Public Participation in Environmental Decisions: An Evaluation Framework Using Social Goals

This paper presents a framework for evaluating mechanisms that involve the public in environmental decision-making. These include traditional participatory mechanisms--such as public hearings, notice and comment procedures, and advisory committees--as well as those considered more innovative--such as regulatory negotiations, mediations, and citizen juries. The framework is based on a set of "social goals," defined as those goals which are valued outcomes of a participatory process, but which transcend the immediate interests of any party in that process. The goals are: educating the public, incorporating public values and knowledge into decision-making, building trust, reducing conflict, and assuring cost-effective decision-making. The paper begins with a discussion of the need for an evaluative framework which 1) identifies the strengths and weaknesses of a number of different participatory mechanisms, 2) is "objective" in the sense of not taking the perspective of any one party to a decision, and 3) measures tangible outcomes. Section One presents the social goals framework as an approach for meeting these objectives. It illustrates how the framework can be applied to one case study in environmental decision-making: the performance of the Restoration Advisory Board at the Fort Ord military base in California. In Section Two, we contrast the social goals framework with two alternative approaches to evaluation, one based on participatory processes and one based on stakeholder interests. We find that, while useful for answering some questions about public involvement, these two approaches fail to meet all three objectives and may miss important information about the success of a particular participatory effort. In Section Three we take a closer look at participatory mechanisms and discusses how each is likely to perform against the various social goals.

Orchestrating Forest Policy in Italy: Mission Impossible?

In the Italian political and economic agenda the forest sector occupies a marginal role. The forest sector in Italy is characterized by a high institutional fragmentation and centralized decision-making processes dominated by Public Forest Administrations. Public participation in forest policy processes has been implemented since the 1990s at national, regional and local levels in several cases. However, today no significant changes have been observed in the overall governance of the forest sector and stakeholders' involvement in Italian forest policy decision-making is still rather limited. The aims of this paper are to describe the state of forest-related participatory processes in Italy at various levels (national, regional and local) and identify which factors and actors hinder or support the establishment and implementation of participatory forest-related processes in the country. The forest-related participatory processes are analyzed adopting a qualitative-based approach and interpreting interactive, complex and non-linear participatory processes through the lens of panarchy theory

Public participation in a government land decision in Prince Edward Island: The case of Tracadie Cross Waste Watch Facility

Public participation is a comerstone of democracy and a central value of Community Psychology. The purpose of this participatory action research was to develop an understanding of public participation as through the experiences of Islanders engaged in land decision making in Prince Edward Island. In particular a case study of the Tracadie Cross Waste Watch Facility was developed through document analysis and in-depth interviews. A sketch of public participation in Prince Edward Island was grounded in in-depth interviews from case study participants. as well as additional in-depth interviews with Islanders who have been engaged in land decision making independent of the case study. The results showed that land decisions are improving in terms of more participatory decision making, however participants still indicated the exclusive nature of Govemment land decision making. Participants described a desire to contribute to the decision making process and the loss of valuable local knowledge when citizens are excluded from sharing in the decision making. A multi-stakeholder perspective of effective public participation was developed, revealing effective public participation comprised of collaborative decision making, commtmity mobilization and, a long term commitment to educating the public on active community and government involvement. The outcome recommendations were developed to contribute to creating more effective public participation in Provincial Government land decisions. Six outcome recommendations were developed: seeking public involvement; creating equality in access to information; promoting public initiated participation; connecting multiple levels of organization; creating transparency in decision making; and mandating power to the public. Participants described a hope for the future of public participation in Govemment land in Prince Edward lsland and the power to achieve more participatory decision making through the power of communities

Moving beyond dialogue

The time has come for the biotechnology industry to explore the principles and processes of participatory decision-making, and to implement concrete decision-making opportunities involving all elements of the agricultural biotechnology constituency, including farmers, public interest group representatives and other citizens. These individuals should be involved in the strategic phases of basic and applied agricultural biotechnology research, development and marketing. The characteristic of participatory decision-making would create authentic opportunities to directly influence the biotechnology agenda

PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE IN THE PUBLIC HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS OF THE SCANDINAVIAN AND BALTIC COUNTRIES

The diminished trust of citizens in the public sector, the increased complexity of policy issues and the reforms in accordance with the new public management principles generate the need of focusing more extensively on participatory governance. Participatory governance can be defined as the genuine engagement of citizens and other organizations in the formulation of policies and strategies, in the decision-making process from the public sector and in the implementation of the decisions. The present paper's objectives are to define the concept of participatory governance, to argue in favor of implementing it in the public sector and to find to what extent public healthcare institutions from Scandinavian and Baltic countries publish information on participatory governance and how they perceive community engagement. The research findings are that the information on participatory governance disclosed on the websites of relevant institutions from within the Scandinavian and Baltic public healthcare systems is scarce. The countries with the greatest concern for community engagement are Denmark and Sweden. It is argued that there should be a shift in focus within the public sector in general and within the healthcare system in particular, so that citizens are genuinely involved in the relevant processes and their satisfaction is indeed at an adequate level.participatory governance, engagement, public healthcare, Scandinavian, Baltic

Participation in multicriteria decision support - the case of conflicting water allocation in the Spree River basin

This discussion paper presents the Integrated Methodological Approach for participatory multi-criteria decision support under uncertainty (IMA), which emerged from the debates about participation, multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and benefit-cost analysis (BCA). It provides a framework for participatory and science-based evaluation processes with combined use of BCA and MCA to support large-scale public decisions. While IMA does not claim to realize an all-inclusive participation scheme, it offers the advantage to improve the quality of decision making through advances in competence and fairness. Its practical application with emphasis on its participatory elements is demonstrated by the case study on the water allocation conflict of the German Spree River, which involves the German capital of Berlin, an important wetland, and the needs to remediate a post-mining landscape. --Participation,Multi-criteria analysis,Cost-benefit analysis,River basin management,Integrated Assesment

Web-based PPGIS application for participatory spatial planning in context of bikeability

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesThe spatial planning processes are complex and require public participation to get insights about important problems and development of the neighborhood from the communities during final decision-making. The traditional participatory methods offer limited two-way communication just inform the public rather than to obtain suggestions from them and few public can participate due to time & location restrictions. Due to low public empowerment, they do not know how their participation can influence the spatial planning and decision-making process. This study tries to design and develop the web-based Public Participation GIS application with the integration of the internet, public participation, and GIS technologies to increase public participation during spatial planning and decision-making to overcome the limitations of traditional participatory methods. The web-based PPGIS application development is based on open-source technologies and allows the participants to visualize spatial data layer, perform spatial analyses and contribute to increasing and improving the bikeability of the city. The user study experiment is conducted to evaluate the usability and usefulness of the application. The evaluation results show that the web-based PPGIS application is easy to use with a System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 84.6 and an effective approach to increase public engagement and give suggestions on the spatial planning process and decision making

Deliberation, Representation, Equity: Research Approaches, Tools and Algorithms for Participatory Processes

In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens’ input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. This book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences

The Right to City in the Era of Crowdsourcing

This article explores the meaning and context of crowdsourcing at the municipal scale. In order to legitimately govern, local governments seek feedback and engagement from actors and bodies beyond the state. At the same time, crowdsourcing efforts are increasingly being adopted by entities – public and private – to digitally transform local services and processes. But how do we know what the “the right to the city” (RTTC) means when it comes to meaningful and participatory decision-making? And how do we know if participatory efforts called crowdsourcing—a practice articulated in a 2006 Wired article in the context of the tech sector—when policy ideas are sought at the municipal scale? Grounded in the ideals of Henri Lefebvre’s RTTC, the article brings together typologies of public participation to advance a conceptualization of ‘crowdsourcing’ specific to local governance. Applying this approach to a smart city initiative in Toronto, Canada, I argue that for crowdsourcing to be taken seriously as a means of inclusive and participatory decision-making that seeks to advance the RTTC, it must have connection to governance mechanisms that aim to integrate public perspectives into policy decisions. Where crowdsourcing is disconnected to decision-making processes, it is simply lip service, not meaningful participation

Public participation in budgeting can have benefits, but the incentives are not always there for local governments to use it

By creating processes which allow for public participation, governments can better involve citizens in their decision-making. Iuliia Shybalkina looks at the use of one type of public participation – participatory budgeting – across six New York City council districts. She finds that the incentives council members faced had a large influence on how their districts invested in the participatory budgeting process, leading to often very different processes in different district