Public participation, also known as citizen participation or patient and public involvement, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.
Generally, public participation seeks to facilitate the involvement of those who are potentially affected by or interested in a decision. This can be in relation to individuals, governments, institutions, companies or any other entities that affect public interests. The principle of public participation holds that those who are affected by a decision have a right to be involved in the decision-making process. Public participation implies that public contributions can influence decision-making outcomes. Public participation may be regarded as a form of empowerment and as a vital part of democratic governance. In the context of knowledge management, the establishment of ongoing participatory processes is seen by some as the facilitator of collective intelligence and inclusiveness, shaped by the desire for the participation of the whole community or society.
Public participation is part of "people centred" or "human centric" principles, which have emerged in Western culture over the last thirty years, and has had some bearings of education, business, public policy and international relief and development programs. Public participation is advanced by the humanist movements. Public participation may be advanced as part of a "people first" paradigm shift. In this respect, public participation may challenge the concept that "big is better" and the logic of centralized hierarchies, advancing alternative concepts of "more heads are better than one" and arguing that public participation can sustain productive and durable change.
Some legal and other frameworks have developed a human rights approach to public participation. For example, the right to public participation in economic and human development was enshrined in the 1990 African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation.African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation Similarly, major environmental and sustainability mechanisms have enshrined a right to public participation, such as the Rio Declaration.Shelton, Dinah. "A rights-based approach to public participation and local management of natural resources." 3rd IGES International Workshop on Forest Conservation Strategies for the Asia and Pacific Region. 1999.
Right to public participation
Public trust In recent years, loss of public trust in authorities and politicians has become a widespread concern in many democratic societies. The relationship between citizens and local governments has weakened over the past two decades due to shortcomings in public service delivery. Public participation is often discussed as one potential response to declining public trust and governance challenges, particularly in the UK, Europe, and other democracies. Establishing direct citizen participation can increase governance's effectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice. The idea is that public should be involved more fully in the policy process in that, authorities seek public views and participation, instead of treating the public as simply passive recipients of policy decisions.
The underlying assumption among political theorists, social commentators, and politicians is that public participation increases public trust in authorities, improving citizen political efficacy, enhancing democratic ideals and even improving the quality of policy decisions. However, the assumed benefits of public participation in restoring public trust are yet to be confirmed.Rowe, G. and Frewer, L.J. (2000) Public participation methods: A framework for evaluation, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 25 (1), 3-29.Rowe, G. and Gammack, J.G. (2004) Promise and perils of electronic public engagement, Science and Public Policy, 31 (1), 39-54. Citizen participation is only sustained if citizens support it and if their involvement is actively supported by the governing body.
Accountability Public participation may also be viewed as accountability enhancing. The argument is that public participation can enable communities to hold public authorities accountable for implementation.Nazrul Islam, Nazrul Isable Martinez and Wang Xi, "Environmental Law in Developing Countries: Selected Issues, IUCN, 2002, pg.7 In the United Kingdom citizens are used to ensure the fair and humane detention of prisoners. Volunteers comprise the Independent Monitoring Board that reports on the fair and humane detention of prisoners and detainees.
Many community organizations are composed of affluent middle-class citizens with the privilege and the time to participate. It is well documented that low-income citizens face difficulty organizing themselves and engaging in public issues. Obstacles like: finding affordable childcare, getting time off of work, and access to education in public matters exacerbate the lack of participation by low-income citizens. To foster greater participation of all social groups, vanguard privileged classes work to bring in low-income citizens through collaboration. The organizations establish an incentive for participation through accessible language and friendly environments. This allows for an atmosphere of consensus between middle and lower-income citizens.
Efficacy Why is the public motivated to participate in policy making in the first place? A study from Christopher M. Weible argues in his stakeholder example that individuals are motivated by their belief systems. More specifically, people are "motivated to convert their beliefs into policy" (Weible, 2007). Weible digresses his statements with a "three-tier hierarchical belief system" (Weible, 2007). The first tier is unchanging fundamental beliefs that a person holds. The middle tier is composed of core beliefs regarding policy and is more "pliable than deep core beliefs" (Weible, 2007), which is found in tier one. The final tier is merely secondary beliefs.
Christopher Weible’s study suggests that individuals may have an intrinsic motivation to participate in policy-making to some degree. That being said, how effective is public participation in the sphere of policy making? A study by Milena I. Neshkova and Hai Guo illuminates the effectiveness of public participation by using analyzing data from U.S. state transportation agencies. The way these authors measured this is by observing the "effect of public participation on organizational performance" (Neshkova and Guo, 2012). The organizational performance in this instance is U.S. state transportation agencies. The researchers concluded that "public participation is, in fact, associated with enhanced organizational performance" (Neshkova and Guo, 2012). Bureaucratic agencies in general become more effective when including the public in their decision making. What these two studies show is that the public has not only an interest in policy making, but is driven by their beliefs. Lastly, public participation is indeed an effective tool when lawmakers or bureaucratic agencies are making policies or laws.
Evaluating methods of public participation and involvement in across multiple disciplines and languages has been an ongoing challenge, making it difficult to assess effectiveness. Some novel tools for reporting involvement, engagement and participation across disciplines using standardised terminology have been developed. For example, a beta version of Standardised Data on Initiatives (STARDIT) was published in 2022, using Wikidata to encourage consistent terminology across languages to describe the tasks of involvement, the methods, communication modes and any impacts or outcomes from involvement. STARDIT has already been used by a number of organisations to report initiatives, including Cochrane, Australian Genomics 'Guidelines For Community Involvement In Genomics Research', NIHR funded research projects, La Trobe University's Academic and Research Collaborative in Health (ARCH), citizen science projects and the Wiki Journals.
However, participation is said by Huxley to be a possible method of capturing community activity into regimes of power and control although it has also been noted that capture and empowerment can co-exist.
By field
Art
Budgeting
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.
Development
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.
Environment and sustainable development In recent years, public participation has become seen as a vital part of addressing environmental problems and bringing about sustainable development. In this context are limits of solely relying on technocratic bureaucratic monopoly of decision making, and it is argued that public participation allows governments to adopt policies and enact laws that are relevant to communities and take into account their needs.