.: Citizen Participation: Barriers, Obstacles & Levels of Participation :.

by nkm

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Levels of Citizen Participation

According the Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation, there are eight levels of participation.  Various rungs on her ladder comply with three perceptions of participation.  The table that follows includes:

PARTICIPATION CATEGORY	PARTICIPATION LEVEL	CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
Non-participation	Manipulation	Serve the city as appointees to advisory boards or committees.  According to Arnstein, education of members occurs specifically to bring the appointees in line with a proposed action.  Cooptation occurs when citizens are brought into the process but have no authority over the outcome.
Non-participation	Therapy	Coincides with powerlessness in situations where citizens are brought together to influence their behavior, rather than solve the problems caused by official actions.
Degree Tokenism	Informing	Informing citizens takes place when programs, rights, or options are presented.  Informing is a form of education on topical information or processes.  Informing situations generally do not take opinions into consideration.
Degree Tokenism	Consultation	Is one of the more important elements of citizen input.  Consultation can occur throughout the life of a process – even before any explicit policy is created or drafted.  There are various means of consulting the public – surveys, neighborhood meetings, town hall meetings, internet email or web site, public hearings.  Bringing policy back to the public throughout the process and informing them of how their views were accommodated or why they were not, facilitates this process.  Consultation can also include workshops and charrettes.
Degree Tokenism	Placation	Generally appointed by elected officials to boards or commissions such as parks & recreation, planning, capital improvements, etc.  These appointed officials can hold public hearings and may have the power to make final decisions on certain issues, ie. Plats.  Where heavy debate occurs between members, that information is often made available to elected officials for their consideration and the final opinion of the recommending body.
Degree               Citizen Power	Partnership	Partnerships occur when citizens and officials share the same power and decision-making authority.  This can occur where a separate authority is created to oversee an authority – water boards are one example.
Degree             Citizen Power	Delegated Power	Citizen boards have the authority to make decisions on certain specific issues or programs – such as a community development program.  In Texas, one example would be Keep Texas Beautiful.
Degree             Citizen Power	Citizen Control	Citizens are authorized with final authority over an issue or program, how the program is structured and run – ie. Neighborhood development corporations.

Barriers and Obstacles to Increased Citizen Participation

Obstacles to citizen participation include trust and respect between officials, staff and citizens.  Mechanisms that control economic development programs and specific projects can be territory for citizen debate with extreme points of view.  Motivating citizenry to participate in government is one of the hardest obstacles to overcome for a governing body.  Finding willing and able bodies to fill various boards and commissions is incredibly difficult.  Gaining participation from those within a certain race or ethnic groups is even harder.  The nationwide decline in voting participation makes this even more difficult.  In some quadrants, people join groups based on their interests, which may have political and/or social agendas.  These groups are supported financially to allow experienced and trained staffs to educate, inform and implement programs to achieve certain interest goals and objectives.  This appears to be a more recent trend in participation with volunteerism falling off.  Public participation often occurs when controversy is exhibited in individual actions, programs or projects – people can show up in angry droves, often at the end of the decision-making cycle, having never attended consultation meetings.  It is a rare thing for citizens to show up when they are happy or supportive of a program or project.  Often, local governments do not have set policies for citizen participation, other than those legally required by law.  This is problematic and can be easily solved in preparation of guidelines for levels of participation necessary for different projects, programs or scenarios.  Entities could even ask their particular public how much participation they want.  Decentralization and fragmentation of government reduces communication and makes participation difficult, at least on an individual basis, especially when overlapping responsibilities confuse the public.  Conspiracy theorists, paranoia and fear of government also preclude involvement.  Regionalism may be a mechanism to allow diverse groups to participate and actually take action on major regional issues. Building equity is also an issue for consideration in public participation efforts.  Redistribution of power in this process allows the have-nots (problematic elements in participation) to be deliberately included in the process.  Poor populations believe that government is not accountable, corrupt and leaves them without a voice. (Ross and Levine, 2001; Galston and Levine, 1997; Ohio State University, 2003; participation.net, 2003; McGovern, 1997; Silveira et.al., 1993; and Lando, 1999)

 
Bibliography

See General Topic Bibliography with previous post Alternatives to Metropolitan Fragmentation