Four Perspectives on Public Participation Process in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making: Combined Results from 10 Case Studies

Abstract

Knowing how people think about public participation processes and knowing what people want from these processes is essential to crafting a legitimate and effective process and delivering a program that is widely viewed as meaningful and successful. This article reports on research to investigate the nature of diversity among participants' perceptions of what is the most appropriate public participation process for environmental assessment and decision making in 10 different cases. Results show that there are clearly distinct perspectives on what an appropriate public participation process should be. We identified four perspectives: Science‐Centered Stakeholder Consultation, Egalitarian Deliberation, Efficient Cooperation, and Informed Collaboration. The literature on public participation tends to presume that there are clear and universal criteria on how to “do” public participation correctly or that context is the critical factor. This study has revealed that even within a specific assessment or decision‐making effort, there may be different perspectives about what is viewed as appropriate, which poses a challenge for both theorists and practitioners. Among the active participants in these 10 case studies, we found limited agreement and strong differences of opinions for what is a good process. Points of consensus across these cases are that good processes reach out to all stakeholders, share information openly and readily, engage people in meaningful interaction, and attempt to satisfy multiple interest positions. Differences appeared about how strongly to emphasize science and information, how much leadership and direction the process needs, what is the proper behavior of participants, how to tackle issues of power and trust, and what are the outcome‐related goals of the process. These results challenge researchers and practitioners to consider the diversity of participant needs in addition to the broad context when conceptualizing or carrying out participatory processes.

Understanding the factors that make public participation effective in health policy and planning: a realist synthesis

“…The important contextual factors that drive inclusiveness were pointed out in the literature; these included the diversity of participants that requires the inclusion of varied interests or opinions and the recognition of varying degrees and levels of participation (Webler et al 2001;Litva et al 2002;Mustajoki et al 2004;Webler and Tuler 2006;Burkardt and Ponds 2006;Baggett et al 2008;Agger 2012). Similarly, in many instances, the use of a single participation technique inadequately involves the stakeholders.…”

Global change impacts on the Upper Danube Catchment (Central Europe): a study of participatory modeling

“…On the other hand, the majority of studies on PM activities arrive at the conclusion that to be accepted and used by stakeholders, models employed in PM should be simple, robust, and easy to use (e.g., Horlitz 2006;Janssen et al 2008;Kok et al 2008;Siebenhüner and Barth 2007;Webler and Tuler 2006). Without attempting to discuss the controversial issue of complexity/simplicity of models any further, we can also mention that many authors observe a coupling between uncertainty and complexity (Hare 2011; Krysanova et al 2007;Van Asselt and Rotmans 2002;Volk et al 2010).…”

“…Hare (2011) defined PM as ''a diverse range of modeling activities whose common element is that they involve stakeholders in one or more stages of the modeling process, from data collection through to model construction and use.'' One reason for the increased popularity of PM in recent years is the experience that models developed by scientists for scientific purposes are often not suitable for practical management due to their often (too) high complexity, low user friendliness, and lack of problem/solution orientation (e.g., Borowski and Hare 2007;Hare 2011;Horlitz 2006;Kok et al 2008;Myšiak et al 2008;Webler and Tuler 2006). Participation is considered a key concept of bridging the gap between modelers and stakeholders and eventually between science and society (Andersson et al 2008;Carmona et al 2013b;Simmons et al 2012;Voinov and Bousquet 2010).…”

New tools in local energy planning: experimenting with scenarios, public participation and environmental assessment

“…There are many forms of public participation (Gilljam et al 2003). Empirical research suggests that "good participatory practice" is characterised by that all stakeholders are included, information is shared openly and readily, participants find the interactions meaningful, and that there is a will to find solutions of mutual interest (Webler and Tuler 2006).…”