pandey 2011). More importantly, public priorities can be addressed (Nabatchi 2012) and the effectiveness of public policy-making can be improved (King et al. 1998). It is sensible for the government to know what the public wants and needs as it tries to ensure that public expectations or interests are met and taken into account when decisions are being made (King et al. 1998;Michels and De Graaf 2010;Van Speier 2009). ...
... More importantly, public priorities can be addressed (Nabatchi 2012) and the effectiveness of public policy-making can be improved (King et al. 1998). It is sensible for the government to know what the public wants and needs as it tries to ensure that public expectations or interests are met and taken into account when decisions are being made (King et al. 1998;Michels and De Graaf 2010;Van Speier 2009). ...
Public participation is a core component of democratic governance. The Government of Vietnam has encouraged and promoted public participation, especially at local levels to enhance the government’s transparency and accountability. Common issues that required public participation in District 8 include environmental cleaning, clearance, resettlement and compensation, construction of new public works, and development planning. This chapter reviews the degree to which local citizens are involved in local government decisions in District 8 of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The study conducted for this chapter used a questionnaire-based survey to collect data from local citizens participating in their local government decision-making processes. Data were collected from a sample of 640 local citizens across 16 wards in District 8 using a convenience sampling method. The survey also examined the perceptions of citizens about these initiatives, and the expectations of greater empowerment for citizens. The key findings indicate that citizens most desire to be involved in local government decision-making through participation from individuals, small groups, and large scale community organizations. Increased public participation was also found to benefit city planning, create an informed community consensus, and lead to committed community development.KeywordsDecision-makingHo Chi Minh CityLocal governmentPublic participationVietnam
... Planners and administrators may have a lack of information on local-level issues, and likewise citizens are not always aware of all the aspects and limitations related to politics, economy and resources (Innes & Booher, 2004). King et al. (1998) suggested that to improve public participation requires that administrative processes and the old roles of citizens and administrator are changed. In authentic participation6, enabling administrative processes, administrators should involve people from the beginning of the process and make sure that the project moves smoothly. ...
... Our society has become more and more global and complex, which also causes many administrative issues to have no obvious or definitive solutions. Trying to involve citizens to solve these new, more complex and partly insolvable problems is challenging and it is not certain that citizen participation will provide any help and may even create other problems (Fisher, 1993;King et al., 1998). Also, Bishop and Davis (2002: 18) noticed that "it is easy to consult [citizens] over a new road proposal, but more difficult to open general discussion on complex medical procedures". ...
... Category A2.1.3 in Table 1 provides evidence that in the technical sense, the problems at hand might be too difficult for laymen to solve. King et al. (1998) andFisher (1993) have made similar observation about the "wicked" nature of the administrative problems. Also, D'Agostino (2009: 675) has noticed, "Citizens may not be knowledgeable about certain topics.". ...
This paper examines the role of citizens in the process of preparing an energy policy to improve security of supply in an electricity network. It describes a real-life case of thepolicy formulation stage of a policy cycle. This study describes citizens’ suggestions on how to secure electricity networks against severe weather conditions and the role these suggestions played in policy formulation. The data was collected through a citizen surveyand by interviewing civil servants. The citizens’ suggestions were analysed using inductive qualitative content analysis and the interview data was summarised in detail.The results indicate that the citizens’ suggestions did not provide any new answers to thetechnical problem of how to prevent long power outages, and they were not utilised in the policy formulation. However, the citizen survey was part of crisis management during and after the long power outages. We conclude by discussing the degree to whichcitizens’ suggestions are useful for the authorities and distribution system operators in a wider context, as well as the lessons learned from citizen participation.
... Public management scholars often use terms such as public or citizen participation (Callahan, 2007;King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998;Langton, 1978;Wang, 2001). Wang (2001, p. 302) characterizes public participation as "citizen involvement in making service delivery and management decision". ...
... Public participation has important benefits for governance outside of government because democratic values are realized by participatory mechanisms (Berner, 2003;Thomas, 1995). According to King et al. (1998), local governments may adopt different strategies to encourage the participation of the people to improve their satisfaction about the services at the local level. André, Martin, and Lanmafankpotin (2012) contend that the participation of the people is the process by which people participate on a voluntary basis or mandatory and act alone or in groups with the aim to influence the decision to impact to the entire community. ...
... Along the line, citizen participation in government decision-making helps to improve policy in terms of performance, decision legitimacy, citizen response and trust in the government (E. Berman & Wang, 2000;King et al., 1998;Walters, Aydelotte, & Miller, 2000). Inheriting such knowledge with citizen participation is the government's efforts to involve citizens in administrative decisions, making and management processes. ...
The ultimate goal to building a New Rural Development (NRD) (similar to Saemaul Undong Movement in Korea) is to sustainably improve the material and spiritual life of the people. Our study investigates how citizen participation may influence effectiveness of the NRD program and citizen satisfaction in implementing the NRD in Nha Be District in the period of 2016-2020. Our work adopts a questionnaire-based survey designed to gather data from 780 participants using random cluster sampling technique. Our findings reveal that citizen participation significantly affects citizen satisfaction via the mediating role of the NRD program effectiveness but not directly between citizen participation and citizen satisfaction. Finally, our study offers theoretical contributions and policy implications for decision makers and NRD program managers.
... 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 decision-makers have the last word on whether to accept or reject suggestions made by residents during the planning and development process [45]. This type of community participation, also known as a public hearing or community consultation [48], usually occurs later in the planning process, after the majority of the concerns and options have been considered. ...
... Spontaneous participation has the potential to increase resident trust, ownership, and social capital in contrast to the other two forms of conventional participation, which do not constitute effective participation and lead to conflicts [45,49]. All resident and stakeholder groups are actively involved throughout the entire participatory planning process due to spontaneous participation, which starts in the early stages of the planning process [44,48]. ...
Living heritage runs the risk of being lost forever, or frozen as a practice of the past, if not promoted in the community. The preservation of this history, its transmission to following generations, and its ability to transform and adapt to any circumstance, are all made possible by strengthening living heritage. Investigating the function of living heritage in advancing education for sustainable development has been deemed a crucial goal by quality education as Sustainable Development Goal number 4 (SDG 4). The aim of this article is to gather information on living heritage conservation toward creating a sustainability community by using the community-based education model on the communities’ attitudes, cultural knowledge, and awareness of the importance of living heritage, and their participation level towards living heritage conservation in Melaka UNESCO World Heritage Site. This study uses the quantitative method of online questionnaire survey technique to collect data. There are 392 respondents from the multicultural community of Melaka World Heritage Site, who randomly responded. Based on the mean comparison in gender, age level, and race, there is a positive significant relationship between the importance of living heritage and the local community’s participation level. The increasing of the participation level to ACTIVE would lead to a higher altitude, cultural knowledge, and awareness of the importance of living heritage in the local community.
... Since its introduction, citizen participation has become a complicated piece in the puzzle of urban development as motivating and engaging citizens into planning processes has proven to be a challenging task (Roberts, 2016). Some of the complications mentioned in the literature are that a) it is not always easy to reach a representative number of citizens as many people do not have the time to join planning meetings or workshops b) the lack of representativeness makes participation processes prone to manipulation either by special interest groups or by external actors c) participation activities are often seen as a cost-and time-intensive activity that is not guaranteed to deliver satisfactory results, and finally d) planners are not always able to use inputs from citizens in their planning processes (Callahan, 2007;Cupps, 1977;Edwards, 2013;Frug, 2001;Irvin & Stansbury, 2004;King et al., 1998). ...
... This opens the door for external groups with vested agendas to instrumentals citizen participation as a means to pursue their goals. This negatively impacts the legitimacy of such processes and makes participation prone to manipulation and conflicts (Roberts, 2016;Hall, 2012;King et al., 1998). ...
The current thesis presents research about new methods of citizen participation based on digital technologies. The focus on the research lies on decentralized methods of participation where citizens take the role of co-creators. The research project first conducted a review of the literature on citizen participation, its origins and the different paradigms that have emerged over the years. The literature review also looked at the influence of technologies on participation processes and the theoretical frameworks that have emerged to understand the introduction of technologies in the context of urban development. The literature review generated the conceptual basis for the further development of the thesis. The research begins with a survey of technology enabled participation applications that examined the roles and structures emerging due to the introduction of technology. The results showed that cities use technology mostly to control and monitor urban infrastructure and are rather reluctant to give citizens the role of co-creators. Based on these findings, three case studies were developed. Digital tools for citizen participation were conceived and introduced for each case study. The adoption and reaction of the citizens were observed using three data collection methods. The results of the case studies showed consistently that previous participation and engagement with informal citizen participation are a determinining factor in the potential adoption of digital tools for decentralized engagement. Based on these results, the case studies proposed methods and frameworks that can be used for the conception and introduction of technologies for decentralized citizen participation.
... As the symbol of deliberative democracy, public participation is widely employed into contemporary governance (Fung, 2006;Webler et al., 2001). Despite its popularity, most techniques used in participation are inadequate, especially the public hearing, which is always associated with low attendance and low satisfaction (King et al., 1998). Several dilemmas militate against the practice and development of public participation (Rowe & Watermeyer, 2018). ...
... Many researchers criticize those participations without substantial impact on decision-making as rhetoric (Conrad et al., 2011;Bawole, 2013). It is suggested factors of an authentic participation include constructive feedback on proposal and follow-up communication (King et al., 1998;Manowong & Ogunlana, 2008); meanwhile, participants may reciprocate negatively if they are consulted but ignored (Corgnet & Hernán-González, 2013). ...
Although public hearings have been introduced into Chinese land expropriation as an important democratic supervision and conflict resolution mechanism for more than 15 years, there is a dearth of research into its qualities. Taking the farmers’ satisfaction with the public hearings as the critical quality indicator, this article analyzes the dilemma of this special institution in Chinese land expropriation. Process tracing is employed to analyze the design defect of the public hearing institution. Farmers’ satisfactions with the public hearings are measured by a questionnaire, and the factors are examined by a structural equation model based on the theories of expectancy disconfirmation and procedural fairness. It is concluded that the distorted procedure and the inconsiderate arrangement affect farmers’ perceived procedural fairness and decrease their satisfaction with hearings. In order to solve the dilemma of public participation in land expropriation, the relevant authorities should start from the source of affecting farmers’ satisfaction.
... 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. ...
... Funahashi and his colleagues illustrated that the more personal and social benefits residents perceive, the more acceptance of elite sport policy promotion. Gaining public acceptance of a policy is important because policies cannot be implemented efficiently without public consent (King et al. 1998). It is also possible to say that residents' acceptance results from exchanging resources for hosting the event. ...
Organising sporting events is no longer just a matter of interest to event operators. In Japan, various local governments actively attract non-mega-sporting events as part of their urban development policies. However, these policy formulations must be evidence-based, especially in understanding the impact of sporting events and residents’ relationship to sporting events. Most social impact studies in sport management research have predominantly used the cross-sectional approach; hence, it is necessary to conduct a longitudinal research design to understand variations in residents’ long-term perceptions. Adapting prospect theory as the theoretical background, this study aims to investigate the change difference in social impacts and residents’ attitudes using a longitudinal panel data approach. The authors revealed that residents’ perceptions towards social impact would change before and after the event. Additionally, multiple factors were associated with differences in the dependent variables. This study provided a detailed understanding of residents’ changing perceptions and attitudes towards the event, which will also demonstrate to residents the scientific rationale for hosting the event. In the midst of the need for sustainable sporting event management, a more detailed analysis of the impact-driven on the community from hosting the event will affect changes in trust towards the government and acceptance of local policies is a perspective that is required for future research on social impact.
... Sposobami pozyskiwania informacji od obywateli są: tworzenie przez administrację podmiotów doradczych, prowadzenie badań potrzeb obywateli, badania fokusowe bądź fora internetowe. Celem realizacji działań w obszarze partycypacji publicznej jest redukcja niezadowolenia obywateli z działań rządzących, uwzględnienie potrzeb interesariuszy rządów, a także wzmocnienie mandatu rządzących [King, Feltey, Susel 1998 Jak wskazuje X. Wang, w literaturze przedmiotu opisywane są dwa aspekty partycypacji publicznej. Podział ten odnosi się do obszaru uczestnictwa obywateli. ...
The monograph deals with the issue of the relevance of applying the principles of good governance in the management systems of local government administration offices in the context of the satisfaction of the residents of communes and the residents’ assessment of the local government offices.
... Methods include traditional (i.e., non digital) approaches such as town hall meetings [29] and innovative ones made possible thanks to the new opportunities offered by information and communication technologies [10,22]. Digital participation methods can potentially attract more participants since they make it possible to participate remotely at any time instead of having to physically attend a scheduled event [21]. Citizen participation organized through digital methods is referred to as digital participation, online participation, or e-participation in the literature. ...
Digital participation platforms (DPP) are websites initiated by local governments through which citizens can post and react to ideas for their city. In practice, the majority of DPP users browse the posted ideas without contributing any. This activity, referred to as lurking, has widely recognized positive outcomes, especially in a citizen participation context. However, it has been devoted little attention. In practice, the idea browsing features available on current DPP are limited, and the literature has not evaluated the available approaches nor studied the requirements for idea browsing. In this paper, we report on an evaluation of the filterable list, which is the most common idea browsing approach on DPP. Our findings show that it lacks stimulation hedonic quality and call for a more stimulating approach. Thus, we conducted 11 semi-structured interviews to collect requirements and found that idea browsing on DPP should be supported by the combination of (1) a stimulating interactive representation such as circle packing or thematic trees displayed as entry point and (2) a filterable list for deeper exploration. This article is the first to study requirements for idea browsing features on DPP.KeywordsDigital participation platformContent browsingLurkingRequirementsAttrakDiffMixed-methods
... 175 It is important for active participation that participation processes involving citizens will be democratically and effectively as the beginning of decision processes are implemented. A governance perspective to provide the basis for these processes through continuous communication is jointly adopted by stakeholders, and stakeholders' roles are clarified (King et al., 1998;Røiseland & Vebo, 2016). Similarly, defining public participation as a deliberative process involving a large scale of stakeholders, Innes and Booher (2004) consider three elements they identify as 'a real process of dialogue', 'stakeholder network' and 'institutional capacity' critical for active participation. ...
This study focuses on the relationship between NGOs’ active participation in municipal budgeting and their perception of budget efficiency. Our research estimates the relationships among transparency, trust in the municipality, NGOs' active participation, responsibility, and budget efficiency perception via the structural equation model. The findings indicate that active participation plays a key role in the model and directly affects the perception of budget efficiency. Besides, increased active participation, NGOs' responsibility, and trust positively affect budget efficiency perception. Transparency mediated through active participation and trust affects the perception of budget efficiency. Trust, transparency, and responsibility positively affect active participation.
... To fully engage in this emergent and co-creative process, collaborators must hold a power-with orientation so that no member wields power-over others and no member's exercise of power-to infringes upon the same ability of any other member. It has been well-argued that attempts to work together are most productive when they are egalitarian and authentically participatory (King, Feltey, & Susel, 1998). Collaborators "collectively make decisions about their future and mutually authorize each other to act on behalf of the collectivity" (Gray, 1994, p. 288). ...
... Bureaucrats need to hold moral and democratic responsibilities, including for facilitating the community (Morse, 2006) and taking care of authentic participation in administrative decision-making as cooperative participants and interpretative mediators who listen, collaborate, and deliberate with the affected citizens (King et al., 1998). They should act as trustees, cooperating through neighborhood associations, community organizations, and client groups (Roberts, 2004). ...
... Administrative processes and systems also define the dimensions of the relationship between the citizen and the administrator. In view of this structure of the real participation process, the workload of the managers also decreases, and they do not always go back and fix things in the implementation of the decisions (King et al. 1998). ...
The most effective structure in designing the participation process is local government units. It is much easier for local governments to establish closer dialogue with citizens, create negotiation environments for them and identify appropriate needs for participation. The intense feeling of centralization in terms of the duties and responsibilities of local governments in Turkey leads to the inability to transfer the negotiation processes in participation practices to realistic/realizable practices. As a result, permanent institutional practices do not carry on sustainably; they turn into structures established to fulfill legal obligations only. The transition from government to governance, with the winds of change began after 1990 in Turkey, revealed the necessity of reorganizing the duties and responsibilities of executives at both local and national levels regarding active citizenship; the necessity of activating local participation mechanisms was emphasized. For this reason, the application of the Headmen's (Headman means “Muhtar” in Turkish. Sometimes “Mukhtar” uses instead of Headman in some studies. But in this study Headman used to descripe partipatory process. In Turkey, there two types of “Headman”. One of them is village headman. Villages are legal entities, so village headmen have much more authority. The second one is neigborhood headmen. Neigborhoods are not legal entities. So that, neigborhood headman is responsible to City Mayor.). Workshop, designed by the Tekirdağ Metropolitan Municipality, was periodically subject to the research as an ongoing method, and its effectiveness for citizen participation was analyzed using the qualitative research method in the study. The reason why Tekirdağ was chosen in the study is that it has the only metropolitan municipality in the Thrace Region, periodic meetings and participatory democracy discourses on the sharing of duties and powers with new regulations increase. The practice was examined through 6 meetings held until 2020 since there were disruptions in the planned meetings of the practice on account of the fact that the study coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic process.
... Partnership 7. Delegated power 8. Citizen control) Arnstein's (1969) influential paper indicated that the effectiveness of active participation depends on multiple factors. The need for building consensus among stakeholders on the purpose and expected outcome of participation (Brannan et al., 2006;Michels & De Graaf, 2010), authentic dialogue, networks, and institutional capacity (Innes & Booher, 2004), continuous communication, and clarifying the roles of stakeholders (King et al., 1998;Røiseland & Vabo, 2015) are accentuated for the effectiveness of active participation practices in later studies. Beaumont & Nicholls (2008) and Zittel & Fuchs (2007) draw attention to social, political, and institutional contexts which affect the relationship between specific institutional reforms and political participation. ...
... Many factors mention that the limited means of public involvement, feeling of not having access, opinions such as being unwanted by the government, indifferent attitude of the community and limited time (Frisby and Bownan, 1996;King, Feltey and Susel, 1998; National Academy of Administration). Public, 1999). ...
The purpose of the article related to public involvement in budget disclosure, known as participatory budgeting, shows more in terms of the opportunities and challenges faced by a decentralized country, where actors in it participate in making decisions through budgeting formulation. This issue is focused on budget transparency not only to encourage public involvement, but public involvement is very necessary for budget transparency. However, this public engagement has its challenges and benefits. This analysis is carried out through literature studies, journals, and related publications. The data were collected through SCOPUS a qualitative. This study concludes that there are several challenges that need to be considered in implementing public involvement in budgeting. Overly complex budgets and inadequate knowledge make this public disinterest a challenge. A conflict occurs when many groups with different interests take part in it. Public involvement is supported because it can increase tax revenue collection and satisfaction in public services and other benefits for social welfare. The results of this analysis will show several challenges and opportunities that use public involvement to be successful in budget formulation so that reforms in the budget can be carried out and can be used as a model for other regions and can become a system of reform in budgeting.
... Existing studies show that complaints from the public remind the government of the problems existing in the process of policy implementation [21]. Because the public is directly in contact with the environment, the public tends to be more aware of some of the most immediate environmental information, which may be more authentic than the government [22]. At the same time, public participation can significantly improve the shortcomings of inadequate government supervision. ...
... Facilitation is defined as individuals learning together in the context of a recognized need for improvement, usually led by a facilitator in pursuit of explicit performance goals. In short, they are workshops, led by experts, operating in a deliberative environment, with the end goal of coming up with mutually agreed upon, actionable policy, and thus improving observable outcomes (Berta et al. 2015;King, Feltey and Susel 1998). ...
... Kaika (2017) juga mengkritik kuat tentang kerangka NUA dan bandar pintar yang tidak akan berjaya jika komuniti ingkar untuk terlibat. Keingkaran komuniti untuk terlibat adalah kemungkinan besar disebabkan oleh mereka kurang memahami erti penglibatan, jenis atau proses yang terkandung dalam hal-ehwal penglibatan yang autentik (King et al. 1998). Dalam hal yang sedemikian, Kaika juga mencadangkan 'dissensus' sebagai 'indikator yang hidup'. ...
Buku ini ditulis berasaskan epistemologi pasca materialis dengan hakikat (ontologi) bahawa landasan kemunculan bandar pintar bertitik tolak daripada budaya kebendaan teknologi termaju seperti teknologi maklumat dan komunikasi (ICT). Namun begitu sebagai pemikir pasca materialis metode pemahaman terhadap pembangunan bandar pintar lebih jauh daripada itu. Pembangunan bandar pintar tidak semestinya dilihat dari sudut perancangan ICT semata-mata, tetapi juga dilihat kepada yang lebih inklusif, komprehensif, kolaboratif dan simbiosis dengan kehidupan manusia yang sebenar. Justeru, Pembangunan bandar pintar berpusatkan rakyat (citizen-centrict Smart City) perlu diketengahkan dalam kerancakan budaya material bandar pintar di peringkat global, serantau dan lokal. Perkembangan mutakhir, pembangunan bandar pintar (smart city) semakin popular dan didominasi oleh teknologi termaju di bawah Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) seperti kecerdasan pintar dan IoT. Di bawah arus perbandaran pintar tekno-utopianisme 4IR tersebut, pihak berkepentingan dan berkuasa nampaknya lebih cenderung mengadakan usaha sama dengan sektor korporat teknologi termaju demi mencapai visi dan misi pentadbiran mereka. Namun, di pihak rakyat dan pihak awam seperti diabaikan malah penglibatan, kerjasama dan peranan mereka tidak begitu menonjol. Demi menyedarkan pihak berkepentingan tentang perlunya peranan rakyat dan pihak awam dalam kemajuan bandar pintar, buku ini mengemukakan satu alternatif nilai (axiologi) pemikiran humanisme yang menekan konsep ‘berpusatkan rakyat’ dalam pembangunan bandar pintar. Konsep berpusatkan rakyat ini adalah bertepatan dengan visi Wawasan Kemakmuran Bersama 2030 dalam menekankan aspek keterangkuman, iaitu kefahaman, jenis dan proses penglibatan, serta peranan dan sikap rakyat berkenaan. Model bandar pintar berpusatkan rakyat yang dikemukakan dalam buku ini menekankan elemen pintar insan, tadbir urus yang wajar dan unik. Berbeza dengan model bandar pintar yang bertunjang teknologi termaju. Selain itu, buku ini dapat membuka minda awam kepada pemikiran ‘bersama rakyat’ demi merealisasikan budaya muafakat dalam hal membangunkan bandar pintar.
... Studies on democratic participation justify public hearings based on the need for an institutional apparatus for making policymakers accountable; however, the general assessment of their effectiveness in the policy process is mixed (Fung, 2006;King et al., 1998;Plager, 1969). For example, Thomas (2017) reported that public hearings improved people's political empowerment in India in the 1990s by providing a venue for citizens to build contentious actions constituting a broader social movement for the right to information. ...
While few would advocate that policy decisions be based solely on interest group influence or political pandering, few would also agree that decisions be based solely on evidence from randomized trials devoid of context or attention to stakeholder concerns. Yet, this is the implicit tension that has emerged between scholars, who privilege rigorously established research evidence as the primary legitimate basis for policy decision-making, and their critics, who advocate for a broader evidence boundary. However, the policy literature has hitherto failed to suggest an appropriate means of processing various forms of evidence to inform the policy decision-making process. This challenge is especially apparent in public hearings, a frequently used participatory medium where a great variety of evidence is presented. In this paper, we aim to reevaluate the value of public hearings as a means of collecting evidence by exploring 189 testimonies across six public hearings on single-payer healthcare in New York State. At the same time, we evaluate and categorize the types of evidence invoked in public hearings and compare this against what might “count” as evidence from an EBP perspective. Results highlight nine types of “evidence”, along two dimensions: observation span and form of knowledge. We find that applying a narrow boundary of research evidence, only one of nine types of evidence fit that classification: problem-based research. We conclude by suggesting that policy scholars expand their consideration of what types of evidence claims are useful to policymakers.
... participation -when they perceive that nothing would changethey will not effectively participate in decision-making processes. 62 The dominant view obtained from FGDs about common people's perception on whether they think that their voices influence PFM decisions was negative. Most people argued that it is the responsibility of their elected representatives to decide their priorities and how to allocate money. ...
In the last three decades, the Government of Uganda has put in place frameworks and executed reforms aimed at establishing an effective and participatory public finance management (PFM) system. This article examines the successes and failures of these reforms/frameworks. The main findings of this article are twofold. On the one hand, decent success in civil society and elite stakeholders' participation in budgetary processes, fiscal discipline, allocative and operational efficiency, and budget transparency have been achieved using the adopted PFM frameworks. On the other hand, there is ineffective local citizen participation in PFM processes, misallocation of public funds, a bloated administrative and legislative structure, excessive borrowing, poor absorption of borrowed funds, corruption and the impact of Covid-19 pandemic are eroding the initial success of PFM reforms in Uganda.
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
The “smart village” flourishes – at least in policy papers that envision the revitalization of rural areas through the civic deployment of networked media and telecommunications. Yet, while such aspirations are widespread, little is known about the views of those tasked with supervising and supporting digitally driven public participation for rural progress. To address the lack of insight into what these intermediary administrators conceive as catalysts and challenges for the realization of smart village conceptions, we surveyed representatives of regions in Germany who oversee rural development schemes, most notably within the European LEADER framework. For these key actors, digital participation does not mainly hinge on broadband access and IT availability. Instead, they emphasize the importance of human and administrative resources as well as multi-actor collaboration, which we discuss in terms of digital readiness, digital willingness, and digital activity. Building the smart village, we conclude, seems not so much a matter of technological infrastructure, but rather of sociotechnical infrastructuring.
Non-elected advisory and planning bodies of transit agencies help planners determine the agency’s service, operations, and future developments. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) requires reporting of the racial and ethnic makeup of those bodies to receive federal funding. This paper collects those data and compares them with the service area demographics of those agencies. This paper is an attempt to determine if those bodies are representative of the people they serve. This paper sets forth possible metrics to judge representation by and finds that most bodies in the United States are not representative, and instead over-represent the white population. This implication suggests that people of color in the United States are not being represented in the decision-making and planning processes of the transit agencies that serve them.
Bir kentte fiziksel, çevresel, sosyal ve ekonomik anlamda ortaya çıkabilecek tüm sorunlarla mücadelede kentin paydaşları ile ortaklaşa hareket edilmesi, kenti daha dirençli hale getirebileceği gibi tüm paydaşları kendilerini daha güvende hissedebilecekleri bir kente dönüştürecektir. Bu durum her şeyden önce belediyelerde katılımcı bir modelin benimsenmesi ve paydaş katılımına önem veren bir yönetim anlayışıyla mümkündür. Bu çalışmada dirençli kent tasarımında belediyelerin önemli bir paydaşı olan STK’larla olan katılımcılık ilişkisinin mevcut durumuna odaklanılmaktadır. Çalışmanın amacı Türkiye’de belediyeler ile STK’lar arasındaki katılımcılık ilişkisini değerlendirmektir. Çalışmada nicel yöntem benimsenmiştir. Bu kapsamda toplam 800 veri STK örneklemi ve 552 veri Belediye örneklemi için anket toplanmıştır. Çalışmada elde edilen en önemli bulgu karar alma süreçlerine katılımcılık konusunda Türkiye’de belediyeler ile STK’lar arasındaki paydaşlık ilişkisinin zayıf olduğu ve dirençli kent tasarımında katılımcılık ilişkisine önem verilmesi gerektiği yönündedir.
Over the past few years, urban planners and managers have increasingly realized the importance of citizens' participation in urban planning and management. They have taken steps to make participation closer from theory to practice. Although many of these efforts have yet to be very successful, it is essential to evaluate participatory processes to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public participation. In order to achieve more efficient participatory processes in the path of good urban governance, this study evaluates the "Arezoohaye Tehran" campaign as a public participation process to evaluate the impact of such processes on citizens' trust, with a particular focus on electronic participation. In this research, the qualitative approach is employed, and to evaluate the campaign, it has attempted to utilize the experience and perspectives of a variety of actors who have participated in this process, so several in-depth semi-structured interviews have been conducted with city manag-ers, experts, and social activists involved in the project. Additionally, the messages of virtual networks have been analyzed to understand the experiences of citizens participating in this project. Qualitative content analysis and coding methods have been used to analyze the content of interviews and messages on virtual networks. The findings of this re-search show that pessimism and mistrust of citizens towards public and government institutions and the lack of a suitable environment and preparation for interaction are among the prerequisites for the failure of the campaign, inconsistency between the executive bodies during the process and the lack of mutual learning and not reaching a collective agreement as a result of the process. The dreams of Tehran are consid-ered.
Scholars suggest that coproduction may exacerbate inequity in the delivery of services because citizens with high need may have fewer resources to commit to the process. We explore whether differences between administrators and citizens might also contribute to such inequities. We use Social Identity Theory to develop the expectation that administrators may have a greater affinity for and are more willing to work with in-group members in the coproduction of public services. Evidence from a survey experiment with approximately 200 public administrators demonstrates that racial congruence increases the likelihood of cooperative behavior indirectly through its impact on sympathy for a partner. The results do not suggest a direct impact for shared identity on cooperative behavior.
While the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy has gained attention in historical cycles, the literature on the roles of bureaucrats in relation to democracy has become increasingly fragmented. Drawing on comparisons among public administration theory, as well as participatory, deliberative, and collaborative democracy, this article provides typologies that reflect the historical multiplication of the theoretically determined roles and characteristics of bureaucracy that contribute to democracy. This comparative analysis has demonstrated a common democratic trend among the four schools in adding stresses on bureaucrats’ autonomy, morality, publicity, and direct connection to citizens, with a constant coexistence of rational and managerial elements.
Public hearings play a critical role in U.S. local government. The evolution of public access to local government hearings and its related challenges have not been documented in a systematic way to encourage research and collaborative scholarship between practitioners and scholars. This article seeks to begin the dialogue by offering seven strategies for navigating access to public hearings in local government. In recent years, local governments have faced increasing pressure to keep pace with evolving technologies, while balancing competing budget priorities, and assuming a growing role in addressing policy issues that were previously the focus of state and national governments. The COVID‐19 pandemic context has presented further complexity. Left unaddressed, these challenges contribute to a widening gap between what is administratively sustainable versus politically acceptable. The strategies suggested address current challenges, attempt to bridge the gap between what is administratively sustainable and politically acceptable, and propose avenues for further study.
This study examines the impacts of collaboration and public participation on municipal growth in midsize U.S. municipalities. It specifically looks at the cases of land economic development projects across the nation and how local governments’ population and employment growth are associated with public participation and collaboration. This study employs two methods—a survey of planners and officials and GPT-3 semantic search. Using a survey of planners and elected officials, four individual variables (traditional public participation, online public participation, public service collaboration, and staff regional meetings) related to collaboration and public participation were employed. Additionally, a semantic search approach was used to understand the current trend of public participation methods in real land development cases. The findings show that informal collaboration pushes population and employment growth, but the value of citizen participation is more contentious.
In this paper, I use the Quechan indigenous concept of sumak kawsay and its effects on the politics and policy of the South American nation of Ecuador to aid public administration in its efforts toward developing knowledge that can foster improvements in human wellbeing. The concept of sumak kawsay, which seeks to define the “good life” for human beings, can provide value for public administration as it seeks new ways to conceptualize and actualize human wellbeing in the processes of governance and public policy. But implementing sumak kawsay and similar alternative paradigms may require governments and jurisdictions to grapple with certain paradoxes of governance, especially the tension between the value of public participation and the need for administrative autonomy for the achievement of key policy objectives.
Civic technologies have the potential to support participation and influence decision-making in governmental processes. Digital participatory budgeting platforms are examples of civic technologies designed to support citizens in making proposals and allocating budgets. Investigating the empirical case of urban biking activists in Madrid, we explore how the design of the digital platform Decide Madrid impacted the collaborative practices involved in digital participatory budgeting. We found that the design of the platform made the interaction competitive, where individuals sought to gain votes for their single proposals, rather than consider the relations across proposals and the larger context of the city decisions, even if the institutional process rewarded collective support. In this way, the platforms’ design led to forms of individualistic, competitive, and static participation, therefore limiting the possibilities for empowering citizens in scoping and self-regulating participatory budgeting collaboratively. We argue that for digital participatory budgeting platforms to support cooperative engagements they must be revisable and reviewable while supporting accountability among participants and visibility of proposals and activities.
We present three studies that examine the relationship between perceptions about public personnel management and social resilience during a crisis among frontline public healthcare servants who battled the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on theories of public personnel management, crisis management, trust, and resilience, we suggest a model and hypotheses that may extend our knowledge about perceived social resilience, both internal (organizational) and external (communal and national). We tested our model with the results of an online survey conducted in early 2021 among 437 healthcare employees from the Ministry of Health ( n 1 = 87), hospitals ( n 2 = 200), and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs; n 3 = 150) across Israel. The findings generally support direct and indirect relationships between perceptions of good public personnel management, defined as healthcare system resilience, participation in decision-making and information sharing, and group-level organizational citizenship behavior, and perceived national and community resilience, and trust. Implications, extensions, and recommendations for future theoretical and empirical studies are discussed along with practical proposals.
This article presents the results of research conducted to observe the impact of digital tools on citizen engagement. Parklets (temporary constructions in public space) in Vienna were selected for the research as a case study. The following digital tools for city-making were developed to carry out the experiment: basic information, a parklet potential map, a design tool, and a form to request the necessary permits. The tools were advertised among citizens' organizations and through social media channels. Three methods were used to collect data: automated data collection, a survey, and expert interviews. The results show that technology has limitations in motivating citizens to build parklets. While the tools could inform people about the possibilities in the city, other aspects, such as previous engagement, play an essential role in the perception of new tools and their potential adoption.
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.
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The Listening Bureaucrat: Responsiveness in Public Administration
Camilla Stivers
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The Democratization of the Policy Sciences Peter deLeon
The Democratization of the Policy Sciences
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