Citizen Participation and Environmental Risk: A Survey of Institutional Mechanisms

Abstract

Standard approaches to defining and evaluating environmental risk tend to reflect technocratic rather than democratic values. One consequence is that institutional mechanisms for achieving citizen participation in risk decisions rarely are studied or evaluated. This article presents a survey of five institutional mechanisms for allowing the lay public to influence environmental risk decisions: public hearings, initiatives, public surveys, negotiated rule making, and citizens review panels. It also defines democratic process criteria for assessing these and other participatory mechanisms.

Hearing but Not Listening? A Participatory Assessment of Public Participation in Planning

“…Similarly, the seven core values proposed by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) ( Table 4) There is, however, a division in the literature between those who seek to define evaluation criteria a priori, based on theory, and those who argue for a participatory approach to defining the parameters of review (Chess and Purcell, 1999). Theory-based criteria have the advantage of providing consistent means for evaluation, providing structured results which can be generalized and which contribute to a generic understanding of ways in which participation can be improved (Fiorino, 1990;Frewer and Rowe, 2005;Webler, 1995). However, an alternative perspective contests the value of deductive theory-based evaluations, arguing that universal goals and criteria are less important than the specific goals of those involved in participatory efforts (Chess and Purcell, 1999), which may vary in different situations.…”

Towards a New Cosmopolitanism: Global Reflexive Interactive Democracy as a New Mechanism for Civil Society Participation in Agri-food Governance

“…First, increasing participation in decision making at the global level is compatible with the democratic principles of participating nations. Second, while not guaranteeing it, "broad public involvement in decision making will increase the chances of better decision making… because a broader range of values is likely to be represented and the probability of error may be reduce" (Middendorf and Busch, 1990:46; see also Fiorino, 1990). Even if there is a need to localise governance in such a field as agriculture, so as to support shorter and more sustainable chains of production and regulation, there is still the need to face global problems with global solutions and to anchor local centres of interest to global ones.…”

Scaffolding, software and scenarios: Applying Bruner's learning theory to energy scenario development with the public

“…In terms of reasons why efforts might be made to engage an under-informed public in energy planning or wider scientific activity, rationales fall into three camps: normative rationales view engagement as ethically justified, often on democratic grounds; substantive rationales view engagement as leading to better decisions, often where scientific uncertainty is high, echoing thinking on post-normal science [8]; and instrumental rationales tend to relate to (typically unstated) aims, such as the legitimisation of prior decisions [9] and [10]. To these can be added the public understanding of science rationales of debunking misperceptions, raising awareness and educating [11]; in addition, in a research context and outside of policy processes, engagement may provide opinion-related information for its own sake and for the purpose of furthering knowledge.…”