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Improving environmental quality through participation?A critical perspective on the effectiveness of public participation
Conference paper   Open access

Improving environmental quality through participation?A critical perspective on the effectiveness of public participation

O. Fritsch and J. Newig
Participatory Approaches in Science and Technology (PATH) Conference (Edinburgh, Scotland, 04/06/2006–07/06/2006)
2006
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Abstract

Consensual and participative forms of environmental governance are becoming increasingly important and are increasingly institutionalized. We observe that the main motive for the current emphasis of public involvement in environmental decisions is the expectation of enhanced implementation and compliance. This is shown drawing on current international and EU developments (part 1). We argue that, as of now, this expectation is based on a claim that still remains insufficiently substantiated. The effects of participatory processes on implementation of and compliance with political measures have up to now neither been sufficiently conceptualized nor empirically explored in a systematic fashion. We propose a causal model that integrates different hypotheses regarding the conditions under which public participation is likely to enhance the environmental efficiency, or effectiveness, of decisions (part 2). This model serves as a conceptual framework for a comparative secondary analysis of existing case studies as part of an ongoing research project. First results are presented, highlighting different types of participatory settings and the problems of an appropriate notion of effectiveness (part 3).

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