Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review

It is widely argued that increased community participation in government decision making produces many important benefits. Dissent is rare: It is difficult to envision anything but positive outcomes from citizens joining the policy process, collaborating with others and reaching consensus to bring about positive social and environmental change. This article, motivated by contextual problems encountered in a participatory watershed management initiative, reviews the citizen-participation literature and analyzes key considerations in determining whether community participation is an effective policy-making tool. We list conditions under which community participation may be costly and ineffective and when it can thrive and produce the greatest gains in effective citizen governance. From the detritus of an unsuccessful citizen-participation effort, we arrive at a more informed approach to guide policy makers in choosing a decision-making process that is appropriate for a community's particular needs.

Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the effort?

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged in the past decades as an alternative research paradigm, which integrates education and social action to improve health and reduce health disparities. More than a set of research methods, CBPR is an orientation to research that focuses on relationships between academic and community partners, with principles of colearning, mutual benefit, and long-term commitment and incorporates community theories, participation, and practices into the research efforts. As CBPR matures, tensions have become recognized that challenge the mutuality of the research relationship, including issues of power, privilege, participation, community consent, racial and/or ethnic discrimination, and the role of research in social change. This article focuses on these challenges as a dynamic and ever-changing context of the researcher-community relationship, provides examples of these paradoxes from work in tribal communities, discusses the evidence that CBPR reduces disparities, and recommends transforming the culture of academia to strengthen collaborative research relationships.

/pdf/using-community-based-participatory-research-to-address-45kgmehmv9.pdf

Using Community-Based Participatory Research to Address Health Disparities

Imprecise definition of key terms in the “public participation” domain have hindered the conduct of good research and militated against the development and implementation of effective participation practices. In this article, we define key concepts in the domain: public communication, public consultation, and public participation. These concepts are differentiated according to the nature and flow of information between exercise sponsors and participants. According to such an information flow perspective, an exercise’s effectiveness may be ascertained by the efficiency with which full, relevant information is elicited from all appropriate sources, transferred to (and processed by) all appropriate recipients, and combined(when required) to give an aggregate/consensual response. Key variables that may theoretically affect effectiveness—and on which engagement mechanisms differ—are identified and used to develop a typology of mechanisms. The resultant typology reveals four communication, six consultation, and...

http://ccvq.org/documents/vie-du-quartier/st-ls-gz/etudes/Rowe&Frewer(2005).pdf

A typology of public engagement mechanisms

Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management

Beskriver ulike grader av brukermedvirkning, og regnes som en klassiker innenfor temaet brukermedvirkning og psykisk helsearbeid.

https://www.historyofsocialwork.org/1969_ENG_Ladderofparticipation/1969,%20Arnstein,%20ladder%20of%20participation,%20original%20text%20OCR%20C.pdf

A Ladder of Citizen Participation

We, the North City Area Wide Council, Inc., believe this is a unique case study. It has been put together by community people for the benefit of other community people. Although it will be widely read by policy makers and politicians, it is addressed only to people like ourselves who are struggling against impossible odds to make public programs relevant to poor and powerless people.

Maximum Feasible Manipulation

A Working Model for Public Participation

Epistemology and Future Studies: How Do We Know What We Can't Know?@@@The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications@@@Social Systems Design: Normative Theory and the MAPS Design Technology@@@A Study of Future Worlds@@@Perspectives on Technology Assessment

Sherry R. Arnstein

Papers

A Ladder of Citizen Participation

Maximum Feasible Manipulation

A Working Model for Public Participation

Epistemology and Future Studies: How Do We Know What We Can't Know?@@@The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications@@@Social Systems Design: Normative Theory and the MAPS Design Technology@@@A Study of Future Worlds@@@Perspectives on Technology Assessment