Valuing Public Participation in Policy Making

Books reviewed:
Richard Stuart Olson, Robert A. Olson, and Vincent T. Gawronski, Some Buildings Just Can't Dance: Politics, Life Safety, and Disaster
Louise K. Comfort, Shared Risk: Complex Systems in Seismic Response
Gregory E. McAvoy, Controlling Technocracy: Citizen Rationality and the NIMBY Syndrome     

Policy Target Populations and Public Participation in Agency Decision Making

Why are some government agencies more open to public input than others? Although many agree about the normative desirability of involving citizens in administrative decision making, there is significant variation across agencies in the extent of public participation. This article investigates the conditions under which public managers solicit greater public participation. We argue that, in addition to normative rationales, participation also serves instrumental considerations related to agency constituency. We draw on a rich body of literature examining participation in the policy process to develop empirically testable hypotheses about the patterns of participation in the administrative decision making of public agencies. Using data on the approaches to gathering citizen input in the budget process at four state departments—environmental protection, transportation, child protective services, and corrections—we find that the characteristics of target populations (namely, their political power and social construction) are strong predictors of an agency's openness to the public.     

浅谈公共政策制定中的公民参与

公民参与是公共政策制定过程中不可或缺的重要环节,是确保社会价值公平分配的重要途径。目前,我国公民参与公共政策的程度还比较低,一些问题还比较突出。本文通过对公共政策制定中公民参与的发展与现状的分析和研究,在此基础上找出了公共政策制定中的公民参与存在的问题,并为之完善提出积极地建议。     

公众参与公共政策过程的三种模式比较—基于服务型政府理论

公众参与公共政策过程是公众表达个人偏好实现自我利益的重要渠道,也是公众自我意识觉醒的重要标志.从当前服务型政府理论框架出发,分析服务型政府的内涵、特征,提出三种公众参与模式,即:"公众一利益集团"参与模式、"公众-决策者"参与模式和"公众-精英"参与模式.适合我国当前服务型政府理论和实践的应是"公众-决策者"参与模式.这可以从四个方面证实:"公众-决策者"参与模式是服务型政府彻底实现以人为本政府的重要途径,是服务型政府完成任务和使命的必由之路,是促进与公众融合的重要方法,是增强政府责任意识的直接方法.     

走向更有序的公共行动：数智时代公众政策参与的质态变迁

数智时代的到来既推动了社会秩序和社会治理模式的变迁,也重塑了公众政策参与的秩序,为获取“民意最大公约数”创设了更多的条件。大数据因其相关性的思维方式、“允许不精确”的数据逻辑和全样本的数据采集方式生成了意见聚合的新能量,云计算平台、网络载体与应用软件生成了话语表达的新动力,区块链、虚拟现实与数字孪生技术成为生成行动秩序的新载体,但是仍需对数智技术在理性失灵、公众参与衰落及公众地位差异等方面可能存在的问题保持警醒,从而使其在公共政策参与行动的秩序层面产生增量,实现技术工具性与治理目的性合一。     

我国转型时期第三部门的公共政策参与

我国目前正处于一个由传统社会向现代社会整体转型时期,在这一时期,第三部门作为公民社会的载体,正逐步成长。同时,转型时期的社会结构和利益格局的变化加剧了矛盾与冲突,也对公共政策形成了多方面的压力。随着我国民主政治的不断完善,公民通过第三部门参与公共政策过程,可以实现建立广泛而有理性的政治参与机制,保证政策信息的充分性,为公共政策执行提供有力的保障并为政策调整提供重要的依据等。目前,我国第三部门公共政策参与不足的现状可以通过政府观念的转变、第三部门自身参与能力的提升、健全立法和完善参与制度安排等来实现。     

加快地区经济发展与地方政府公共政策选择分析

自新中国成立以来,几乎所有重大改革措施,都是通过中央政府制定公共政策来推动的。中国地区经济加速发展的过程,同时也是地方政府不断进行公共政策选择和创新的过程。作为政府主要调节工具的公共政策,在地方经济发展中,发挥着至为关键的影响和重要作用。因此,在挑战和机遇并存的经济环境中,扮演着双重重要角色的地方政府,只有结合自己的实际,不断进行政府的公共政策功能选择和创新,才能确保中央政策的有效实施和区域经济发展目标的顺利实现。     

Value Choices and American Public Opinion

Individual preferences among core values are widely believed to be an important determinant of political attitudes. However, several theoretical perspectives suggest that people experience difficulties making choices among values. This article uses data from the 1994 Multi-Investigator Study to test for hierarchical structure in citizens' value preferences. The empirical results show that most people make transitive choices among values and that their value preferences have an impact on subsequent issue attitudes. To the extent that citizens exhibit intransitive value choices and/or apparent difficulties in the "translation process" from value preferences to issue attitudes, it is due more to low levels of political sophistication than to the existence of value conflict.     

Designing Public Participation Processes

The purpose of this Theory to Practice article is to present a systematic, cross‐disciplinary, and accessible synthesis of relevant research and to offer explicit evidence‐based design guidelines to help practitioners design better participation processes. From the research literature, the authors glean suggestions for iteratively creating, managing, and evaluating public participation activities. The article takes an evidence‐based and design science approach, suggesting that effective public participation processes are grounded in analyzing the context closely, identifying the purposes of the participation effort, and iteratively designing and redesigning the process accordingly.     

Economic Globalization and Policy Choices: Singapore

This article analyzes the effects of economic globalization on public policy in Singapore, which has the worlds most globalized economy. It finds that contrary to the assumption of muck of the literature on the subject, it is the state, rather than systemic imperatives, that has played the most decisive role in shaping the form and scope of the economy's globalization. Its examination of the effects of globalization on policy choices in three broad areas—economic development, national security, and social development—in Singapore shows that globalization has not only constrained policy choices, but expanded them as well. The case study suggests that we need to ascribe greater centrality to the agency of the state in the globalization process and develop a more nuanced conception of the opportunities it affords and the constraints it imposes.     

Policy Consulting and Public Policy

The changing nature of governance in Australia over the last two decades has given rise to a broad range of new strategies to review the development and delivery of government policies and programs. Key factors affecting the relationship between citizens and the state have been the deregulation and liberalisation of the Australian economy, with its focus on the market for the delivery of services, once the exclusive domain of public sector organisations. The increased use of consultants over this period is an example of governments going to the market for professional services. Effective policy development and review by consultants requires that they be well versed both in the substantive issues surrounding the policy field as well as in the process required to properly frame and evaluate these issues.     

关于公民参与的几点认识

公民参与表明了一种全新的公民责任、权利以及治理的观念。公民参与公共政策,对提高公共政策的质量进而实现其良好的施行效果具有实质性的作用和极其重要的功能,公民参与是公共政策的基石。公民社会是国家和家庭之间的一个中介性的社团领域,是公民参与的载体。公民性是公民参与的内在支持和保证。伴随国家民主化改革的进程,我国应当培育公民社会,促进公民性的发展。国家的治理需要有一个讲道德、守法律的公民社会。依靠有良好公民性的公民社会,才能节约治理的成本。     

英国公民参与的趋势(上)

第一部分从地方政府的视角来看问题 简介 对英国地方政府而言,扩大公民参与是工党政府现代化议程的中心内容.     

“Modernizing Government”: Mapping Global Public Policy Networks

Public sector reform is a key policy area, driven by global public policy networks. Research on these networks has been inductive, highlighting organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD). This article examines “virtual policy networks” (VPNs) on the Web. Using IssueCrawler, we conduct a hyperlink analysis that permits us to map seven VPNs. The first network mapped the hyperlinks of 91 organizations identified through inductive methods. The hypothesis that the virtual network would include all actors identified in the inductive approach was refuted. The other six networks focused on: market mechanisms, open government, performance, public employment, reform, and restructuring. Among the findings, the U.S. government is prominent in the first three, while international organizations dominate the others. VPN rankings show that the World Bank dominates the OECD. When the inductive research is blended with the VPN research, the OECD's prominence increases, and we see the importance of market mechanisms and reform VPNs as pillars of globalization.     

英国公民参与的趋势(下)

第二部分:从公民的视角来看问题 简介 英国各级地方政府辖下的积极公民参与,无论是在数量还是范围上都大为拓展了,这既是新工党的"民主复兴"进程的一部分,同时也是长期以来地方政府创新过程的结果.     

Public Budget Choices and Private Willingness to Pay

Efficient allocation of public funds depends upon good information about citizens' values. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how citizens' values can be obtained by eliciting marginal willingness to tradeoff (MWTTO) ratios for public spending categories and linking these ratios to individual, private willingness to pay. The link enables estimation of the willingness to pay for an expansion to any of the budget categories based on the elicited willingness to pay and the marginal willingness to tradeoff ratios. Tradeoff ratios and willingness to pay are estimated for public budget categories in Kentucky based on a representative sample surveyed by mail and the web in 2007. Estimates show that individuals are willing to pay the most for an expansion to educational services, followed by health care.