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Citizen Participation in Governance
Abstract
The existence of an effective means of citizen participation within public service decision-making forums will be one of the biggest challenges for public mangers in 2010. The establishment of systems which bring citizen representatives into the polity can provide unique opportunities for citizen inputs - one such system is the school governing body, made up of citizen, professional and political representatives. This article reports on an investigation into citizen participation within the governance of schools. It finds that while governing bodies provide the opportunity for citizen participation, citizens are not actively involved in school governance. A number of measures are recommended which may assist in enhancing the citizen governance role.
... Esta extensão dos direitos políticos de cidadania foi ameaçada pelas propostas do New Public Management de maior autonomia da gestão administrativa e iniciativas como o outsourcing. A promoção de mecanismos de mercado implicava que o único grau de participação do cidadão na actividade administrativa se resumia a decidir adquirir, ou não, o serviço, como qualquer cliente face a uma empresa (Farrel, 2000). Esta visão reduzia o cidadão ao estatuto de cliente, cujo interesse na acção do Estado era guiado apenas por interesses puramente egoístas em vez de valores de natureza colectiva e consensual (Frederickson, 1996). ...
... Fontes: Denhard e Denhadt, 2003;Farrel, 2000;Majone, 1997;Moro, 2003;Mozzicafreddo, 2000a;Mozzicafreddo, 2001b;OECD, 2001. ...
... Esta percepção pode ser agravada pelo facto de os cidadãos, muitas vezes, só tomarem consciência de actividades e serviços fornecidos pelo Estado quando algum problema acontece. As experiência negativas com a administração tendem a ter um maior impacto na percepção do cidadão do que as experiências positivas, que são consideradas um direito adquirido e por isso exigidas como algo que é devido (Berman, 1997 (Farrel, 2000). Só valorizando as contribuições dos cidadãos se pode esperar deles empenho, motivação e até orgulho pelo seu envolvimento nas actividades da administração. ...
... Second, it is important that there is appropriate engagement in each planning and governance phase. This is reflected in research on participation which has shifted from static typologies describing levels of participation, to more fluid and ad hoc models that recognize the various efforts that can be employed at each step of the policy making process, from agenda-setting through to evaluation and monitoring (Bishop and Davis, 2002; Painter, 1992; Shand and Arnberg, 1996; Thomas, 1990 ). Third, participants must be able to engage equally in governance processes (Ryfe, 2005). In cases where there is a strong power differential, equal participation may in fact require privileging some perspectives over others. ...
... Most regional forums created an environment where there was appropriate engagement of Aboriginal community/organisations in each phase of planning and governance and where participants were able to engage equally in governance processes. These are critical features that support meaningful participation in governance processes (Bishop and Davis, 2002; Painter, 1992; Shand and Arnberg, 1996; Thomas, 1990) . Aboriginal community members and organisations remained a minority on forums; however, they were privileged through the processes involved in planning and governance. ...
... Failure to involve relevant stakeholders in decision-making processes can lead to formidable obstacles to realizing the goal of sustainable development (Inskeep, 1991; Ioannides, 1995). Different goals and forms of public participation have been suggested in the literature (see Arnstein, 1971; Painter, 1992; Pearce et al., 1996; Syme, 1992, Tosun, 2000 for details on participation forms). In essence, these different forms of participation mean that participation may range from a feeling of participation without its substance to the genuine exercise of power to determine outcomes (Painter, 1992 ...
... Different goals and forms of public participation have been suggested in the literature (see Arnstein, 1971; Painter, 1992; Pearce et al., 1996; Syme, 1992, Tosun, 2000 for details on participation forms). In essence, these different forms of participation mean that participation may range from a feeling of participation without its substance to the genuine exercise of power to determine outcomes (Painter, 1992 ...
Provision of public participation in the process of tourism planning and implementation has been imperatively suggested. To date, however, facilitators and inhibitors of public participation have not been adequately addressed in tourism planning literature. This article proposes that in addition to varied structural and cultural factors, residents' perceptions of the intensity of clientelist relations engaged in by the local authority (e.g., municipality) may alienate active public participation in developmental issues. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized links between perceived intensity of clientelism, residents' assessment of public services, and their participation intentions toward municipality-run projects. Statistically significant inverse relationships between perceived intensity of clientelism and residents' assessment of public services are identified. The results show that an increase in perceived clientelism would result in a decrease in residents'public service assessment and thus reduce their intentions to participate in tourism-related projects. Suggestions for further research are included. © 2008 International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education.
... Although participation is though to be a space for political transformation towards a more egalitarian and coresponsible society, it is not always clear the extent to which procedures can be conducted in ways that make it just a way of legitimating decisions already taken behind closed doors. Citizen participation has evolve in many specific projects such as youth participation as a value acquiring activity (Camino & Shepherd, 2002;Kerr, 1999) or participation in the government of schools (Farrell, 2000;Gittell, 1977;MacKinnon, 2000;Ranson, Arnott, McKeown, Martin & Smith, 2005) to mention a few. ...
Nowadays, participation has become a common subject in many organizational settings, despite of the fact that there is a huge variety of approaches and practices attached to the label. This variety results problematic mainly because it exposes the different and often contradictory meanings, aims and procedures the word 'participation' seems to stand for, depending on the kind of context in which the phenomenon is located and on the social position of actors involved. By means of an exhaustive literature review, including reports, working papers, conference procedures and journal articles published during the last twenty years in fields such as industrial relations and organizational psychology, the purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing approaches to participation and, in doing so, identify and analyse the roles these approaches play when used as managerial tools in public, private and third sector organizations. Results include some neglected issues such as the major role tacit assumptions play when trying to put participation into practice and the effects of any systematic attempt in terms of regulation and control. A case is made for the inclusion of power relations as a key analytical dimension in further research on participation.
... Evers, 2006) are trying to find new ways for the provision and governance of public services, for example by involving citizens as co-producers of the services needed (Moedlhammer, 2009;Pestoff, 2009). Concepts like communitarianism (Farrell, 2000) or participationalism (Pestoff, 2009;Evers, 2006) highlight the importance of citizen participation in both the political and the production process of public service provision. In line with Spear and colleagues, we focus within this article on "public sector spin-offs" as a type of social enterprise which takes over the administration of services previously provided by public authorities (Spear, Cornforth & Aiken, 2009). ...
Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine the impact of co-operative governance structures on citizen participation in public service provision.
Methodology – Using a multiple case study-approach, we analyse and compare five examples of co-operative public–citizen partnerships in Austria and Germany.
Findings – The study clearly shows that co-operatives can be a tool for both, (1) the bottom-up self-organization of citizens (co-operative as ‘contested space’) and (2) the top-down organization to canalize citizen participation (co-operative as ‘invited space’). Co-operative public–citizen partnerships therefore represent a balancing act between dependency through public funding and autonomy through community-based decision making.
Research implications and limitations – The chapter underlines the importance of context-sensitive qualitative research. Limitations might stem from the fact that municipal areas might differ in other countries than Germany and Austria, for example, due to legal prerequisites.
Practical implications – If regional government representatives are supporting a bottom-up initiative, they are more inclined to provide crucial resources for the public–citizen partnership and tensions between different stakeholders involved are weakened.
Social implications – Co-operative public–citizen partnerships might enhance participatory democracy and seem to strengthen solidarity and social cohesion on the neighbourhood level.
Originality/value of chapter – In showing that co-operatives are a suitable governance structure for community organizations, which enhance democratic decision making and foster social innovation in public service delivery, we support the findings of other studies. The chapter suggests that in order to enhance our understanding of citizen participation, context-sensitive research that goes beyond merely descriptive governance analysis is needed, taking into account the historical trajectories of public–citizen partnerships.
... Effective and meaningful participation can be liberating, empowering and sometimes lead to tangible positive outcomes, but generally requires more time and effort by government and an active engagement with citizens. It involves not only consultation, but co-decision-making at all stages of the process, so that 'participants' experience ownership, autonomy and efficacy (Farrell 2000). ...
Worldwide reports of an obesity ‘epidemic’ prompted the Irish government to appoint a multidisciplinary Taskforce, whose report was published in May 2005. This paper critically analyses the report and its recommendations for reducing health risks among families, children and young people. Using a Foucauldian perspective, we question the report's individualizing focus and support for a strategy which responsibilises schools, families and young people and relies on individuals to do ‘the right thing’. Specifically, we examine the Taskforce recommendations for the education sector, and identify their dependence upon a discourse of governmentality, under categories of individualization, responsibilization and freedom of choice, participation and techniques for management of the self. We conclude that the report fails to address the multi-faceted and complex nature of obesity, and obscures the social, economic and material realities of the lives of pupils and schools.
... It is assumed that dialogue with interest groups is an important communitarian accountability mechanism for understanding and responding to their needs (Behn 1998;Farrell 2000;Roberts 2002;Shearer 2002). Open and transparent public debate leading to better management and service performance and allocation of resources is regarded as one way of achieving better VFM from public monies. ...
There is an implicit assumption in the UK Treasury’s publications on public-private partnerships (PPP)—also more commonly
known in the United Kingdom as private finance initiative (PFI)—that accountability and value for money (VFM) are related
concepts. While recent academic studies on PPP/PFI (from now on as PFI) have focused on VFM, there is a notable absence of
studies exploring the ‘presumed’ relationships between accountability and VFM. Drawing on Dubnick’s (Dubnick and Romzek in
American public administration, politics and the management of expectations. Macmillan, New York, 1991, Research in public administration. JAI, Greenwich, 1993; Dubnick in Public service ethics and the cultures of blame, 1996, Public sector ethics: finding and implementing values. Routledge, London, 1998, Int J Org Theory Behav 6(3):405–441, 2003, Public Perform Manage Rev 28(3):376–417, 2005; Dubnick and Justice in But can you trust them to be ethical, 2002) framework for accountability and PFI literature, we develop a research framework for exploring potential relationships between
accountability and VFM in PFI projects by proposing alternative accountability cultures, processes and mechanisms for PFI.
The PFI accountability model is then exposed to four criteria—warrantability, tractability, measurability and feasibility.
Our preliminary interviews provide us guidance in identifying some of the cultures, processes and mechanisms indicated in
our model which should enable future researchers to test not only the UK Government’s claimed relationships between accountability
and VFM using more specific PFI empirical data, but also a potential relationship between accountability and performance in
general.
KeywordsAccountability–Performance–New public management–Value for money–Private finance initiative
... Veugelers illustrates, then, that citizenship education should focus on values development. Values development has been traditionally seen as critical to citizenship; a citizen must think about others, rather than pursue his/her self interest, and, in this sense, citizenship is not consumerism (Farrell, 2000). Veugelers contends, however, that today much more emphasis be placed on values development than before; it is because how to balance tolerance and diversity is a crucial problem in contemporary multicultural society. ...
Nowadays strong emphasis has been placed on “governance” and “citizen participation”; citizens are expected to be ever more involved in the policy process and to ever more actively govern society. The promotion of citizen participation, however, should entail thorough consideration on citizenship or citizens’ qualifications and capabilities. This paper theoretically examines the notion of citizen in the era of governance and highlights active citizenship as necessary for citizen participation; any participant must be an active citizen.
This paper avers that education for active citizenship significantly contribute to individuals being active. Given that values, knowledge and skills — both basic and practical/applied — need to be developed for political participation, education for active citizenship should be provided for not only young people, but also adults who are participating or will soon participate in the policy process; in this sense, both child/youth education and adult/social education are important. Due to the heterogeneity and diversity of individuals, and given that a wide range of knowledge is necessary for active citizen participation, moreover, education for active citizenship should be provided by various agencies in various ways. An educational system for active citizenship, consequently, needs to be designed on the basis of the recognition that the system should contain child, youth, postgraduate and adult/social education programs; and that the system should utilize characteristics of diverse agencies such as elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, graduate schools, NPOs and citizen’s colleges. Without such a citizen development system, active citizen participation would be hardly possible to be successfully promoted.
Designing a citizen participation mechanism accompanied with citizen development programs (educational programs for active citizenship) is an arduous task. This task involves not only new participants in the policy process, viz., so-called ordinary citizens. Policymakers also have to adapt to the changing political process. Scholars in various study fields, as well, are required to academically and practically contribute to designing and facilitating citizen participation. Citizen participation in the policy process, nevertheless, sounds nice to many people and thus might be promoted without careful consideration. This paper is intended to warn against such promotion and to be a starting point for defining “citizen in the era of governance” and for establishing an effective citizen participation mechanism accompanied with an educational system.
The last few decades have witnessed unprecedented transformations in every sector of society, resulting from the explosive advancement of information and communication technologies. This drastic development has raised the hopes of citizens for better lives, in both developing and advanced countries, urging innovation in government to make it more competent. Due to e-business revolutions, governments around the world have applied similar principles and technologies to government by opening their websites for more efficient publication of information and more effective delivery of public services. While a government website is an important venue for citizens to participate in public affairs and decision-making processes, early e-government practices tended to overlook democratic purposes by focusing on the features of e-business and information systems. There have been increasing criticisms that e-government system design has focused mainly on the provider's perspectives. Reflecting on the theoretical implications of this, we argue that a government website should facilitate democratic processes involving not only information sharing and delivery of better public services, but also deliberation and coproduction. The purpose of this study is to probe into multidimensional features that enable government websites to fulfill their promises. Developing an integrative model for evaluating a government website, namely the Democratic E-governance Website Evaluation Model, we conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of four strands of literature: information systems, business, public administration, and democratic theory. Our study contributes to the literature by extending the purview of e-government website analysis beyond the question of citizens' acceptance and towards the issue of their engagement, bringing a stimulating view of citizens as active agents in governance, and it provides a holistic model for public authorities to improve their websites to facilitate democratic e-governance that helps to create more effective public outcomes.
Education systems all over the world are composed of different stakeholders. These stakeholdersvary according to countries. In some countries, stakeholders are identified and categorised and their roles andfunctions are stipulated, whereas in other countries, stakeholders are just recognised as mere entities withoutstipulating their roles and functions. Different stakholders in education cannot be ignored as they play a veryimportant and meaningful role in the provision of quality education. Stakeholders in this paper are learners becausethey mean a lot in education; without them, schools cannot exist. In this conceptual paper, researchers throughliterature review, investigated how schools value the contributions of learners in decision making as members ofSchool Governing Bodies (SGB). The paper also investigated challenges that confront learners in participating indecision making within the SGB.
The analysis of the institutional design of emergent departments related to participatory democracy intersects the debate about innovation in public management and the consolidation of new institutional arrangements in local government. A survey undertaken in 42 local governments -in Barcelona's province, Spain- that had undergone a process of transition from a traditional model of government to an open and relational one, produced evidence both of some advances in political robustness and functional flexibility and of some failures in normative effectiveness and capacity to influence strongly structured sectors, where the pre-existing institutional framework resists the innovations. From an initial "voluntary" stage focused on disseminating and expanding the practices and tools of participatory democracy, departments of participation evolve to a "professional" stage where their true capacity for institutional learning and adjustment is put to the test.
This article contributes to the academic debate on the emergence and configuration of an epistemic community and its encouragement of participatory democracy in local government. With a case study of the councils of cities in the province of Barcelona (Spain) with up to 5,000 inhabitants, where notable advances have been made in this field, a description is provided of the epistemic community and the activities it has undertaken to promote citizen participation. The results illustrate the role of the epistemic community in the establishment of participation units and its capacity to generate participatory processes in different spheres of local government with different levels of pre‐existing institutional arrangements. However, questions arise concerning its capacity to maintain and extend its influence in spheres of advanced technical specificity and robust institutional arrangements, where negotiation is required to promote citizen participation.
Grounded in the co-production theory of public service, this article develops and introduces a matrix of co-production. The matrix is used on the evaluation of citizen participation in implementing a housing policy carried out by Santa Catarina State Housing Company (Cohab/SC), agency linked to the Ministry of Social, Urban and Environment Development, responsible to implement the State Program for Promotion of Human Settlements and Popular Housing during the period 2003-06. The results show that citizen participation varies from the time of first contact with the public agency, or with the respective city halls, during the construction, until the delivery of the houses. Analysis based in the matrix identified that the type and intensity of the co-production, occurred in different ways in the both observed cities - Palhoça and Rancho Queimado - featuring wider and substantive results in favor of the latter.
In the United States, calls for new citizen engagement strategies have continued to grow at the local government level. One answer is Appreciative Inquiry. As part of a larger study conducted in 2007, the question was posed to public administrators, “What challenges do you see regarding using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to increase citizen participation in local government?” Findings based on a content analysis of the data identified four challenges in particular. Discussion suggests public managers need to be aware of these challenges but depending on local conditions they can be mitigated or overcome.
English
The term ‘citizen governance’ (CG) is currently attracting attention in policy circles. Yet there is no universally agreed definition, and the term is used in different ways. This article identifies key tensions between citizen governors’ ‘representation’ and ‘steering’ roles, and presents a framework that attempts to make these tensions more explicit. Case study evidence suggests that the effectiveness of CG structures is contextual rather than universalistic, and that different sets of assumptions are often conflated in governance. We argue that if inclusivity in policy making is a genuine goal, these assumptions need to be made more explicit and accommodated in structures that work.
Objectives:
Involving patients and the public in patient safety is seen as central to health reform internationally. In England, NHS Foundation Trusts are seen as one way to achieve inclusive governance by involving local communities. We analysed these arrangements by studying lay governor involvement in the formal governance structures to improve patient safety.
Methods:
Interviews with key informants, observations of meetings and documentary analysis were conducted at a case study site. A national survey was conducted with all acute Foundation Trusts (n=90), with a response rate of 40% (n=36). Follow up telephone interviews were conducted with seven of these.
Results:
The case-study revealed a complex governance context for patient safety involving board, safety and various sub-committees. Governors were mainly not involved in these formal mechanisms, with participation being seen to pose a conflict of interest with the governors' role. Findings from the survey showed some involvement of governors in the governance of patient safety.
Conclusions:
This study revealed a lack of inclusivity by Foundation Trusts of lay governors in patient safety governance. It suggests action is needed to empower governors to undertake their statutory duties more effectively and particularly through clarification of their role and the provision of targeted training and support to facilitate their involvement in the governance of patient safety.
Direct democracy is seen as a means of reengaging citizens in the political process. However, it is a contested concept that requires further development by being grounded in a specific context. This article reports on research undertaken in Victorian local government where the New Public Management (NPM) has been in evidence for a number of decades which according to the literature has impacted on accountability to the broader community. The possibility of consultation and citizen participation in the local government budgetary process was examined. The results reported suggest that participation in the budgetary decisions in local government is possible.
Flemish non-profit schools have no legally imposed composition rules with respect to their board of directors. Hence, large variation exists in their size and composition. We argue that these differences in board composition can result in different policies followed by the board. To empirically test this hypothesis we question the board's chairpersons of Flemish non-profit schools about the objectives set forward by the board. Ordered probit regressions on the importance attached to different educational objectives provide support for our hypothesis and thus alert policy makers to account for the linkages between objectives and board characteristics when formulating legislation with respect to school board composition. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We are bound together by the Singapore idea but it is not easy to define what exactly constitutes it. It involves both the heart and the mind, and probably includes aspects like good governance, civic responsibility, honesty, strong families, hard work, a spirit of voluntarism, the use of many languages and a deep respect for racial and religious diversity. George Yeo, as Singapore's Minister of Information and the Arts (Yeo 2000, 25).
During the 1994 forest policy reform in Cameroon, NGOs, World Bank (WB) and Members of Parliament (MPs) were believed to be strongly influential. However, their leverage has never been evaluated. It is to fill this empirical gap that this thesis sets out to elucidate the influence of NGOs, WB and MPs on the Cameroon Forestry Law (CFL).
The study combined the inductive and deductive research approaches, building its theoretical framework on the struggle between the structuralist and intentionalist divides of the structuration theory of Giddens, the new institutional economics, and the governance and representation theories. It adopted both qualitative and quantitative research methods and tools drawing on a set of 30 semi-standardized interviews and 95 questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using four data analysis techniques: content analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis and Pearson´s chi square analysis with SPSS 15.0 version.
The empirical findings of this research showed that NGOs exerted some influence on the community forestry deliberation, while the Bank had a great leverage on the same regulation. Both WB and MPs had a substantial impact on the log export and local wood processing regime whereas MPs held a great influence on the logging licences allocation system and the contract duration clauses. The study also identified 18 significant contextual and agential factors of influence of NGOs, WB and MPs. These factors tested approximately 55% of the theoretical framework of the study. Contextual factors accounted for about 60% of influence processes meanwhile agential factors held nearly 53% of the variance explained. However, only 15 of these factors are still relevant to the current policy arena in Cameroon and were embedded into the constructed model.
The results of this study are in line with those obtained in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Bolivia and Costa Rica where forest policy reforms occured at the same period with Cameroon. From the discussion of the empirical findings of this work, three main conclusions and recommendations were drawn. In Cameroon like in the above-mentioned countries, NGOs had little access to and success in forest politics. This is critical to the principle of good governance which aims at ensuring that the making of decisions is truly participative in nature and not dominated by few actors. Future interventions of the Bank into forest policy reforms of its lending countries should preserve as much as possible the sovereignty of independent states over their forest policy reform. The revision and respect of the rules of the game of executive-legislative exchanges are important to permit an independent and effective passage of bills of forestry laws by the Parliament.
Citizen participation has been included as part of health reform, often in the form of lay health authorities. In Canada, these authorities are variously known as regional health boards or councils. A set of challenges is associated with citizen participation in regional health authorities. These challenges relate to: differences in opinion about whether there should be citizen participation at all; differences in perception of the levels and processes of participation; differences in opinion with respect to the roles and responsibilities of health authority members; differences in opinion about the appropriate composition of the authorities; differences in opinion about the requisite skills and attributes of health authority members; having a good support base (staff, good information, board development); understanding and operationalizing various roles of the board (governance and policy setting) versus the board staff (management and administration); difficulties in ensuring the accountability of the health authorities; and measuring the results of the work and decisions of the health authorities. Despite these challenges, regional health authorities are gaining support as both theoretically sound and pragmatically based approaches to health-system reform. This review of the above challenges suggests that each of the concerns remains a significant threat to meaningful public participation.
The notion of accountability has been central to the reforms which have been introduced in education since the Education Reform Act of 1988. As a case in point, key responsibilities have been devolved from local education authorities to school governing bodies. While these bodies are now accountable for many aspects of education, it is not clear how they work in practice. The aim of this paper is to identify the nature of accountability of school governing bodies. The research it reports on involved interviews with a range of governors to determine both how they perceive themselves to be accountable and how such accountability operates in reality. From all this conclusions are drawn on the nature and effectiveness of governing body accountability.
Using data drawn from a 4 year multisite case study of 10 governing bodies in two English local education authorities (LEAs), the paper examines the extent to which recent changes in the responsibilities of governors, and social factors including ethnicity, gender and social class, have affected the possibility of governing bodies and education professionals working together in harmonious ways. It is argued that the move to site‐based management may have enhanced the tendency for governing bodies to be loosely coupled to their schools, and exacerbated micropolitical differences within individual governing bodies. It is suggested that both heads and governors seek power and the capacity to determine the actions of the other. Although this does not mean that conflict is always present, it becomes more likely when there are extensive cultural differences between the governing body and education professionals. It is these differences, together with the legislation on local management and grant maintained status, which may be seen to be largely responsible for the increasing degree of conflict experienced in some governing bodies.
English
One of the most important aspects of recent education reforms in England and Wales is the encouragement of parental participation in schools. Parents were empowered as individual consumers in the education market and also gained management positions on school governing bodies. The recent White Papers in education further develops the parental role and recognises the position of parents as key stakeholders in education. This paper highlights the divergence between the rhetoric and the reality concerning parents as stakeholders in education. Behind a facade of parental stakeholding lies a reality which indicates that parents do not actively participate in education.
Voluntary and community organisations have been at the forefront of recent attempts to make welfare services more effective and appropriate. It is often assumed that voluntary sector organisations bring greater levels of democracy and accountability to welfare regimes. This article considers the capacity of voluntary sector organisations to introduce greater accountability through an analysis of notions of trust, the multiplicity of interests, the distinction between process and task and between diversity and equity. It concludes by urging voluntary sector organisations to develop more rigorous and sophisticated conceptions of accountability in order to remain at the forefront of democratic innovation.