Citizen Participation and Sustainable Development

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Citizen Participation and Sustainable Development

• Graham Smith
• School of Social Sciences
• University of Southampton

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The attitude-behaviour gapA barrier to
environmental citizenship

• How to bridge the gap between citizens
  environmental attitudes and their actual
  behaviour?
• significant level of environmental awareness and
  concern amongst citizens.
• rarely converts into the type of behaviour
  necessary for sustainable development e.g.
  cutting back on car usage, changing consumption
  patterns, etc.
• Important role for public authorities?
• regulatory and fiscal incentives necessary to
  shape environmentally-sensitive behaviour.

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The problem of government intervention?

• To achieve sustainable outcomes, public
  authorities will need to employ a greater range
  of policy instruments
• Legal regulation
• Green taxation, etc.
• But, strong public resistance to imposition of
  measures to achieve radical changes in
  consumption patterns.
• Citizens are suspicious of the motives of public
  authorities.
• Increased state intervention is likely to
  increase sense of political alienation.

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Responding to the conundrumcitizen participation

• Citizen participation and deliberation in the
  decision making process offers an ingenious
  solution
• Citizens are dissatisfied democrats
• Lack of trust in political institutions
• But strong commitment to democratic norms
• Increases legitimacy of potentially controversial
  policies.
• Citizen participation in the formulation of
  environmental policy offers a mechanism for
  building trust in public authorities and
  acceptance / support of decisions.
• Improves knowledge-base for decision making.
• Information flows between citizens and decision
  makers.

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Responding to the conundrumcitizen participation

• Enhances environmental citizenship
• Orientates citizens towards the public good and
  promotes reflection on environmental values.
• Exposes the narrowly self-interested grounds of
  many environmentally-degrading and unsustainable
  practices.
• Citizens confront the implications of policy
  choices, such as the environmental costs of
  consumption and production patterns.
• Part of the process of internalising
  environmental values and developing an
  environmental ethos.
• Opportunity to develop skills, capacities and
  dispositions necessary for environmental
  citizenship.

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Sustainable policy?

• There is no guarantee that citizen participation
  will lead to sustainable development.
• However, good reasons to expect more
  environmentally-informed decisions that are
  accepted as legitimate by citizens.
• Arguing for participation and deliberation is the
  easy part
• Evidence from practice?

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Experiments in participationDeliberative
innovations

• If participation is to be embedded in the
  political process, we need to think carefully
  about institutional design.
• Many participation exercises have been poorly
  designed and executed, often increasing the
  alienation of citizens.
• Growing interest in democratic experiments such
  as citizens juries, consensus conferences and
  deliberative opinion polls
• Independent organisation and facilitation to
  ensure fairness
• Careful selection of cross-section of the
  population
• Presentations and opportunity to question
  experts
• Citizens given time to deliberate over policy
  options

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Experiments in participationDeliberative
innovations

• Evidence indicates that citizens are willing and
  able to deliberate on controversial and complex
  policy issues and provide reasoned decisions.
• A small number of deliberative innovations have
  been run on environmental issues, e.g.
• Consensus conferences Danish Board of
  Technology.
• Deliberative opinion polls Texas public
  utilities.
• Evidence indicates that environmental
  considerations are given significant weight in
  citizens deliberations and decisions (but
  evidence is based on only a few cases).

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Experiments in participationDeliberative
innovations

• At present such innovations remain marginal.
• The challenge is to embed meaningful citizen
  participation into the decision making process.
• An example Citizens Assembly on Electoral
  Reform (British Columbia)
• 160-strong randomly-selected assembly of citizens
  who met regularly for a year.
• Recommendations put directly to a popular
  referendum.
• Not an environmental example, but shows how
  deliberative innovations can play a significant
  role.

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Experiments in participation

• Deliberative innovations are not the only option
  for democratic renewal
• Lessons to be drawn from, for example,
  participatory budgeting, citizens initiative,
  etc.
• Beyond the traditional political realm
  democratic participation in the social economy
• Co-operatives, mutuals and voluntary
  organisations, associations and foundations that
  engage in productive activity with a social
  remit.
• Ethos and democratic structure offer a promising
  context for the promotion of environmental
  citizenship.

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Enhancing citizen participation

• There is a potentially significant relationship
  between citizen participation and sustainable
  development.
• Increases the legitimacy of decisions.
• Improves the knowledge base for decision making.
• Enhances environmental citizenship.
• Without widespread experimentation and support
  for democratic innovations (in the political and
  economic realm), the evidence will remain only
  suggestive.
• BUT, how to overcome the reluctance of public
  authorities to increase opportunities for
  meaningful citizen participation?