Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making (2008) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Effects of Public Participation
3 The Effects of Public Participation
Pages 75-94
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From page 75... ...
It is important to note, however, that findings on fine-grained issues, such as about which processes produce which kinds of desired results, are much less vulnerable to such biases. The literature shows considerable variation in the degree of success, depending on the context and the process used, so whatever publication biases may exist have not precluded reporting of less than ideal results.
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From page 76... ...
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies An important source of evidence comes from experimental and quasiexperimental studies. Only a few experimental studies of participation processes have been conducted using control groups and random assignment to provide internal validity.
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From page 77... ...
However, some were told that mission planning, including the decision to use the generator, was based on expert knowledge and experience, while others were told that decisions about mission planning, objectives, design, and the use of the generator were based equally on active public participation and on expert knowledge and experience. The individuals who were told that the decision incorporated public participation were significantly more supportive of the decision itself, as well as the process by which the decision was reached.
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From page 78... ...
A form of quasi-experimental evidence specific to environmental decision making is provided by a few studies that compared sets of decision processes in the same organizational context that used systematically different formats, one more participatory than another. Such comparisons lack experimental control in that decisions were not randomly assigned to more or less participatory formats.
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From page 79... ...
And as already noted, the attribution of causation with quasi-experimental designs is never as certain as it is with pure experiments. A series of studies compared the results of watershed management planning in 20 estuaries operating under the National Estuary Plan (NEP)
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From page 80... ...
More useful are studies that examine multiple cases, some more participatory than others, using internally consistent definitions of the key variables. In addition to the studies already discussed, useful evidence comes from studies that examine the outcomes of multiple public participation processes that are not systematically different because of a specified difference in format, but that vary in degree along dimensions of participation and are coded consistently on such dimensions and on indicators of results.
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From page 81... ...
Department of Energy (DOE) had organized public participation processes to advise on the cleanup of hazardous materials, mostly associated with nuclear weapons production.
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From page 82... ...
The extent of stakeholder participation was strongly and positively associated with the perceived impacts of the assessments. It is worth emphasizing that studies of global environmental assessments come from a research tradition quite separate from public participation research: they rarely cite or draw on major works on environmental public participation.
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From page 83... ...
. The results of the global assessment studies can thus be fairly summarized in the terms of the present effort as follows: when public participation involves the producers and users of environmental assessments in the coproduction of decision-relevant knowledge, it simultaneously improves quality, legitimacy, and capacity outcomes as indicated by participants' judgments.2 It may be expected that by so doing, participation increases the likelihood that the assessments will lead to implementation.
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From page 84... ...
. Although their definitions of degree of participation are qualitative and not always explicit, and they are therefore almost certain to vary across practitioners, every one of these practitioner handbooks strongly supports two fundamental conclusions about environmental public participation from the practitioner's point of view: that making environmental decisions more participatory can yield improved results, and that such results are contingent on a variety of process and contextual factors.
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From page 85... ...
The strength of this evidence could be bolstered by complementing the existing literature with more experimental studies and carefully structured quasi-experiments that provide strong internal validity regarding causeand-effect relationships, even if at some cost in external validity. Nevertheless, the available evidence converges on fairly consistent results across several methods of measuring participation and outcomes and across a wide variety of environmental assessment and decision contexts.
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From page 86... ...
in their ratings of 239 public participation cases covering a great diversity of environmental decision contexts and processes on five outcome variables, which they called social goals: improving the substantive quality of decisions, incorporating public values into decisions, resolving conflict among competing interests, building trust in institutions, and educating and informing the public. In our terms, the first is a measure of quality, the second may relate to both quality and legitimacy, the third and fourth are legitimacy indicators, and the last is a measure of capacity.
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From page 87... ...
One example is the work, already mentioned, of Lubell and Leach (2005) , who explored the effectiveness of environmental decisions in collaborative watershed partnerships involving 20 estuaries under the National Estuary Program (and 10 nonpartnership estuaries)
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From page 88... ...
But their data do not provide strong evidence that building consensus causes better decisions for two reasons. Decision quality was measured by participants' judgments, which could have been influenced by feelings about the process as well as by characteristics of the decision themselves (the unit of analysis in the relevant regression analyses was the participant, not the case)
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From page 89... ...
They emphasize understanding and communicating the interests that underlie diverse views, sharing information and developing creative options, using objective criteria, building trust, including the public early in the process, keeping the process open and flexible, maintaining transparency, and monitoring outcomes. This emphasis suggests that practitioners in this tradition believe that processes focused closely on improving legitimacy yield benefits in terms of the full range of desired outcomes, including decision quality and capacity.
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From page 90... ...
report, Understanding Risk, which drew heavily on practical experience in characterizing risks for nonscientists. The recommendations offered for practice in that report were justified primarily in terms of their contribution to the quality of environmental decisions, although legitimacy was also considered.
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From page 91... ...
Over time and with increased experience regarding difficult environmental decisions, each group of practitioners has come to recognize the critical importance of the central concerns of the other, with writings on risk assessment increasingly recognizing the importance of broad representation and of deliberation about judgments and values, and writings on environmental dispute resolution increasingly emphasizing the need to incorporate relevant scientific knowledge. This observation suggests that in most areas of environmental assessment and decision making, it is both imperative and possible to develop practices that promote decision quality and legitimacy at the same time.
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From page 92... ...
In some situations, particular issues require special attention. For example, when the interested and affected parties to a decision seriously mistrust each other or the responsible public authority, special attention to building legitimacy may be necessary.
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From page 93... ...
. 3Practitioners also express concerns that unexamined assumptions about the relative priorities among desired characteristics of public participation may affect process choices implicitly or explicitly, creating trade-offs, for example, between the desire to make decision making more efficient and the time and attention needed to achieve joint gains or improved quality in the agreements reached.
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