The Impact of Citizen Participation Programs and Policy Decisions On Participants' Opinions

Abstract

ITIZEN participation programs sponsored by government agencies can serve many purposes.' While participating citizens often see these programs as contributing to increased influence in government policy-making, members of the sponsoring agencies are more likely to see them as a means to improve agency effectiveness.2 From the agency perspective, perhaps the most important purpose of these programs is to provide a process that will permit the development of implementable policies; the assumption being that if individuals believe they have had a say in a fair and open process of policy development then they will be willing to accept the outcome of that process, even if it is not their preferred outcome (Rosenbaum 1980: 4-5). That agency officials do hold these views is borne out by a study of Canadian participation programs which concludes that most agency representatives, participation was seen as a means to develop programs which would have broad public acceptance, to enhance the efficient performance of agency responsibilities, and to improve the agency's image (Sewell and Phillips 1979: 352). Likewise, a study of Army Corps of Engineers' participation programs found that these programs were instituted because the Corps assumed that a well-intentioned, positive, open-planning process would directly in the participants' greater satisfaction with the agency; that this would in turn foster greater congruence on goals between the individual participants and the agency; and that more effective implementation of the agency's goals would result (Mazmanian and Nienaber 1979: 177). An element of this assumption is that the process of reaching a decision is at least as important as the decision itself to the individuals involved. It is a short step from this assumption to the view that a symbolic process can substitute for the product; that even an unpopular policy can gain legitimacy and will have a better chance of being implemented if it appears to have been reached by an open and democratic process.3