Our class sessions on the 19th and 26th of April are devoted to ground-breaking forms of "participatory governance and policymaking."

Simply put, we can say that a decision-making process is "participatory" to the extent that those who are directly affected by the policy have a say in how that policy is developed. To be considered "participatory," citizens have to be able to provide more than simple input which, as you saw, is essentially all that happens at your typical village/town/city meeting. Instead, we're interested here in those instances where citizens are able to play a significant role into developing the policy alternatives or even selecting the policy alternative.

Preparing for Class

To prepare for these class sessions, you'll first have to get acquainted with these innovative forms of policymaking. I'd recommend doing a brief search on Google. In addition to the word "participatory" to refer to these more democratic forms of governance and policymaking, you may come into contact with the words "collaborative" or "deliberative" or even "empowered deliberation." Try typing some of those phrases into Google and explore the links that show up.

Upon your preliminary examination, you'll soon see that the range of activities in this family of approaches can all be characterized by the high degree to which everyday citizens interact with government to directly influence policy matters of importance to them. This citizen influence can be either consultative (e.g., public hearings) or authoritative (e.g., New England Town Meetings). Most of these experiments are further concentrated at the local level--on such issues as school governance, neighborhood development, or environmental management. In fact, this citizen participation can take place in any policy issue area (environment, public safety, education, etc.) or at any stage of the policymaking process (agenda setting, development of policy alternatives, policy selection, budgeting, implementation and monitoring, or evaluation).

After your preliminary investigation, read Sherry Arnstein's classic article on the “ladder of participation,” originally published as Arnstein, Sherry R. “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” JAIP, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216-224.

Follow that up by reading the following brief (4-page) article: “Deliberation Where You Least Expect It: Citizen Participation in Government” Connections (Fall 2003): 30-33. This article was written by Archon Fung, the pre-eminent emerging scholar in this field and a young Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. Peruse some of the papers on his site if you're interested in a longer and more academic treatment of participatory public policy decision-making processes. On his site, Archon says that

"My research and teaching aims to understand whether and how participation and deliberation can make contemporary public governance more fair and effective. On this site, you can take a look at what innovative citizens, officials, and activists are doing to improve public education, policing, the condition of the environment, and even the lives of workers in sweatshops in America and abroad. Their projects enable ordinary people get involved in the affairs of state, because government, big or small, Democrat or Republican (or even Communist and Worker's parties in developing countries like Brazil and India), just isn't going to work very well for them unless they do. These ideas of participation and deliberation seem straightforward, but quickly become complex in both theory and practice. But when people to figure out how to practice them effectively in their own corners of social life, democracy pays off like nothing else can."

I agree. Such thinking, however, is still not the norm. On the positive side, you will see that there are numerous innovators experimenting with participatory forms of local governance. Here is just a brief initial list of examples:

• City of Rochester Neighborhood Empowerment Teams The NET is supposed to be "participatory," but doesn't quite make it.
• Center for Collaborative Policy
• Participatory Budgeting - World Bank
• National Neighborhood Indicators Project. "Democratizing Information."
• The World Bank Participation Sourcebook. Washington, DC: World Bank.
• Citizen Panels - A manifestation of the "consensus conference" model, a process pioneered in Denmark intended to provide "a context for lay citizens to deliberate on technically complex issues of public policy."
  • Examples of consensus conferences on science & technology policy around the world.

And here is a list of some of the most common generic participatory group planning and decision-making techniques, where participants not only make their wishes known but also actively help set priorities and develop and/or vote on key alternatives:

I have also been working on developing a website devoted to this subject. You may find the resources available on the site useful.

Your Specific Assignment

Once you've studied some of these innovations in public policy, your specific assignment is to find one case of participatory governance, and be prepared to discuss it with the rest of the class on the 19th. Bring any relevant materials with you--each of you is responsible for explaining this case to the rest of the class. In addition to a brief description, especially concentrate your notes on the following three questions:

• How does it work?
• Is it effective?
• Where else could we use this technique / form of participatory governance?

Everyone is responsible for finding a case to discuss with the rest of the class. We'll choose some of your cases for more in-depth discussions and debate the pros and cons of that particular form of participatory policymaking. For those who are responsible for a formal group presentation on the 19th or 26th, you will follow the same instructions as above, except that you will also give a formal presentation to the rest of the class on the case study you and the rest of your group choose.

Additional Assignment

We're also going to be involved in a "participatory" knowledge-building exercise using a wiki. What each of you should do is visit the following page and add a link relevant to your case as well as a brief description. On this site, we're going to work on one of the premier participatory "Web 2.0" applications--the wiki! I am a strong believer in the future of participatory processes for governing public and nonprofit organizations and, appropriately, this will serve as a useful introduction to many of you to the use of "Web 2.0" technologies for the participatory generation of knowledge.

I'd also like you to feel free to play around with, edit, and add to any of the content you see on the wiki. In fact, that's the whole point! You'll find that wikis can be an extremely useful tool for the decentralized harnessing of "collective intelligence." If you'd like to discuss somebody else's case study, there is a "discussion" tab on the wiki site. I've placed more guidelines and instructions on the wiki site--I'll look forward to seeing you all there!

Final Thoughts

By the end of these two classes, you'll all have a solid understanding of the potential of these innovative forms of governance to transform public policy, especially at the local level.