Listening to the Public – Enacting Power: Citizen Access, Standing and Influence in Public Participation Discourses

Carvalho, Anabela; Pinto-Coelho, Zara; Seixas, Eunice Castro

doi:10.1080/1523908x.2016.1149772

Cited by 51 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Since we are dealing with a transition that needs to happen in contexts that vary widely with regards to political and innovation cultures, as well as biocapacity [40], it becomes pertinent to investigate how such differences in culture weigh into what can or should be expected from how participative collectives are constituted [30]. Whereas in some contexts, such as the Netherlands, it is considered straightforward that public engagement is a prerequisite for a successful bioeconomy transition [37], in others it might not-or with different enactments [23]. The transition to a bioeconomy requires actions on a global scale, yet regional efforts are needed to demonstrate progress and to identify useful indicators that monitor the performance of a sustainable bioeconomy [41,42].…”

Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The transition to a bioeconomy requires actions on a global scale, yet regional efforts are needed to demonstrate progress and to identify useful indicators that monitor the performance of a sustainable bioeconomy [41,42]. It is a challenge that takes on many forms to ensure that public participation does not turn into a meaningless or stripped-down strategic practice, in which official authorities pretend to listen to citizens while continuing the pursuit of their own vested interests and exerting their own power [23]. Contextualized case studies, such as the one presented in this article, can serve to shed light both on good practices as well as on blind spots or open-ended challenges-such as for instance knowledge integration.…”

Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stakeholders have diverging views and priorities with regard to the policy objectives and interventions. Citizens are often interested in technological change [45] and progress toward more sustainable societies, but enrolling them in participatory collectives does require an appropriate participatory approach to make sense of current developments and to form an opinion on the developments and desirable futures [23,31,46]. Understanding this can help us design more effective or targeted policy interventions (be it with incentives such as subsidies, public procurement or behavioral "nudging" to induce changes).…”

Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Constructing the Public in Roadmapping the Transition to a Bioeconomy: A Case Study from the Netherlands

Lynch

Klaassen

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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In recent years there has been increasing attention to the transition toward a bioeconomy. From comparable transitions toward sustainability, we know that transitions require integral, inclusive approaches toward developing a long-term strategy, focusing not only on technological innovation, but also on involving the public. This is not easy. Public engagement encompasses diverse forms of public and civil society participation, and it is crucial to understand the specificities of these interactions and their effects on potential transition pathways. We present a conceptual-analytical paper where the focus lies on understanding sense-making practices in the construction of publics in the bioeconomy. Using a case-study approach, this article describes five partialities of the constructed public in the bioeconomy and analyzes the orchestration, productive dimensions and effects of these constructions. Our analysis offers a new perspective on, and appreciation of, the partiality of different forms of public participation, and varying degrees in which possibilities of system change in the bioeconomy transition are inclusive or exclusive toward differentially constructed publics. This offers an alternative, constructive way of exploring actor dynamics and politics in system change. We aim to contribute to a more nuanced and integral interpretation of public engagement in sustainability transitions, which is relevant to actors from academia, policy, industry and other spheres relevant to the bioeconomy transition.

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Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Strengths Limitations and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Constructing the Public in Roadmapping the Transition to a Bioeconomy: A Case Study from the Netherlands

Lynch

Klaassen

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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“…The space of participation is a complex social and physical environment that is accessed—not necessarily equally—by diverse actors. Myopia about power relations potentially contributes to participation failure, confounding good intentions and even explicit rules designed to ensure respectful behaviour and procedural justice (see Durand et al ; Gaynor ; Carvalho et al ). Indigenous and participatory methodologies are now widely advocated (see, for example, Government of Nunavut, n.d.) and have helped innovate ways to re‐centre people and community within environmental and development decisions, but they do not consistently deliver procedural justice or dissolve post‐colonial power relations (Louis ; de Leeuw et al ; Enns et al ).…”

Section: Situating Space In Participatory and Deliberative Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Notes on a caribou hearing: Spatial marginalization through participatory democracy in western Nunavut

Tam

2018

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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Key MessagesPublic hearings function as rituals of participatory democracy whereby indigenous actors must establish their legitimacy via Western communication ideals.Environmental communication as data, story, and behaviour in participation exercises reveal shifting cultural ways of knowing and communicating.Spatial marginalization is related to invited participation in place, the distancing effects of place characteristics, and the experience of being out of place.Public hearings, as a communication tool for community engagement, uphold the processes and assumptions of deliberative participation, but the power relations entwined in participation space are often unremarked. The spatiality of participation can serve to marginalize those publics most affected by environmental policy, such as remote communities reliant on subsistence harvesting. Spatial marginalization was evident when the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board invited Hunters and Trappers Organizations from four Kitikmeot communities to caribou hearings in June 2016 to discuss a proposed total allowable harvest. The hearings were held in Cambridge Bay, the administrative centre of the Kitikmeot region, a hamlet in western Nunavut singular in its economic growth and population diversity. In situ observation during the hearings coupled with a content analysis of hearing transcripts and interviews with attendees suggest that decisions on participation space affect access materially because of who can be there in place to participate, and socially because of the place characteristics of participation. Participants can also be constrained by being out of place, cleaved from the affective support of their communities. At the Nunavut caribou hearings, spatial marginalization emerged as a dark side to participatory democracy. Recognizing this marginalization is a condition for overcoming it. The Canadian Geographer Le Géographe canadienThe Canadian Geographer Le Géographe canadien discuter d'une proposition de r ecolte totale autoris ee. Les audiences se sont tenues a Cambridge Bay, le centre administratif de la r egion de Kitikmeot, un hameau dans l'ouest du Nunavut qui se distingue par sa croissance economique et la diversit e de sa population. Des observations sur place lors des audiences combin ees a une analyse du contenu des transcriptions des audiences et a des entrevues avec des participants sugg erent que les d ecisions sur l'espace de participation ont une incidence sur l'acc es, d'une part physiquement en raison de l'identit e des personnes qui peuventêtre l a sur place pour participer et d'autre part socialement en raison des caract eristiques du lieu de la participation. Les participants peuvent egalementêtre gên es parce qu'ils sont d eplac es, etant coup es du soutien affectif de leur communaut e. Lors des audiences sur les caribous au Nunavut, la marginalisation spatiale est apparue comme un côt e obscur de la d emocratie participative. La reconnaissance de cette marginalisation est une condition pour la surmonter.

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“…According to Fischer (2016, 97), critical policy analysis 'means not only to focus on problems, and the decisions designed to deal with them, but also to examine the normative assumptions upon which they are based.' In the context of public policy consultation, critical inquiry thus demands an engagement with the democratic assumptions underpinning consultation theory and practice (see Carvalho, Pinto-Coelho, and Seixas 2016;Patten 2001). Within this study, we employ the democratic principles of meaningful influence and equity as a normative framework with which to critically evaluate public policy consultation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose input counts? Evaluating the process and outcomes of public consultation through the BC Water Act Modernization

Jollymore

MCFARLANE

Harris

2017

Critical Policy Studies

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Public consultation has become an increasingly common form of democratic engagement. While critics have challenged the potential for public consultation to democratize policy-making due to existing power structures, few studies have undertaken a systematic evaluation of the policy outcomes of consultation. This study combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to systematically analyze participants' responses to policy proposals, and compare those responses with resulting policies. We utilized this approach to examine the large-scale public consultation process that informed the development of British Columbia's new Water Sustainability Act (2014). Our analysis revealed: 1) barriers to effectual engagement, particularly for First Nations; 2) statistical differences in policy preferences between industry and non-industry groups; and 3) patterns in how these preferences align with policy outcomes, suggesting uneven participant influence on policy-making. This study highlights the importance of analyzing consultation outcomes alongside process design, and the need to assess consultation's fairness and effectiveness by examining its outcomes for different participant groups.

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Listening to the Public – Enacting Power: Citizen Access, Standing and Influence in Public Participation Discourses

Cited by 51 publications

References 30 publications

Constructing the Public in Roadmapping the Transition to a Bioeconomy: A Case Study from the Netherlands

Constructing the Public in Roadmapping the Transition to a Bioeconomy: A Case Study from the Netherlands

Notes on a caribou hearing: Spatial marginalization through participatory democracy in western Nunavut

Whose input counts? Evaluating the process and outcomes of public consultation through the BC Water Act Modernization

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