E

Mod 8 Readings

Good or Bad? Charming or Tedious? Understanding Public Participation

  • Purpose: to describe, analyze, categorize the main forms of engagement so that readers can understand how to judge quality of participation (good or bad)

    • Three forms of participation (thick, thin, conventional)

Defining Public Participation and Exploring Its Modern Forms

  • Definition: Public participation is an umbrella term that describes the activities by which people’s concerns, needs, interests, and values are incorporated into decisions and actions on public matters and issues.

    • Types of DP: thick, thin, conventional

Thick Participation

  • Enables large numbers of people, working in small groups to learn, decide, act—most powerful and most time consuming, least common

    • Can be done through deliberation (discussion about views to make a decision based on facts/emotions/etc.) or dialogue/debate

  • Outside-the-room Factors

    • Proactive, network based recruitment (attracts many people, reach out to influential people who reach to constituents, organizers pay attention to recruiting people who are affected by issue/prolly won’t attend —> participants hear abt process from people they know/trust)

    • Small group facilitation (facilitators guide discussions and lay ground rules)

    • A discussion sequence (sharing experiences to considering views/policies to planning action)

    • Issue framing (describes the main views on the issue being addressed)

    • An action strategy (helps participants/officials capitalize on energy/input generated throughout the process)

  • Another strategy of TP is ‘serious games’ that simulate real world events to educate users and solve problems. (video games)

  • Face-to-Face processes for TP

    • Citizen assemblies and juries

    • Participatory budgeting

    • Study Circles

    • Open Space

  • Online platforms for TP

    • Dialogue App

    • MetroQuest

    • Engagement HQ

    • Zilino

Thin Participation

  • Activates people as individuals not groups. Historically, that was petitions/surveys but now is an e-petition, like or repost, donations etc.

    • Motivation comes from feeling like a part of a larger movement/cause—sometimes activities go viral through Internet networking

  • Thin participation requires shorter time commitments and less intense intellectual/emotional contributions

  • Thick and thin participation isn’t just face to face versus online: both are interchangeable

    • A visitor to a crowdsourcing platform can take either two minutes or many hours commenting and voting on ideas

      • 3 B’s of open data (Mark Headd) draw people to these platforms

        • Bullets (crime statistics), budgets (city expenditures) and buses (public transit schedules)

  • ThP has more variety than thick/conventional processes and give these opportunities:

    • Affiliate with a cause, rank ideas (for solving a problem), donate money, play games (educational/gather input), provide discrete pieces of data (to identify issues or improve services)

    • All of these allow individuals to express ideas/opinions that requires only a little of their time (still requires recruitment to attract people)

  • Both have limits: thick = temporary, not incorporated into larger plans. thin = isolated products not incorporated into larger plans.

    • “thick engagement doesn’t ‘scale,’ and thin engagement doesn’t stick”

  • Direction is to combine best features of both types that can be replicated and embedded in communities.

Conventional Participation

  • older forms of engagement that were developed to uphold order, accountability, and transparency

  • Most common type b/c it is entrenched in public institutions/law (official participation—not just governmental can be HOAs or PTOs)

  • Described mostly as meetings/hearings by public bodies (school boards, city councils). Reliance on common procedures:

    • Advance notification (bulletin/announcement on website/news), audience-style room (leaders at front, citizens in rows), a preset agenda (strictly followed), and public comment segments (2-3 mins to address officials).

  • This form of government is tedious/frustrating.

Why Does Conventional Participation Cause Problems? 

  • Do not succeed in upholding public values of transparency, accessibility, and accountability.

    • Reasons why: transparent practices do not lead to the sense that public officials are receptive, and citizens do not attend.

  • Leaders trying to fix that issue usually only do so in times of crisis with a temporary/limited project

  • Problems with conventional participation:

    • Conventional participation can be harmful to citizens—makes them feel powerless, decreases interest/trust in govt. May also inc polarization, creating extreme positions.

      • Decline in attendance is not apathy, but a decision based off calculating costs/benefits

    • Conventional participation can harm administrators and public officials—organization/preparations are costly and tiring. Dealing with hostile citizens.

    • Conventional participation can harm policy and governance—scholars say that public meetings don’t actually involve citizens and public participation may actually degrade quality of decisions/policy implementation.

  • Overall, deterioration of people-public link —> decline in legitimacy and financial sustainability of governments. Attempts to reframe is through good participation.

What is Good Participation?

  • Means “treating citizens like adults.”

  • Ways in which good participation activities (thick and thin) can show respect, responsibility:

    • Providing factual information—basic stuff about public problems, budgets, services through printed handouts, infographics, presentations.

    • Giving people a chance to tell stories—making people feel heard, relate experiences and learn from one another. Small groups