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Concept
Public participation (decision making)
Summary
Citizen Participation or Public Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic (i.e. participatory economics), political (i.e. participatory democracy or parpolity), management (i.e. participatory management), cultural (i.e. polyculturalism) or familial (i.e. feminism).
For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary but not sufficient. It has also been argued that those most affected by a decision should have the most say while those that are least affected should have the least say in a topic.
Sherry Arnstein discusses eight types of participation in A Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969). Often termed as "Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation ", these are broadly categorized as:
Citizen Power: Citizen Control, Delegated Power, Partnership.
Tokenism: Placation, Consultation, Informing.
Non-participation: Therapy, Manipulation.
She defines citizen participation as the redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future.
Robert Silverman expanded on Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation with the introduction of his "citizen participation continuum." In this extension to Arstein's work he takes the groups that drive participation into consideration and the forms of participation they pursue. Consequently, Silverman's continuum distinguishes between grassroots participation and instrumental participation.
Archon Fung presents another classification of participation based on three key questions: Who is allowed to participate, and are they representative of the population? What is the method of communication or decision-making? And how much influence or authority is granted to the participation?
Other "ladders" of participation have been presented by D.
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