Public Input Research Articles

The value of ‘between-election’ political participation: Do parliamentary e-petitions matter to political elites?

Responding to the crisis of democracy, legislatures worldwide are developing new participatory mechanisms to promote parliamentary engagement and provide additional opportunities for citizens to influence policymaking. Yet despite the prevalence of such initiatives, little is known about whether political elites are receptive to public input. This article addresses this important gap, presenting original research that examines the e-petition system in the United Kingdom’s national legislature. It demonstrates significant apathy – on occasion, antipathy – on the part of Westminster’s elected MPs. In particular, it reveals concerns that parliamentary e-petitions risk undermining the relationship between MPs and their constituents; inundating the parliamentary agenda with immediate, but not necessarily important, issues; and exacerbating misunderstandings of the parliamentary process. More broadly, political elites remain sceptical about the capacity of parliamentary e-petitions to address the democratic divide, with a widespread sense that e-petitions often amplify the voices of those who already shout the loudest.

Centralized standards and local taxation in municipal waste management

AbstractIn the EU, standards for municipal waste sorting and recycling are established by the European central institutions, being mostly based on the available estimates of recyclable materials. In a simple model of co‐production in municipal waste management with local taxation, we assess that central bodies enjoy more discretion and can set more ambitious targets in jurisdictions with stronger environmental preferences and/or lower expenditure needs. Incentives to engage in waste sorting and recycling are found to be less powerful with citizens who are less sensitive to the environmental preservation, and all the more when the public input has a high cost. This points to the conclusion that standards should be differentiated across jurisdictions, with due consideration of the local preferences and costs of waste management.

Public engagement can change your research, but how can it change your research institution? ICES case study.

This article explores the approach that ICES (formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences) uses to encourage public engagement at both the research study and corporate level. ICES is an independent not-for-profit research institute in the province of Ontario, Canada. This article was co-written by ICES’ public engagement team and four members of the ICES Public Advisory Council (PAC). As part of the process of writing this article PAC members provided their reflections on why they got involved, what worked well and the limitations and challenges of ICES’ approach.ICES described the development of its public engagement strategy to inform how the institution would capture and incorporate the values of Ontarians in ICES activities and research. ICES provided details on two key elements of its strategy: the formation of a PAC to advise its leadership, and the creation of resources and supports to encourage researchers to incorporate public engagement in their projects.PAC members and ICES provided perspectives on what impact they perceive as a result of the public engagement strategy. PAC members expressed that ICES has demonstrated listening to and using their input, but it is too early to evaluate if their feedback has changed the way ICES conducts its work. ICES discussed the challenges and successes in building and implementing the public engagement strategy, including recruiting a diverse council, aligning with public priorities and creating a culture of engagement. As a result of public input, ICES has restructured the way the institution explains its privacy and cybersecurity approach to build trust and confidence. ICES has also seen an increase in researchers using public engagement resources, and early data suggests that in 2019 about 20% of scientists included some form of public engagement in their projects.ICES’ journey to public engagement resulted in important changes to processes and activities at the institution, but there is much more that needs to be done. PAC members advocate that public members should be engaged in health data research and hope that public input will be a core element in health data research in the future. ICES will continue its efforts to address public priorities and will seek to further evaluate the impact of public engagement across the organisation.

A Fisher-eye lens on social work reform

SummaryMark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, published in 2009, has been recognised as one of the most important contributions chronicling the rise, application and consequences of neoliberalism. However, Fisher’s ideas have until now only garnered passing mention in the study of neoliberalism in children and families social work in England, despite there being extensive research, argument and publication on the subject more broadly. This article attempts to rectify this gap and apply Fisher’s theory to the recent reforms in children and families social work in England.FindingsThe article applies Fisher’s commentary on the co-option of language, invoking crisis, bureaucracy and proposing change to implement no change, to the reforms in children and families social work that began with the implementation of Reclaiming Social Work in 2008. Since that time, the original architects of Reclaiming Social Work have gained significant positions of power and influence and been instrumental in introducing neoliberal reforms throughout children and families social work in England.ApplicationsThrough applying the approach and concepts of Mark Fisher, this article concludes that it is possible to determine that the current reforms are, at their core, neoliberal in nature and driven by an ideological imperative to transform children and families social work in England into a neoliberal edifice, with less public sector and state input and oversight and an increase in the influence of ‘not-for-profits’, charities and international for-profit consultancies.

Public involvement & engagement in the work of a data safe haven: a case study of the SAIL Databank.

BackgroundThe SAIL Databank is a data safe haven established in 2007 at Swansea University (Wales). It was set up to create new opportunities for research using routinely-collected health and other public service datasets in linkable anonymised form. SAIL forms the bedrock of other Population Data Science initiatives made possible by the data and safe haven environment.AimThe aim of this paper is to provide an overview of public involvement & engagement in connection with the SAIL Databank and related Population Data Science initiatives.ApproachWe have a public involvement & engagement policy for SAIL in the context of Population Data Science. We established a Consumer Panel to provide advice on the work of SAIL and associated initiatives, including on proposed uses of SAIL data. We reviewed the topics discussed and provide examples of advice to researchers. We carried out a survey with members on their experiences of being on the Panel and their perceptions of the work of SAIL. We have a programme of wider public engagement and provide illustrations of this work.DiscussionWe summarise what this paper adds and some lessons learned. In the rapidly developing area of Population Data Science it is important that people feel welcome, that they are encouraged to ask questions and are provided with digestible information and adequate consideration time. Citizens have provided us with valuable anticipated and unanticipated opinions and novel viewpoints. We seek to take a pragmatic approach, prioritising the communication modes that allow maximum public input commensurate with the purpose of the activity.ConclusionThis paper has set out our policy, rationale, scope and practical approaches to public involvement & engagement for SAIL and our related Population Data Science initiatives. Although there will be jurisdictional, cultural and organizational differences, we believe that the material covered in this paper will be of interest to other data focused enterprises across the world.

Democracy Underwater: Public Participation and Technical Expertise in Climate Infrastructure Planning in New York City

This article provides a novel explanation for how increased public participation can paradoxically translate into limited democratic decision-making in urban settings. Recent research shows that governments limit the scope of deliberation in participatory forums to restrict the distribution of resources to poor neighborhoods or advance private land development interests. Yet such explanations cannot account for the decoupling of participation from democratic decision-making in the case of planning for climate change, which expands, not narrows, the substantive topics and public funding decisions that involve urban residents. Through an in-depth case study of planning the largest coastal protection project in the U.S., I narrate the social production of resistance to climate change infrastructure by showing how the state sidestepped public input and exercised authority through appeals to the rationality and objectivity of technical expertise. After a lengthy participation process wherein participants reported satisfaction with how their input was included in designs, city officials switched decision-making styles and enrolled the expertise of engineers and climate scientists to render the publicly-supported plan unfeasible, while continuing to involve residents in the process. As a result, conflict arose between activists and public housing representatives, bitterly dividing the neighborhood over who could legitimately claim to represent the interests of the “frontline community.” By documenting the experience of participants in the process before and after the switch in decision-making styles, this article advances a sociological description of public influence in policy: The ability for participants in a planning process to recognize their own input reflected in finished plans.

Leveraging the Household Sector: Local Knowledge, Local Formulation, and Depth of Contribution

This paper unpacks how the public—or household sector—creates their most valuable contributions to better understand how organizations can leverage them. Scholars have examined the barriers that prevent organizations from adopting the public’s contributions. They have also theorized the public’s core problem-solving constructs: local knowledge, local formulation, and depth of the contributions provided. But few studies have bridged these two. As such, we connected the public’s problem-solving dynamics to those contributions that made the most impact on the focal organization. We observed a shift to welcome public input in a National Aeronautics and Space Administration program. This shift was strongly influenced by one engagement where the public contributed to a space mission design decision. In analyzing their contributions, we found that an individual’s use of their local knowledge correlated directly to the substance of their contribution. We also found that local formulation —reformulating the NASA problem in their own terms—increased the likelihood of substance because it increased the depth of the contribution. Our results show the importance of deep interactions to translate the public’s local ideas into meaningful contributions to the organization. They also show that the free-innovation paradigm can be directed to non-consumer good contexts.

Evaluating Public Participation in a Project Plan Review: A Nigerian Case Study

Background: Rooted in national and international laws regarding project planning and implementation is public participation. However, it is unclear whether public projects are enabling sufficient public input or are likely to be able to meet future management planning needs; particularly in developing countries.
 Purpose: We assessed people’s experiences when contributing to a public project decision-making in order to understand the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threat to effective public participation. 
 Setting: We conducted this assessment with a sample of people who contributed to a public project planning and review in a Nigerian city.
 Intervention: Not applicable.
 Research design: Appraisal criteria are based on the principles of public participation as laid down in the law and consists of the following elements: respondents’ profile, their involvement in the project; purpose of participation, availability of information, feedback mechanism and overall view of the participatory planning process. Information collected consists both quantitative and qualitative data and these were analysed using descriptive statistics and narrative techniques of reporting.
 Findings: Findings show that public participation was far below the minimum requirement of the law and not demographically representative. The most important reason respondents participated was to protect an interest in land, although some saw participation as a democratic right. Results show that attending public hearings was the commonest way of participation in a project review. Nevertheless, three-quarters of the respondents thought the final plan did not take their observations and advice into consideration. Respondents confirmed that the process was reasonably notified with opportunities for consultation meetings. Nevertheless, findings suggest some bias actions as significant proportions of respondents held absence of transparency and political interference flawed the project planning and review process.
 Keywords: stakeholder engagement; project evaluation; transparency; universal design; equality

Primary Jurisdiction and the Limits of Measurement in Mass Litigation

This Article examines the use of primary jurisdiction through the lens of institutional economics and the ongoing revolution in pre-suit, plaintiff-side testing in mass litigation. In this setting, primary jurisdiction serves a necessary pro-agency institutional role. The ability of plaintiffs’ attorneys to easily generate sophisticated laboratory testing results has allowed them to create a quasi-regulatory quality-control regime for defendants’ products and extract value from it through enhanced settlements. This offers defendants the burdens of regulation without the benefits of uniformity or policymakers with subject-matter expertise and capacity for public input. Primary jurisdiction enables defendants in mass litigation to move these quasi-regulatory actions back to regulatory settings, where the potential for efficient quality-control standards increases with agency expertise. Shifting decision-making in testing-based actions to agencies then preserves this value from conversion into litigation-based transaction costs. As scientific resolving power and the scope of potentially measurable harm evolve, primary jurisdiction thus functions as a central balancing mechanism allowing corresponding evolution in adjudication.

Organization of state financial control in order to ensure sustainable economic development

The article explores the theoretical, methodological and applied aspects of the organization of state financial control in order to ensure sustainable economic development of Ukraine. A comprehensive model of the organization of state financial control has been formed, focused on ensuring sustainable economic development. The goals, directions, strategic and operational tasks of state financial control are determined to ensure stability, efficiency and systematic provision of budget services. Among the main tasks of reform system of state internal financial control the creation of a single legal field for development is indicated system of state internal financial control as an integral part of public administration and input relevant changes to the legislation. The relationship between public financial control and financial policy should be traced in determining the types of control. In our opinion, the division of financial policy into components is a prerequisite emergence of certain types of public financial control. In other words, each component of financial policy must have its own separate instrument, ie the type of public financial control. Coherence of financial policy components and types of control is necessary to build an effective and efficient structure of public administration bodies with a clear definition of the limits of their influence and the degree of responsibility. The necessity of institutional reform of state financial control in Ukraine is substantiated. The methodological foundations of state financial control for Ukraine are systematized based on the experience of the United States of America. A hypothesis has been put forward that the effectiveness of budgetary services at the regional (local) level is a criterion for the effectiveness of the use of state financial resources. The types of efficiency of budgetary services are defined with the aim of managing certain aspects of the provision of budgetary services, among which the effectiveness of the external and internal environment of state financial control is highlighted, as well as such types of efficiency as budgetary, social, commercial, public and so on. It is noted about the need to reform the existing model of state financial control in Ukraine and the direction of its implementation.

Privacy and Ethics Are Fundamental to Tech Development

For years, privacy regulators have said that privacy is good for business. Strong privacy management programs and accountability mechanisms build trust with consumers. In the public sector, privacy regulators have seen massive information sharing projects fail when public input or consultation, or independent oversight is not considered. After a sequence of events in 2018, society as a whole began asking questions about what is being done with personal information and questioned whether it is in our best interests. This presentation made at the University of Alberta’s Kule Institute’s event on “AI, Ethics and Society” in May 2019 provides an overview of the shifts that have taken place and how privacy regulators internationally have incorporated discussions about ethical assessments, in addition to traditional privacy impact assessments, as a way to guide current and future tech developments involving personal information in a way that is legal, fair and just.

A multidisciplinary perspective to protect the quality of water in natural wetlands. A case study in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract In Mexico, 142 sites covering almost nine million hectares are listed as Ramsar wetlands. Given the complaints of local inhabitants regarding water quality, and the interest of the federal government for setting up a plan for wetlands protection, we evaluated the ecological condition of a wetland in rural Oaxaca, Mexico. Existing water quality data were compiled and analyzed. Among the parameters of interest were temperature, pH, DO, N, P, and fecal contamination. Even though microbial contamination was a primary concern, a more important worry to local users was the presence of pesticides in water due to inadequate disposal of empty containers and runoff from upstream farmlands. Public meetings with water users, researchers, and local and federal personnel were held to get the opinion about strategies for protection of the wetlands. Outcomes of the decision meetings using a decision-support system highlighted that to preserve the wetlands, the implementation of riparian vegetation (buffer zone) and the management of surface water should be considered as conservation practices. Law enforcement would improve the watershed and wetlands' health for preventing further deterioration. Because of the success in getting public participation and input, the approach will likely be replicated in other parts of the country.

Entry in Tax Competition and Intergovernmental Transfer

This paper derives an efficient intergovernmental transfer system within tax competition settings under the endogenization of the number of regions that engage in tax competition. In our theoretical model, two externalities arise. These include fiscal externalities and the externalities resulting from the endogenization of the number of regions. If a system is a full equalization system, inefficiency in the public input supply and the number of competing regions is resolved because two externalities can be internalized.

How Did Chinese Government Implement Unconventional Measures Against COVID-19 Pneumonia.

In recent years, respiratory infectious diseases had continued to attack China, the recent outbreak of COVID-19 pneumonia had attracted worldwide attention. Through studying the literature, interpreting official documents, analyzing medical and social management data, we summarized and compared some powerful measures taken by the Chinese government, such as declaring emergency state, blocking down the epidemic center, prohibiting crowd gathering activities, forcing residents to wear masks, and mobilizing medical staff and products. We found that these unconventional measures, on the one hand, controlled the spread of the epidemic in China, and on the other hand, exposed some of China’s shortcomings in biosafety, food safety, public health input, and emergency system construction. This paper also recommends that other countries should take strict isolation measures as early as possible when fighting COVID-19 epidemics, and also mobilize citizens to strengthen self-protection.

Stories Communities Tell: How Deliberative Practitioners Can Work with Community Narratives

How do past experiences of public engagement shape the way communities view the role of public input today? In this article, we examine the case of a community in a mid-Atlantic college town whose civic history is shaped by stories of skepticism and hope regarding past experiences of public decision-making. We use methods of interpretive analysis to surface their stories—the tensions, the plot, the actors, and complicating events—to understand how communities make sense of their roles in civic life, the norms they share, and the values they wish their communities can practice. We argue that being attuned to the storied nature of civic culture provides an invaluable resource for practitioners of dialogue and deliberation to adapt the design of public engagement in a way that speaks to past experiences and brings forth the communities’ shared aspirations.

Evaluating voluntary sector involvement in mass incarceration: The case of Samaritan prisoner volunteers

Mass incarceration and supervision operate through a mixed economy. Using the case study of Samaritans’ emotional support for prisoners in distress in England and Wales, we present an original framework of five normative criteria to facilitate nuanced assessment of voluntary sector criminal justice participation. This is an urgent, significant task for theory and practice: we need to find forms of public input that can deconstruct bloated penal systems. Whilst citizen involvement can be a positive form of ‘people power’, our assessment of Samaritans’ ostensibly welcome humanitarian intervention reveals how it deflects attention from severe shortcomings of the penal system. In the context of mass incarceration, we conclude that voluntary sector and citizen involvement in individualised service delivery alone risks obscuring deep problems and delaying much-needed change. This topic is particularly timely, given increasing non-state involvement in criminal justice and the global problem of prison suicide.

A Pipeline for the Rapid Production and Dissemination of Mouse Intersectional Genetic Alleles for Functional, Molecular, and Anatomical Neural Circuit Mapping. (mouseintersectionalgenetics.org)

Here we describe an effort to build and distribute a community library, based on public input, of more than 100 mouse intersectional genetic alleles to facilitate developmental, anatomical, molecular, and functional characterizations of neural circuit organization in behavior and physiology. Even within narrowly defined cell types, significant diversity is found at multiple levels including genetic and molecular signatures, activity patterns, and synaptic connectivity. Current challenges now center on tools to identify, access, and study cell populations with increasing precision. Intersectional genetics offers exceptionally high resolution to consistently delineate distinct cell types in the embryo and adult mouse for functional, molecular and anatomical studies. Intersectional genetics utilizes a ubiquitously expressed conditional allele that is activated by Cre and Flp site specific recombinases. Upon activation, the intersectional genetic alleles may express any number of Genetically Encodable Effector Molecules (GEEMS), such as channelrhodopsins for neural activity perturbations or an L10‐GFP ribotrap fusion to affinity purify translating mRNAs. The intersectional allele is activated by overlapping expression of both Flp and Cre recombinases in the same cell. Traditionally, these recombinases have been deployed as gene knock‐in or transgenic alleles that are designed to express in a cell or gene specific fashion. The use of two selectors (Cre and Flp) to define a cellular population enables high specificity and modularity in combining any set of Cre, Flp, and intersectional alleles to fit an experiment. The number of Cre and Flp recombinase mouse lines are constantly growing, giving greater access to increasing numbers of cell types. Additionally, these recombinases are the focus of multiple efforts to deploy them in ways that select cells based on other unique properties such as neuronal activity and synaptic connectivity. To make this powerful genetic approach more accessible to as many research laboratories as possible, we are building a production pipeline to create a suite of resources for anyone to easily make their own intersectional mouse line, to produce over 100 targeted ES cell lines that can be developed into mouse lines, as well as 10–15 high demand mouse lines all for public distribution. Priority for the GEEMS to be intersectionally deployed will be based on a public input collected at mouseintersectionalgenetics.org. All plasmids, cell lines, and mouse lines developed under this effort will be distributed without restriction to non‐profit research organizations (Addgene and Mutant Mouse Resource and Research Center; MMRRC).Support or Funding InformationR21OD025327Figure 1

Flint (MI) Missed an Opportunity to “Right Size” With Its Water Crisis

The city of Flint (MI) should have right sized its water infrastructure as part of its response to its water crisis, which was a series of government failures that resulted in lead and other contaminants in the city’s municipal water supply. I discuss why right sizing water systems is necessary in shrinking cities and outline a process for right sizing that uses hydraulic models to identify opportunities for downscaling or removing pipelines. With this information and public input, policymakers can make changes in land use designations that align with a city’s master plan and acknowledge population change. In describing this process, my arguments serve as an example for other cities that are contemplating right sizing. I also argue that infrastructure considerations need to be part of land use decisions: if a city cannot reasonably decommission infrastructure because of system configuration, complete right sizing of vacant land might not be possible.

Linking Theories of Motivation, Game Mechanics, and Public Deliberation to Design an Online System for Participatory Budgeting

Existing systems for online civic engagement and public consultation need a better architecture if they are to realize the aspirations of deliberative democracy. To improve the design of such systems, we develop an empirical model of online civic engagement that connects common game mechanics to four key democratic processes and outcomes—inclusion, deliberative engagement, sound and influential public input, and long-term civic impacts. We then link game mechanics and deliberation with theories of motivation to show how these mechanics can leverage people’s drives to fulfill basic needs, forge social connections, and gain status. To illustrate our model in more concrete terms, we show how game mechanics could motivate both participants and policymakers in an online participatory budgeting system. We conclude by describing a multi-stage experimental approach to testing this model within an existing system of online participatory budgeting.

Is Public Participation Public Inclusion? The Role of Comments in US Forest Service Decision-Making

In the United States, forest governance practices have utilized a variety of public participation mechanisms to improve decision-making and instill public legitimacy. However, comments, one of the most frequent and accessible avenues for the public to provide input, has received little attention. Further, there has been no analysis of the ways that government actors utilize this form of public participation in their decision-making. I empirically examine responses to public comments across the United States Forest Service to understand how they handle and deal with public feedback on forestry projects. I employed two qualitative approaches that examine comment handling processes and agency justifications for responding to comments. Through this empirical work, I found that agency employees utilize a range of strategies to handle and respond to public concerns. I present data suggestive that most public comments received are outside of agency personnel decision-making capacity and thus, personnel respond to comments in ways that deny their worth and block those concerns from project agenda setting. Understanding how the United States Forest Service thinks about and deals with public input will help forest managers and public commenters better negotiate efficacy in projects and decisions that affect forestland areas.