What Is a Good Public Participation Process? Five Perspectives from the Public

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROB KRUEGER ◽  
SETH TULER ◽  
THOMAS WEBLER
2019 ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Henk Addink

Participation is the active involvement of a group of individuals in a collective process on actual or intended actions of administrative authorities. Participation can refer to taking part in preliminary arrangements, influencing decision-makers, or taking part in actual decision-making processes. But participation can also be justified from the point of view of a sensible government finding out potential flaws and realizing ownership. The term ‘public participation’ presumes that the initiative and procedures are in the hands of citizens, the participation process is generally managed by public entities. The participation principle can be also about participation as a right, and the question of what consequences are there for the direct and guiding function of the administration. Participation is important under the democratic rule of law as well. Public participation can be motivated by democratic, constitutional, corporatist, or administrative motives. While the distinction between these motives for participation is not always unequivocal, these do offer an indication of the various perspectives—and consequently motives—of the parties involved in public participation. With regards to participation, a distinction can be made between the type and the level of participation achieved, ie form and degree of participation. Forms of participation are popular initiatives, the citizen’s panel, the referendum, and the community level forms. The degree of participation is quantified by using indicators, including the number of individuals, the time invested in and the frequency of participation, the involvement of individuals, the extent of influence on the process with respect to the issues addressed by the public authority and the level of participation that citizens are entitled to. Citizens could play different roles, for example one of co-decision-making, co-producing, counselling, consultation, or of distributing information.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Ahmad Johari Awang ◽  
M. Rafee Majid ◽  
Noradila Rusli

Public participation plays a vital role for the developer and local government as this ensures the acceptance of the general public to the proposed project. However, the general public participation rate in the planning process in Malaysia is still at a low level. Hence, this study was conducted to study the use of augmented reality (AR) as a tool in promoting public participation in the planning process. In the study that was conducted, 77 respondents were selected from the general public to evaluate the effectiveness of AR. During this evaluation process, 37 of them were given AR material, and another 40 of them were given classic plan material. By using feedbacks from the public, statistical analysis was done to study the effect of AR and conventional plan material on the willingness for public participation process. The statistical test shows that the participant is more willing to participate in the public participation process when AR material is being used.Keywords: AR, Public Participation, Urban Planning


Author(s):  
Andrea Sarzynski ◽  
Paolo Cavaliere

Public participation in environmental management, and more specifically in hazard mitigation planning, has received much attention from scholars and practitioners. A shift in perspective now sees the public as a fundamental player in decision making rather than simply as the final recipient of a policy decision. Including the public in hazard mitigation planning brings widespread benefits. First, communities gain awareness of the risks they live with, and thus, this is an opportunity to empower communities and improve their resilience. Second, supported by a collaborative participation process, emergency managers and planners can achieve the ultimate goal of strong mitigation plans. Although public participation is highly desired as an instrument to improve hazard mitigation planning, appropriate participation techniques are context dependent and some trade-offs exist in the process design (such as between representativeness and consensus building). Designing participation processes requires careful planning and an all-around consideration of the representativeness of stakeholders, timing, objectives, knowledge, and ultimately desired goals to achieve. Assessing participation also requires more consistent methods to facilitate policy learning from diverse experiences. New decision-support tools may be necessary to gain widespread participation from laypersons lacking technical knowledge of hazards and risks.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Charalambous ◽  
Adriana Bruggeman ◽  
Elias Giannakis ◽  
Christos Zoumides

Public participation is integrated in the European Floods Directive to ensure engagement of societal actors in selecting and accepting measures. This study assesses the Directive’s public participation process and provides recommendations for its improvement by using Cyprus as a case study. Interviews with the organizers and attendees of the public consultations were carried out to evaluate the process while a citizen survey examined people’s flood awareness and opinions of three household-level flood protection measures (permeable pavements, rainwater harvesting systems, and green roofs). Public consultation organizers were generally satisfied with the process while participants suggested better structured information and a more participatory approach. The majority (77%) of the survey respondents did not know if they lived in a designated flood risk area while 93% were unaware of the public consultations carried out for the Floods Directive. Their perception about the effectiveness of the three flood protection measures was positively associated with their willingness to implement them. The results indicated the need for more participatory methods in the public participation process and better strategies to increase awareness and the engagement of people in flood management. Establishing procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of public participation could contribute to the recognition and improvement of the process.


Author(s):  
Romain Mauger

In an energy transitions era, the citizens tend to be increasingly considered as actors of the energy system. This situation reinforces in turn the importance of public participation processes into energy policy or legislation design. In 2012-2013, a significant public participation process in the field of energy policy was organised in France, named National Debate on the Energy Transition. From the beginning, it was proclaimed that its results would be integrated into a flagship energy transition act, which did happen with the adoption of the Energy Transition for Green Growth Act of 2015. This paper provides an overview of the organisation of this public debate and of the integration of its outcome into the Energy Transition Act. The experience of France can serve for other countries engaged in a process of transition towards a more sustainable society and especially towards a massive change of their energy mix. It addresses the successes as well as the failures of the French case and provides some key learning points to enhance the public participation into the Law-making process concerning the energy transition.    


Author(s):  
Andreea Acasandre ◽  

The public participation process represents the foundation for the development of a sustainable democratic society. This research paper focuses on the relation between the citizens and public authority throughout cooperation. The concept of public participation is understood here as the interaction between different kinds of actors, through available communication channels, in order to identify needs, opinions and beliefs with the purpose of adopting and implementing them in the form of public policies and decisions. This research paper highlights a communication rupture between the public administration and the citizens in Bucharest. Given the context provided by the COVID-19 pandemic, this research paper highlights the need to modernize the public administration in order to better communicate with the population. Some of the possible causes for the miscommunication, that appeared repeatedly throughout the survey, were the disappointment of the population with the public authority, lack of civic education or difficult procedures for public participation. Some of the possible solutions mentioned by the respondents are digitalization of the process of public participation, implementation of the proposals that come from the population, better informing the citizens with respect to the projects that are to be implemented in the community and online anonymous surveys. The survey technique used in order to obtain these data was the online survey, a questionnaire applied to the population of Bucharest, from all the 6 sectors of the Capital.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Anna Małgorzata Jachimowicz

This paper describes an application of three-dimensional (also “3D”) models respectively to selected types of citizen participation. Detailed descriptions of those types are in the beginning of paper, because they are a starting points to consider using 3D models in public participation in urban design and spatial planning. In this paper, the selected software, that supports urban planners in preparing, carrying out and evaluate of participation process, has been discussed. The aim of this paper is to present the application of various tools, which allow generation of 3D models, suitable to selected methods of participation.


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