Participatory processes
Contents
What is public participation?
Public participation means that citizens are involved in the environmental or natural resource decision-making that has an effect on them. Public participation is also seen as part of sustainable development, and it may enhance social learning. It can be assumed that the final decisions are made with more competence, when local knowledge is included and expert knowledge is scrutinized by the public (Webler et al. 1995). Furthermore, the legitimacy of the final decision may be better, when the different stakeholders are involved in the decision making.
The phases of public participation
Each public participation case may include slightly different phases, but the general phases are
- Organization
- Intelligence
- Design
- Choice
- Monitoring
Examples of tasks each phase includes can be found in Case template.
The methods, models and tools
In each phase, different kinds of tools are available.
Organization
The tools used for organizing the process include, for instance,
- citizen jurys
- IT based tools
- public meetings
- working groups
Intelligence
The tools used for collecting the intelligence concerning public preferences include, for instance,
- surveys
- interviews
- cognitive mapping
Design
The tools used for designing the alternatives include, for instance,
- brainstorming
- group work
- problem structuring methods
- forest simulator and optimization tools
Choice
The tools used for selecting the best option include, for instance,
- optimization tools
- multi-criteria decision support tools
- voting methods
- bargaining methods
Monitoring
The success of public participation process
The success of the participation process may depend both on the outcome of the process and the process itself.
In several studies, lists of success criteria have been defined
References
Webler, T., Kastenholz, H. & Renn, O. 1995. Public participation in impact assessment: a social learning perspective. Environmental Impact assessment Review 15:443-463.
