Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Evaluating Models for Environmental Discourse: 10 (Risk, Governance and Society, 10) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0792335171 ISBN 13: 9780792335177

Publisher: Springer, 1995

Synopsis

Ortwin Renn Thomas Wehler Peter Wiedemann In late July of 1992 the small and remote mountain resort of Morschach in the Swiss Alps became a lively place of discussion, debate, and discourse. Over a three-day period twenty-two analysts and practitioners of public participation from the United States and Europe came together to address one of the most pressing issues in contemporary environmental politics: How can environmental policies be designed in a way that achieves both effective protection of nature and an adequate representation of public values? In other words, how can we make the environmental decision process competent and fair? All the invited scholars from academia, international research institutes, and governmental agencies agreed on one fundamental principle: For environmental policies to be effective and legitimate, we need to involve the people who are or will be affected by the outcomes of these policies. There is no technocratic solution to this problem. Without public involvement, environmental policies are doomed to fail. The workshop was preceded by a joint effort by the three editors to develop a framework for evaluating different models of public participation in the environmental policy arena. During a preliminary review of the literature we made four major observations. These came to serve as the primary motivation for this book. First, the last decade has witnessed only a fair amount of interest within the sociological or political science communities in issues of public participation.

About this title

Synopsis

A vital issue facing the citizens and governments of modern democracies is the direct participation of the public in the solution of environmental problems. Governments are increasingly experimenting with approaches that give citizens a greater say in the environmental debate. "Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation" addresses a crucial question: How can we measure the performance of the citizen participation process? A novel approach to the problem is taken by viewing public participation as an act of communication. Drawing on Jurgen Habermas' "Critical Theory of Communication", a normative framework is developed around the central area of citizen participation and competence in knowledge verification. A milestone on the road of citizen participation and applied critical theory, the book provides a sound theoretical and methodological basis for the systematic evaluation of models for environmental discourse.Eight models of citizen participation are studied, from North America and Europe. Each model is evaluated and criticized in paired chapters written by prominent scholars. Planners and citizens alike will find pragmatic advice in the evaluations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0792335171
• ISBN 13: 9780792335177
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Renn Ortwin, Webler Thomas, Wiedemann Peter