DEMOCRACY IN PRACTICEThomas C. Beierle and Jerry Crayford

Presentation by Priyanth Manjooran, Amanda Gilbert, Eli Wade-Scott and Jordan Smith

Brief History of Public Participation New Deal of the 1930s provoked

legislative action in the form of Administrative Procedure Act Required the agencies to provide public notice,

information, and opportunity when making law through rulemaking.

What is public participation? With regards to environmental issues, public

participation is the public influence that determines how society will manage and protect the environment.

Is public participation valuable?

Methodology

Meta-analysis Foundation of research is a database

239 cases of public participation in environmental decision-making

Derived data using a “case survey” methodology A case survey is a formal process for systematically coding relevant

data for quantitative analysis from many qualitative sources.

Types of cases Cases were coded and analyzed attributes that include

aspects of the context of participation, the process of participation, and the outcomes achieved.

Types of Cases

Screening criteria used for selecting the types of cases Public participation in environmental decision-making

that occurred in the United States over the past 30 years A discrete mechanism intentionally instituted to engage

the public in administrative environmental decision-making, such as public hearings, advisory committees, or environmental mediation

The participation of nongovernmental citizens The involvement of at least one public perspective other

than the regulated community Either an identifiable lead agency or a agency for which

the output of the process would be immediately relevant

Potential benefits

Incorporating public values into decision Improving the substantive quality of

decisions Resolving conflict among competing

interests Building trust in institutions Educating and informing the public

Incorporating public values into decision• 58% received high scores • Whose values?

— 60% of cases were not socioeconomically representative

— 58% had interests “missing from the table”

Improving the substantive quality of decisions

68% had high scores Fernald Citizens Task Force saves $2

billion

Resolving conflict among competing interests

61% received high scores 33% left an issue off the table or

excluded a controversial participant

Building trust in institutions

Trust in agencies credibility or legitimacy, or respect for institution.

45% received high scores, 41% low scores.

Lipari Landfill Circle of impact

Educating and informing the public 77% received high scores Causes of low scores Failures of outreach

49% received low scores Some methods subvert outreach

Is public participation valuable? Aggregate measure of success: 61% of cases were successful. Most successful in education, least

successful in building trust. Caveats:

Who is represented Circle of information

What makes some processes more successful than

others?

Conceptual framework

Context Process Implementation

What is context?

“all features of a given situation that public participation confronts”

Examples Groundwater contamination by a military

contractor Issue is highly technical and not well

studied Contaminant mitigation unfairly affects low

income communities

What is context?

Type of issue Pre-existing relationship between public

and lead agency Institutional setting

Type of issue

Policy level issues vs. site-specific issues Natural resources vs. pollution Issue categorization Importance of issue type is limited

Pre-existing relationships

70% of cases involved high mistrust 42% of cases involved high levels of pre-

existing conflict Important of pre-existing relationships is

limited More significant impact when processes are

less intensive More intensive processes transform

relationships

Institutional context

State and federal agencies both took the lead in 38% of cases.

Importance of institutional context is limited.

Does context affect public participation?

Process Examples Participatory mechanisms

Public meetings: Open meetings, information exchange. Advisory committees: Either “seeking consensus” or

“not seeking consensus”, defined and consistent membership, usually ends in specific recommendations to agency.

Negotiations and mediations: Participants are professional representatives, forms agreements binding organizations to courses of action

Intensity: The more intense the mechanism, the more successful it will be. However it won’t always engage the wider public.

Aggregate Measure of Success, by Type of Mechanism

Variable process features

Responsiveness of the Lead Agency Motivation of the Participants Quality of deliberation Degree of Public Control Take-away: The choice of mechanism

can tell us if a process would successful or not but the variable process features tell us more.

Implementation

What is implementation? The 5 stages of Implementation

Output Agency Decision Change in law/regulation/policy Institutional action Environmental quality improvement

Forces Affecting Implementation Public participation’s effects on implementation

Better participation leads to moderately better implementation

Other Forces that affect implementation Disagreements Stall Implementation Conflict Not Really Resolved Political Intervention Changing Circumstances Links to Policies and Programs

Take-away: Public participation, even if done well, is no substitute for the regulatory power, political will, and money required to get things done.

Conclusions

Public participation helps agencies and the public meet concrete challenges that face the modern environmental management system.

Involving the public in the environmental policymaking process does (to some degree of success) produce socially valuable results: Leads to decisions that are responsive to public values Can resolve conflict among the participating groups and

the public It helps build trust in institutions increases overall knowledge about environmental issues

Conclusion

Type of process is important to understanding what makes participation successful

To enable the public to take on more fundamental roles in decisionmaking, public participation processes need to effectively incorporate technical information, education, and analysis

Foundation for building an understanding of public participation is the case study record.

So…what’s the point?

Evaluating past cases provides guidance for designing effective public participation efforts for the future

It is impossible to create a blueprint for the public participation process, but it is possible to apply a methodological approach to process design, which could increase the likelihood of success.

Designing Public Participation Success Determine the need for public

participation Identify the goals of the process Answer design questions Select and modify a process Evaluate the process

Designing Public Participation Success Determine the need for public

participation Decision makers need to be flexible, and

need to recognize that public participation may lead to priorities and conclusions that agencies find wrong.

If the agency initiating the public participation process is not willing to make the necessary commitments that make the process successful, then public participation should not be part of the decision making process.

Designing Public Participation Success Rationales for public participation

Instrumental Facilitates policy formation and implementation

Substantive Leads to superior decisions

Normative Right of citizens Route to a more healthy democratic society

Designing Public Participation Success Identify the goals of the process

Will the process need to identify and incorporate public values into decisions?

Does the process need to resolve conflict?

Designing Public Participation Success Answer design questions

Who should participate? What kind of engagement is appropriate?

Information sharing vs. deliberation How much influence should the public

have? What role should government play?

Designing Public Participation Success Select and modify a process

Mechanism types not set in stone Cost considerations

Evaluate the process Build information base of the approaches to

public participation that achieve satisfactory results.