Elements of success in multi-stakeholder deliberation platforms

Abstract

Deliberation platforms are an important component of the multi-actor sciencepolicy interface within the realm of environmental governance, increasingly characterized by the engagement of a diversity of actors. Deliberation platforms provide a mechanism through which stakeholders with diverse perspectives can both discuss problems and explore potential solutions related to environmental governance, integrating scientific and other knowledge. This study employs a Qualitative Content Analysis of 16 semi-structured interviews to investigate which elements of deliberation platforms are most central to their success and how these elements interact with one another from the perspective of public engagers. This fills a gap in the literature on the qualification of knowledge and experience of public engagers regarding the organization of multi-stakeholder deliberation platforms. Elements to consider in the organization of deliberation platforms were ranked, and five central elements were identified: (1) the selection of participants relevant to the topic and conducive to positive interactions, (2) openness as an attitude in both organizers and participants, (3) facilitation of interactions and the role of the facilitator, (4) communication and transparency between organizers and participants, and (5) fostering dialog between participants through various means. Different manifestations of these five central elements which can fit best within different particular contexts and suit various objectives are also investigated based on the interview material. The discussion summarizes the lessons learned with regards to organizing deliberation platforms from the perspective of public engagers, and explores the potential for trade-offs and co-benefits between central elements as a means to improve the efficiency and efficacy of organizing such platforms. Furthermore, the links between the central elements and social learning, as a particular, overarching objective of deliberation platforms, are discussed. This study is an important step towards further analysis of deliberation platforms, necessary in order to avoid the risks of convening actors with diverse perspectives to discuss politically-relevant topics. It provides insights relevant to public engagers and to future studies analyzing these increasingly important venues for engagement in environmental governance.

Stakeholder engagement increases transparency, satisfaction, and civic action

“…While we do have some anecdotal evidence that tangible service delivery is beginning to change in response to community actions, this bears watching over the coming years. Evidence suggests that, over a longer time scale, the provision of tangible benefits is an important predictor of local support for extractives development (21,22). Second, there are reasons to believe that the shortterm impacts of MSFs may be underestimated by our research design.…”

“…The action plans also had a self-assessment template that encouraged communities to measure progress on implementation of actions over several weeks. Previous research suggests that principles and design choices like these are important determinants of the success of collaborative governance efforts (6,22). SE efforts that do not follow these principles may not yield the same positive outcomes.…”

Evidence-informed urban health and sustainability governance in two Chinese cities

“…As previously noted, progress on urban sustainability and health issues cannot be solely driven by regulatory capacity and the need for integrative capacity may increase over time as the public, industry or other groups push back at central directives. Multi-stakeholder deliberation platforms ( Garard et al . 2018 ) are a method to balance diverging knowledge claims that may be appropriate in China, but this requires further investigation.…”

Can the power of platforms be harnessed for governance?

“…Not all opportunities for deliberation produce constructive public engagement and may potentially empower ‘mischief and abuse’ (Lackaff , p. 142; see also Aragón et al ). Platforms that encourage discourse moderation, provide information, and clearly define topics (Esau et al ) and that recruit reasonably diverse and open‐minded participants will improve deliberation (Garard et al ).…”

“…Crowdsourcing platforms may help to aggregate distributed citizen input (Bott and Young 2012;Brabham 2013;Aitamurto and Chen 2017;Liu 2017;Taeihagh 2017). Participation or deliberation platforms may foster citizen participation in policy deliberation (Desouza and Bhagwatwar 2014;Aitamurto and Landemore 2016;Aragón et al 2017;Garard et al 2018;Sørensen and Torfing 2018;De Blasio and Selva 2019). Co-production platforms may enable public authorities to engage citizens in improving the delivery of government services (Linders 2012;Falco and Kleinhans 2018a;Janowski et al 2018) and multi-stakeholder platforms may allow diverse groups to engage in productive exchange (Steins and Edwards 1999;Selsky and Parker 2010;Adekunle and Fatunbi 2012).…”