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

Administrative Discretion in Participatory Processes

Administrative discretion in participatory processes refers to the degrees of power exerted by public officials at the margins of formal roles. As participatory processes in policymaking require public officials to intermediate between political representatives and social agents, administrative discretion is a key feature for the (re)configuration of public officials’ roles in public administration.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A typology of stakeholders and guidelines for engagement in transdisciplinary, participatory processes

© 2016 Newton and Elliott. This paper fulfils a gap in environmental management by producing a typology of stakeholders for effective participatory processes and co-design of solutions to complex social–environmental issues and then uses this typology for a stepwise roadmap methodology for balanced and productive stakeholder engagement. Definitions are given of terminology that is frequently used interchangeably such as “stakeholders,” “social actors,” and “interested parties.” Whilst this analysis comes from a marine perspective, it is relevant to all environments and the means of tackling environmental problems. Eleven research questions about participative processes are addressed, based on more than 30 years of experience in water, estuarine, coastal, and marine management. A stepwise roadmap, supported by illustrative tables based on case-studies, shows how a balanced stakeholder selection and real engagement may be achieved. The paper brings these together in the context of several up-to-date concepts such as complex, nested governance, the 10 tenets for integrated, successful, and sustainable marine management, the System Approach Framework and the evolution of DPSIR into DAPSI(W)R(M) framework. Examples given are based on the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Water Framework Directive, the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the Framework Directive for Maritime Spatial Planning, as well as for Regional Sea Conventions. The paper also shows how tools that have been developed in recent projects can be put to use to implement policy and maximize the effectiveness of stakeholder participation

Agricultural strategy development in West Africa: The false promise of participation?

"Participatory approaches are an increasingly prominent technique for designing agricultural strategies within Sub-Saharan Africa. However, such approaches are frequently criticized for either not involving enough stakeholders or limiting the scope of their participation. By analyzing the role of stakeholder participation in the formulation of agricultural and rural development strategies in West Africa, this paper finds that a lack of broad-based participation in these strategies was not a major problem. Rather, the real challenge lies in transforming the outcomes of participatory processes into policies that can be feasibly implemented. The paper highlights why an emphasis on participatory processes can sometimes result in disappointment among stakeholders and discusses a range of measures to help overcome this dilemma. " from authors' abstractAgricultural and rural development strategies, Policy process, Participation, Representative democracy, Governance,

Designing effective public participation

This paper reviews the various connections that can exist between the design of participatory processes and the different kind of results that they can entail. It details how effective participatory processes can be designed, whatever are the results that participation is deemed to elicit. It shows the main trends pertaining to design choicesand considers how to classify different arrangements in order to choose from among them. Then the paper deals with the main dilemmas that tend to arise when designing participatory processes. Thanks to this review, the paper argues that participatory processes tend to display a certain degree of ambivalence that cannot be completely overcome through the design choices

Equitable, Ecological Degrowth: Feminist Contributions

This paper uses feminist ecological economics and ecofeminist methodologies and theory to contribute to Degrowth in theory and practice. These feminist contributions involve highlighting unpaid work and ecological services, redistribution, and participatory processes as crucially important in developing the new paradigm and movement for equitable material Degrowth.This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Participatory processes as an educational pedagogy development

La participación, es un componente sustantivo de una democracia. Por ello, la propuesta que mostramos necesita abordarse desde la institución educativa; es decir, desde el trabajo docente para la participación y la democracia con una idea metodológica que parta de la pedagogía del diálogo y de la participación. Este enfoque particular, parte del desarrollo de un proyecto de investigación donde se llevan a cabo estrategias que fomenten la participación de la infancia, priorizando espacios públicos como espacios educativos. Por ello, la experiencia que comentamos, contribuye a la superación de una paradójica contradicción, entre los discursos favorables a la participación infantil y juvenil y las prácticas efectivas al respecto. En este sentido, esta contradicción está apoyada en la ausencia de canales institucionalizados y reconocidos de participación con la infancia y aun más para la juventud. Así, el proyecto de investigación que damos a conocer, sostiene que el cuidado a la infancia y juventud debe entenderse como un derecho asumido por la colectividad que facilita los canales y servicios para potenciar la autonomía y el bienestar desde el comienzo de la vida de la persona.Participation, is a substantive component of a democracy. Therefore, the proposal that show needs to be addressed from the school; the teachers working for participation and democracy with a methodological idea that stems from the pedagogy of dialogue and participation. This particular approach of the development of a research project which was carried out strategies to promote the participation of children, prioritizing public spaces as an educational space. Therefore, we discuss the experience contributes to overcoming a paradoxical contradiction between declarations in support of child and youth participation and effective practices in this regard. In this sense, this contradiction is supported by the absence of institutionalized channels of participation known to children and youth even more. Thus, the research project that we present, argues that caring for children and youth must be understood as a right assumed by the community that facilitates the channels and services to enhance the independence and well-being since the beginning of the life of the person

Fora, networks and public examinations: the role and significance of public participation in the new regional plan for South East England

This paper overviews the main conceptual frameworks for understanding participatory approaches to land use planning and explores their utility in analysing the experience of a recent regional planning exercise in South East England. In particular it examines the contribution of recent ‘New Institutionalist’ ideas to our understanding of participatory processes and the implications for practice of using them to build strategies of public involvement in policy-making and implementation

Interaction with Interconnected Data in Participatory Processes

This paper proposes a conceptual graphical user interface for the interaction with interconnected data in participatory processes that play an important role for future smart cities. The presented idea is based on identifying important tasks for data exploration and data editing. The data to consider is structured, semi-structured or unstructured and of different facets. For example, participatory processes like planning and decision processes involve text, time and spatial data. In other words, the handling of the data is a complex endeavor in terms of representation and interaction. In this respect, we utilize and describe a graph-based data model that properly reflects the connected data

Developing a framework for the analysis of power through depotentia

Stakeholder participation in tourism policy-making is usually perceived as providing a means of empowerment. However participatory processes drawing upon stakeholders from traditionally empowered backgrounds may provide the means of removing empowerment from stakeholders. Such an outcome would be in contradiction to the claims that participatory processes improve both inclusivity and sustainability. In order to form an understanding of the sources through which empowerment may be removed, an analytical perspective has been developed deriving from Lukes�s views of power dating from 1974. This perspective considers the concept of depotentia as the removal of �power to� without speculating upon the underlying intent and also provides for the multidimensionality of power to be examined within a single study. The application of this analytical perspective has been tested upon findings of the government-commissioned report of the Countryside and Community Research Unit in 2005. The survey and report investigated the progress of Local Access Forums in England created in response to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. Consideration of the data from this perspective permits the classification of individual sources of depotentia which can each be addressed and potentially enable stakeholder groups to reverse loss of empowerment where it has occurred