Participation in Complex Governance Legitimacy

¶ … Participation in Complex Governance Legitimacy is defined by Fung (2006) as a characteristic inherent in a public policy of which citizens have good reasons to support or obey. One part of legitimacy is captured by the question "Is government run for the benefit of all or for a few big interests?" (p. 70). If the answer to this question points to the government being run for the benefit of just a few big interests, then of course, citizens may not -- or should not -- support it.

Other legitimacy problems are rooted in "unintentional rifts" existing between officials and their constituents, creating a situation where officials and public administrators "may be unable to gauge public opinion and will;" this rift can increase if the sphere in which decision makers function becomes further removed from ordinary citizens (p. 70). There are a number of methods of addressing these two legitimacy issues (government being run for the benefit of a few big interests, and a rift between policy makers and their constituencies).

These methods are focused on creating participatory forums that are more participant-inclusive and participant-representative, as well as more communication-intense. For example, James Fishkin's Deliberative Polls aim for descriptive representation via random selection (of participants) and try to modify the way in which communication occurs "from preference expression to preference development by providing background materials and facilitating conversations among participants" (p. 70). Likewise, the Study Circles Resource Center has recently helped a small town in Idaho address legitimacy issues by creating a model for participation.

In this model, a purposefully diverse set of participants are grouped together (in a number of groups) to discuss some controversial issue. Conversations are facilitated and participants are given the appropriate background information. These "Study Circles" have helped the development of public consensus (p. 70).

Fung explains that there have been many attempts at improving legitimacy in the standard public hearing process by -- in almost all of them -- attempting to improve the "representativeness of participants either through random selection or targeted recruitment" and "aiming to make discussions...more informed and reflective" (p. 70). Injustice, Fung says, "often results from political inequality" (p. 70).

For example, groups that bear no political influence cannot affect decision making or cannot acquire the information they need to assess policy alternatives because they're purposefully left out, they have poor organization, or they're too weak. These groups are, more often than not, ill-served by their communities' laws.

Inequality can also result from the financial and resource connections of politicians in political campaigns, politicians' relationships with special interest groups, the superior ability of interest groups to mobilize and influence policy, and "persistent legacies of racialized and gendered exclusion from political offices and organizations" (p. 70).

There are two ways to address, via participatory methods, injustice issues: replacing decision makers who are acting, systematically, in an unjust manner, or creating popular pressures that influence decision makers to 'clean up their act.' One example of injustice being addressed by replacing decision makers who systematically act in an unjust manner is the case of the budget process reform in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Here, in 1989, the Workers' Party came into power, and over the next two years, implemented a participatory budget mechanism that effectively shifted decisions concerning how the city's money was spent from the city council to a system of neighborhood and citywide popular assemblies. The priorities determined from the annual cycles of open meetings are aggregated into a city budget. This mechanism, for Porto Alegre, has been remarkably effective.

Poor residents of the city now are much better off; the percentage of neighborhoods with running water has increased from 75 to 90%, the percentage of neighborhoods with sewer systems has increased from 45 to 98%, and housing assistance has grown by 16 times since the implementation of the participatory budget. In sum, then, the participatory budget has increased justice by changing the actors that made the decisions -- from expert financial bureaus, a city council, experts, and professional politicians to the citizens themselves.

Moreover, though the forums for participatory budget reform are open to all, and participants select themselves, the case of Porto Alegre has those with lower incomes as more likely to participate than the wealthy. This is the result of the fact that the participatory budget processes addresses problems that are much more significant to the poor. Apart from directly replacing decision makers, mechanisms that use random selection or lay stakeholder involvement may enhance equality if properly implemented.

Ineffectiveness may hinder decision making and implementing, even in the case that the public decisions are made justly and legitimately. State agencies may lack the appropriate "information, ingenuity, know-how, or resources necessary to address social problems effectively" while, conversely, citizens are capable of providing a diverse set of skills that may improve public action (p. 73). For example, including clients in the coproduction of the provision of public services such as education and human development, may considerably enhance the quality of said services.

Public safety and environmental regulation are also areas where citizens may have more accurate and beneficial local knowledge that comes from close exposure to the location of the problems. In both of these cases, and others, the public may offer a framework that more closely matches their values, needs and preferences than professionals. Moreover, citizens offer innovative approaches to traditional problems because they're removed from the influence and techniques that are embedded within professional organizations and procedures.

As an example, Fung cites the Chicago Police Department's organization shift from a classic hierarchy to a form of accountable autonomy. Instead of guarding its operations from public scrutiny and influence, residents in each of the 280 Chicago neighborhoods now meet with the police officers who serve their areas in open "beat meetings" (p. 73).

Similar to the participatory budget processes in Porto Alegro, residents in lower income areas participate at greater rates than residents from higher income areas because of the problem addressed -- crime -- which is more prevalent in lower income areas. It's been shown in case studies that when these types of processes are run well, they come up with innovative and functional strategies that utilize the capacities and knowledge of local residents.

Fung lists four factors that make this structure of citizen involvement successful: 1) the shift to exposure to public scrutiny has made officers change from standard, ineffective approaches to fighting crime, 2) when inhabitants connect with police officers they frequently come up with different approaches than the police force would have developed without their help, 3) inhabitants provide resources, such as refined, day-to-day knowledge of their neighborhoods, that "make different kinds of public safety strategies possible," and 4) the mechanism of deliberative problem solving connects other previously unused city resources (p. 73).

"Putting More Public in Policy Analysis" Walters et al. (2000) recall that previous research as argued that the success of citizen involvement is dependent upon how appropriate participation strategies are crafted, and that the most effective citizen involvement strategies are those in which decision makers connect the strategy to the purpose for participation and the nature of the issue being considered.

Decision makers can have many purposes for involving the public: information exchange and legitimization, exchanging public acceptance for influence, community building, deliberation, decision making, venting of emotions, or the resolution of conflicts (Creighton, 1981; Thomas, 1995; Walsh, 1997; Rosener, 1975 as cited in Walters et al., 2000). The authors write that it is important to let participants know the purpose of their participation; if a purpose is not communicated, citizens will infer their own and expectations will thus be skewed, making it difficult for decision makers to meet them.

Moreover, it is difficult to establish the success of an activity if a purpose is not first defined (Kweit and Kweit, 1981; Rosener, 1975 as cited in Walters et al., 2000).

Purposes for including the public can be organized, schematically, in a sense, around the stages of the policy development process: 1) identify the problem, 2) define how alternative solutions will be evaluated, 3) come up with alternative solutions, 4) evaluate the alternative solutions with the defined criteria, and 5) recommend an alternative (Bardach, 1996; Dunn, 1994; Kweit and Kweit, 1987; McRae and Whittington, 1997; Patton and Sawicki, 1993 as cited in Walters et al., 2000).

Walters et al., in the effort of "consolidating and explicating the purposes offered by other scholars," further define the purposes for citizen participation in decision making: 1) for assistance in the search for definitions, alternatives, or criteria (Discover), 2) to inform the public about a problem and a proposed alternative (Educate), 3) to measure public opinion (Measure), 4) to persuade citizens toward a proposed alternative (Persuade), and 5) to comply with legal requirements (Legitimize) (p. 352). Walters et al.

claim that "at least one of [their] five purposes explains the function of public involvement in all of the policy development stages" (p. 352). They illustrate this with a table. The table shows that during problem identification, the Discover purpose is used, filling two different purposes -- to enable citizens to form an opinion about the issue (they're unable to form opinions if they aren't aware of the problem's existence), and to create a common understanding of problem.

Creating a common understanding of the problem enables participants and policy makers to develop a representative problem definition and thus move into the criteria identification phase of the policy development process. A representative problem definition "narrows the context within which alternative solutions will be generated and evaluated" (p. 353). This narrowing is important because without it, the rest of the policy development process will lack the focus necessary to reach a solution. The authors' table shows that, during the alternative generation phase, the purposes Discover, Educate, and Legitimize are used.

Discovery, in this phase, is used to develop solutions. The public is educated, in this phase, on the issue, about the possible alternatives, and what might happen if no action were taken. Legitimization is necessary for this phase in the process in order for the public to accept the outcome. The table shows that during the evaluation of alternatives, the purposes Educate, Measure, and Legitimized are used. The public can be educated during this phase on the consequences of different alternatives.

Measuring the public's opinion is useful during this phase to determine the political feasibility of any particular alternative. During the final phase -- alternative recommendation -- the table shows that the purposes Educate, Persuade, and Legitimize are used. Persuasion is an important purpose in this phase to build public support. Education is an important purpose in this phase if the issue is a low conflict one, and the public wasn't included earlier in the process. Legitimization can also be gained in this phase, if it is a low conflict issue.

The nature of the issue under consideration is the second dimension in designing public participation in policy development. The desirability of citizen involvement and which participation mechanisms are appropriate vary with different issues. Walters et al. identify six issue characteristics that affect the success of public participation: the degree of conflict, the number of stakeholders, the level of confidence in information about the issue, the amount of alternatives, the knowledge of outcomes, and the probability of the outcomes.

High conflict issues necessitate early citizen participation to develop consensus and legitimacy, as well as methods that emphasize compromise. The number of stakeholders necessitates varying actions as well. When stakeholders are organized into a few groups, communication can be made via group leaders. If stakeholders are poorly organized, participation should deal directly with the stakeholders through, for example, the media or town meetings. The level of confidence in the information on issues has a direct effect on how much focus should be place on educating.