A response to Martin on the role of citizens, publics and others in participatory processes

Abstract

In health policy research, it may be tempting to believe that once a research proposal has been written well enough to obtain peerreview approval, relevant papers will come out of it more or less straightforwardly. Nevertheless, the writing of our article (in this issue) was far from unequivocal. Perhaps like any unplanned yet determined journey, it consisted of a learning process that began with a preliminary yet necessarily ill-informed set of notions about what this unknown territory would be like and a strong desire to get to know it better because it matters. The core idea behind the paper dexploring what citizens “are made of”d came from a mind-bugging observation: the “unbearable lightness” of the citizen construct, which can be found in the rhetoric of most people, not just scholars and practitioners of public involvement (Lehoux, Daudelin, & Abelson, in this issue). Later, through the review process, the paper benefitted greatly from constructive observations and criticisms provided by three reviewers. And this is not simply a polite acknowledgement. Public involvement mattered to all three reviewers as well, otherwise our exchanges would have been less productive and less determined. Likewise, Martin (in this issue) provides in his commentary many engaged and engaging arguments that should appeal to academics and practitioners for whom public involvement matters. We agree with the need for the three key components Martin discusses dpurpose, choice of public to be involved and processd to be articulated as clearly as possible. Perhaps it is worth underscoring that GeNet’s leaders were also aware of this trilogydwhich they articulated according to their own understanding, purposes and practical constraintsd and that their inclusion of citizens was not tokenistic. For several of its members, citizen involvement mattered too. Hence, one may wonder why being aware of the need to define purposes, publics, and processes dwhile being genuinely concerned about public involvementd does not automatically prevent one from falling short in some ways. We found in Martin’s commentary part of the explanation for why this might be the case. We reflect upon three features of the committed posture that condition most public involvement initiatives and that, when acknowledged constructively, may help the field move forward.