Public participation

Participatory budgeting is a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making, in which ordinary city residents decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. Participatory budgeting is usually characterized by several basic design features: identification of spending priorities by community members, election of budget delegates to represent different communities, facilitation and technical assistance by public employees, local and higher level assemblies to deliberate and vote on spending priorities, and the implementation of local direct-impact community projects. Participatory budgeting may be used by towns and cities around the world, and has been widely publicised in Porto Alegre, Brazil, were the first full participatory budgeting process was developed starting in 1989.

In economic development theory, there is a school of participatory development. The desire to increase public participation in humanitarian aid and development has led to the establishment of a numerous context-specific, formal methodologies, matrices, pedagogies and ad hoc approaches. These include conscientization and praxis; Participatory action research (PAR), rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA); appreciation influence control analysis (AIC); "open space" approaches; Objectives Oriented Project Planning (ZOPP); vulnerability analysis and capacity analysis.[3]

Around the globe experts work closely with local communities. Local communities are crucial stakeholders for heritage.[7]

Consultation with local communities is acknowledged formally in cultural management processes.[8] They are necessary for defining the significance of a cultural place/site, otherwise you run the risk to oversee many values, focusing on “experts’” views.[9] This has been the case in heritage management until the end of the 20^th century. A paradigm shift started with the Burra Charter by ICOMOS Australia in 1979[10] and was later developed by the work of the GCI around 2000.[11][12] Today, so called “value-led conservation” is at the base of heritage management for WH sites: establishing stakeholders and associated values is a fundamental step in creating a Management Plan for such sites.

The concept of stakeholders has widened to include local communities.

Various levels of local government, research institutions, enterprises, charitable organisations, and communities are all important parties. Activities such as knowledge exchange, education, consultation, exhibitions, academic events, publicity campaigns, among others are all effective means for local participation.

For instance, local charities in Homs, Syria have been undertaking several projects with local communities to protect their heritage.[13]

A conservation programme in Dangeil, Sudan, has used social and economic relationship with the community to make the project sustainable over the long term.[14]

In Australia, Indigenous communities increasingly have stewardship of conservation and management programs to care for, monitor and maintain their cultural heritage places and landscapes, particularly those containing rock art.[15]

In some countries public participation has become a central principle of public policy making. In the UK and Canada it has been observed that all levels of government have started to build citizen and stakeholder engagement into their policy-making processes. This may involve large-scale consultations, focus group research, online discussion forums, or deliberative citizens' juries. There are many different public participation mechanisms, although these often share common features (for a list over 100, and a typology of mechanisms, see Rowe and Frewer, 2005).[16]

Public participation is viewed as a tool, intended to inform planning, organising or funding of activities. Public participation may also be used to measure attainable objectives, evaluate impact, and identify lessons for future practice.[17] All modern constitutions and fundamental laws contain and declare the concept and principle of popular sovereignty, which essentially means that the people are the ultimate source of public power or government authority. The concept of popular sovereignty holds simply that in a society organized for political action, the will of the people as a whole is the only right standard of political action. It can be regarded as an important element in the system of the checks and balances, and representative democracy. Therefore, the people are implicitly entitled even to directly participate in the process of public policy and law making.[18]

In the United States public participation in administrative rulemaking refers to the process by which proposed rules are subject to public comment for a specified period of time. Public participation is typically mandatory for rules promulgated by executive agencies of the US government. Statutes or agency policies may mandate public hearings during this period.[19]

With growing complexities of the environmental issues, public participation has come to the fore in academic analysis concerning the contemporary debates about environmental governance.

There have emerged a number of arguments in favor of a more participatory approach, which stress that public participation is a crucial element in environmental governance that contributes to better decision making. It is recognised that environmental problems cannot be solved by government alone.[26] Participation in environmental decision-making effectively links the public to environmental governance. By involving the public, who are at the root of both causes and solutions of environmental problems, in environmental discussions, transparency and accountability are more likely to be achieved, thus secures the democratic legitimacy of decision-making that good environmental governance depends on.[27][28] Arguably, a strong public participation in environmental governance could increase the commitment among stockholders, which strengthens the compliance and enforcement of environmental laws. GIS can provide a valuable tool for such work (see GIS and environmental governance). In addition, some opponents argue that the right to participate in environmental decision-making is a procedural right that "can be seen as part of the fundamental right to environmental protection".[29] From this ethical perspective, environmental governance is expected to operate within a framework coinciding the "constitutional principle of fairness (inclusive of equality)", which inevitably requires the fulfillment of "environmental rights" and ultimately calls for the engagement of public.[29] Further, in the context of considerable scientific uncertainties surrounding environmental issues, public participation helps to counter such uncertainties and bridges the gap between scientifically-defined environmental problems and the experiences and values of stakeholders.[27][30] Through joint effort of the government and scientists in collaboration with the public, better governance of environment is expected to be achieved by making the most appropriate decision possible.

Although broad agreements exist, the notion of public participation in environmental decision-making has been subject to a sustained critique concerning the real outcome of participatory environmental governance. Critics argue that public participation tends to focus on reaching a consensus between actors who share the same values and seek the same outcomes. However, the uncertain nature of many of the environmental issues would undermine the validity of public participation, given that in many cases the actors come to the table of discussion hold very different perceptions of the problem and solution which are unlikely to be welded into a consensus due to the incommensurability of different positions.[31] This may run the risk of expert bias, which generates further exclusion as those who are antagonistic to the consensus would be marginalised in the environmental decision-making process, which violates the assumed advantage of participatory approach to produce democratic environmental decisions. This raises the further question of whether consensus should be the measure of a successful outcome of participation.[32] As Davies suggests, participative democracy could not guarantee the substantive environmental benefits 'if there are competing views of what the environment should be like and what it is valuable for'.[33] Consequently, who should be involved at what points in the process of environmental decision-making and what is the goal of this kind of participation become central to the debates on public participation as a key issue in environmental governance.[27]

Citizen science is a coined term commonly used to describe the participation of non-scientists in scientific research.

Liz Richardson, a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and an editor for the journal Local Government Studies, has long advocated for the greater inclusion of non-professional scientists in policy research. She emphasizes that it is academia's responsibly to facilitate the "democratization of policy research" noting several benefits of having citizens involved in not just the contribution of data, but also the framing and development of research itself (2014). She notes that the biggest disadvantage of citizen science is the reliance on using citizens as only contributing members of the scientific endeavors and pushes for a more community-based participatory research method which would include laypeople in the entirety of the research process while emphasizing the scientific method popularized by citizen science.[34]

In their 2017 article, Colin Chapman and Crona Hodges outline what they believe to be the key to success in applying citizen science to policy development: data which is "suitable, robust, and of a known quality for evidence-based policy making" (2017). They identified several barriers to applying citizen science to policy development including a lack of suitability between the data collected and the policy in question and skepticism regarding the data collected by non-experts.[35]

The Rio Declaration of 1992 enshrines public participation in its 27 principles. Principle 10 states that "environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level". The Rio Declaration continues, drawing a close link between access to information and public participation:

At the national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their communities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.[41]

The 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognised that "disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others" and that "persons with disabilities continue to face barriers in their participation as equal members of society."

The Convention makes participation of disabled one of its principles, stating "The principles of the present Convention shall be:...Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;", subsequently enshrining the right of disabled to participate fully and equally in the community, education, all aspect of life (in the context of habilitation and rehabilitation), political and public life, cultural life, leisure and sports.[42]