Role Of Citizen Participation Research Articles

The role of citizen participation in advancing sustainable water solutions: The Mexico City case study

Providing water equally and sustainably in megacities is a challenge that requires integrating people's needs and concerns. This defy is assessed from Mexico City, from which a series of observations and a methodology analyze and compare scenarios of water conditions in the 16 municipalities, integrating citizen participation to implement sustainable actions that improve water supply. Citizens' reports from 2002 to 2022 in a free digital platform were used to correlate the variables of leaks and water shortages. This was complemented with information from water endowment (Liters/day/inhabitant) from groundwater sources that supply the city. For the latter, projections (with the additive model) to 2022 were generated since records were available up to 2018. To identify priority areas to invest in measures that favor water supply in the municipalities, we further considered the adaptation measures applied by the city government, e.g., the purchase of portable water tanks and Rainwater Harvesting Systems (RWHS). Both measurements proved essential but need to be of more extensive application. Government and society must improve their use by promoting conscious consumption of water, impulse repairing leaks, further implementing Rainwater Harvesting Systems (RWHS), and integrating the resources (inputs/outputs) in a water circularity model, maximizing their utility and recirculation.

Exploring the role of citizen participation in the policy acceptance process: the case of Korean nuclear facilities

ABSTRACT The application of the procedural justice theory is absent from our understanding of environmental policies, particularly in the process of nuclear policy decisions. We explore the relationship between citizen participation and policy acceptance of nuclear facilities by considering community conflict and governmental trustworthiness in the case of South Korea. This study used data collected from citizens who live in the areas where nuclear plants are situated. The results showed that citizen participation may be a predictor of enhanced governmental trustworthiness. Moreover, community members with higher levels of governmental trustworthiness are more likely to allow the construction of additional nuclear plants.

Citizen Participation in Community-Based Planning

The purpose of this study was to understand the role of citizen participation in community-based planning with specific reference to the Borrowdale Ratepayers and Residents Association (BRRA) in Harare, Zimbabwe. Qualitative methodology was employed in the study and data was collected through key informant interviews. The key findings of the study were that there is little awareness on the role and importance of citizen participation in community-based planning. This is despite the fact that Borrowdale Community often experiences poor public service delivery and resource management where citizen participation would contribute meaningfully. The study concluded that citizens need to be aware of their role in community-based planning as this has a direct effect on service delivery. Local governance practices need to be transformed to reflect the needs and problems of residents and ratepayers.

Role of Citizen Participation in Rural Development: A Case Study of Pakistan

Role of Citizen Participation in Rural Development: A Case Study of Pakistan

Citizen participation in food systems policy making: a case study of a citizens' assembly

In this article, we offer a contribution to the emerging debate on the role of citizen participation in food system policy making. A key driver is a recognition that solutions to complex challenges in the food system need the active participation of citizens to drive positive change. To achieve this, it is crucial to give citizens the agency in processes of designing policy interventions. This requires authentic and reflective engagement with citizens who are affected by collective decisions. One such participatory approach is citizen assemblies, which have been used to deliberate a number of key issues, including climate change by the UK Parliament's House of Commons. Here, we have undertaken analysis of a citizen food assembly organized in the City of York (United Kingdom). This assembly was a way of hearing about a range of local food initiatives in Yorkshire, whose aim is to both relocalise food supply and production, and tackle food waste. These innovative community-based business models, known as “food hubs”, are increasing the diversity of food supply, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Among other things, the assembly found that the process of design and sortation of the assembly is aided by the involvement of local stakeholders in the planning of the assembly. It also identified the potential for public procurement at the city level, to drive a more sustainable sourcing of food provision in the region. Furthermore, this citizen assembly has resulted in a galvanizing of individual agency with participants proactively seeking opportunities to create prosocial and environmental change in the food system.

Citizen participation in food systems policy making: A case study of a citizens’ assembly

In this article, we offer a contribution to the emerging debate on the role of citizen participation in food system policy making. A key driver is a recognition that solutions to complex challenges in the food system need the active participation of citizens to drive positive change. To achieve this, it is crucial to give citizens the agency in processes of designing policy interventions. This requires authentic and reflective engagement with citizens who are affected by collective decisions. One such participatory approach is citizen assemblies, which have been used to deliberate a number of key issues, including climate change by the UK Parliament’s House of Commons (House of Commons., 2019). Here, we have undertaken analysis of a citizen food assembly organized in the City of York (United Kingdom). This assembly was a way of hearing about a range of local food initiatives in Yorkshire, whose aim is to both relocalise food supply and production, and tackle food waste. These innovative community-based business models, known as ‘food hubs’, are increasing the diversity of food supply, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Among other things, the assembly found that the process of design and sortation of the assembly is aided by the involvement of local stakeholders in the planning of the assembly. It also identified the potential for public procurement at the city level, to drive a more sustainable sourcing of food provision in the region. Furthermore, this citizen assembly has resulted in a galvanizing of individual agency with participants proactively seeking opportunities to create prosocial and environmental change in the food system.

Filling the Gap of Data-Limited Fish Species in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: A Contribution by Citizen Science

The biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea is rapidly changing due to anthropogenic activity and the recent increase of seawater temperature. Citizen science is escalating as an important contributor in the inventory of rare and data-limited species. In this study, we present several records of five data-limited native fish species from the eastern Mediterranean Sea: Alectis alexandrina (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817), Ranzania laevis (Pennant, 1776), Dalatias licha (Bonnaterre, 1788), Lophotus lacepede (Giorna, 1809), and Sudis hyalina (Rafinesque, 1810). All of the records were collected by a participatory process involving fishers and validated by associated taxonomic experts of the citizen science programme “Is it Alien to you? Share it!!!”. This study fills an important gap for the distribution of the reported species and signifies the important role of citizen participation as a tool for extending marine biodiversity knowledge and fisheries management in an area with several gaps of knowledge on targeted and non-targeted species.

Role of Citizen Participation in Sustainability of Water Projects in Makueni County, Kenya

Role of Citizen Participation in Sustainability of Water Projects in Makueni County, Kenya

Role of citizen participation in the formation of city

Hailed as one of the best examples of collaborative urban management practices between the local government and informal traders. In a postapartheid South Africa, there was a national desire to transform the old systems of governance, which in Warwick translated to city government institutions making an effort to include informal traders in the policy making and management processes. The main aim was to promote inclusive urban planning and design.

Reflections on Decentralization, Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development in Cameroon

Good governance and development discussions shed light on the role of citizen participation as a fundamental mechanism of achieving sustainable development in local communities. The current popularity of decentralization, especially in the developing world, is unparalleled, with 80% of all developing and transition countries undertaking some form of decentralization over the past two decades. As of July 2004, the Cameroonian house of parliament promulgated into law, three bills on decentralization. Under the provisions of the laws of 2004, there is the devolution of powers accompanied by the transfer of means (financial, material and human), to local councils. This move to decentralize power, authority and resources is seen as a logical way forward to bring development closer to the people not only in terms of actions, but also in terms of their development choices. Although emphasis is placed on the need for communities to achieve sustainable development, the role of decentralization is primordial. This paper posits that decentralization, if effectively implemented, could serve as a panacea to the sustainable development impasse of local communities in Cameroon. It holds that a highly inappreciable level of decentralization that characterizes the Cameroon society has been the bulwark to sustainable development of communities. The paper recommends the need to speed-up the process of decentralization by undertaken effectively reforms and creating timelines for targets towards decentralization and sustainable community development through empowerment.

The Role of Citizen Participation and the Use of Social Media Platforms in the Participatory Budgeting Process

ABSTRACTIn the United States participatory budgeting (PB) is a relatively new and innovative approach to municipal budgeting that has implications for improving the role of citizen participation in the budgetary process. The research is based on personal interviews with local community leaders involved in the PB process in the 49th Ward of Chicago, Illinois; the 6th Ward of St. Louis, Missouri; and the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Highlights are provided of the specific experiences and perceptions of these community leaders with a particular emphasis on the use of social media platforms in engaging citizens in the PB process. This article concludes with recommendations for creating a PB infrastructure, for increasing citizen participation in the PB process, and for assessing and increasing the impact of PB in cities within the United States.

Citizen participation for sustainable transport: the case of “Living City” in Santiago, Chile (1997–2012)

Twentieth century citizen “revolts” against urban highway projects have influenced thinking about public transport (Toronto, Vancouver, New York), governance (Portland), and cycling (The Netherlands) to this day. Less is known, however, about how these emerge in developing countries, and what they can tell us about citizens’ role in innovation to achieve more sustainable transport systems. This case study examines a social movement that emerged in opposition to the country’s first major highway concession, in Santiago, Chile (1997), challenging and changing urban planning paradigms. In 2000, the anti-highway campaign founded a citizen institution, Living City (Ciudad Viva). Twelve years later, it has become a prize-winning, citizen-led planning institution.Although the role of citizen participation in improving transport systems has become increasingly recognized in recent years, it still tends to be rather ritualistic. This experience offers insight into how strategic approaches to participation can reinforce the role of self-organizing civil society organizations in introducing innovation into existing systems. Findings suggest that traditional large movements, which are mainly useful for one-way communication of information, require support from small groups able to deliberate in a transformative sense, with more attention paid to how new consensuses can be transmitted through the relational networks of those involved. Moreover, this experience suggests that thinking about citizens as planners in their own right, rather than as mere participants at specific points in a planning process, opens the way to more effective strategies for innovating in transport, to address the social, environmental, and other challenges humanity faces today.

Explaining uniformity in rule design: The role of citizen participation in enforcement

Uniform rules incur high aggregate compliance costs when agents are sufficiently heterogeneous. Despite this, uniformity remains a common feature in regulation. Focusing on the monitoring stage of enforcement, this paper highlights an underappreciated benefit of uniform rules. Uniformity of regulation can enhance the productivity of monitoring. We illustrate the general mechanism by showing that in the presence of members of the public that are willing and able to report violations to the regulator at a cost to themselves, uniform rules allow substituting third-party participation for costly own monitoring. However, socially desirable acts may have to be punished to generate deterrence for undesirable acts. Individualizing monitoring and enforcement and citizens acting on welfare considerations do not improve on the outcome.

“Technology Is a Commodity”: The Internet in the 2008 United States Presidential Election

The role of the Internet as a tool for participation and organization has been considered the most important innovation in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign and one of the key strategic factors in Barack Obama's conquest of the Democratic nomination and the White House. This article analyzes e-campaigning in the 2008 election through data drawn from qualitative interviews with 31 consultants and operatives who were involved in the presidential race. Rather than adopting a technocentric perspective, our interviewees acknowledge that several contextual factors enhance or hinder the effectiveness of online tools, such as the message of the campaign, the candidate's personality, and his or her ability to generate enthusiasm in the electorate, together with the campaign's strategic prioritization of grassroots electioneering. Technology is seen more as an efficient channel of preexisting motivations and loyalties than as a driver of these attitudes. Moreover, while the Web has often been characterized as presenting campaigns with a dilemma between top-down hierarchy and bottom-up spontaneity, Internet professionals and operatives argue that contemporary e-campaigning tools can help achieve both goals and breed a hybrid organizing model that reconciles control and empowerment through the skillful use of individual data. These findings have important implications regarding the strategic and organizational dynamics of contemporary campaigns and the role of citizen participation within them.

Debating Democracy: The Dutch Case

Normative theories on democracy differ in their view on the role of citizen participation. Whereas in the model of representative democracy, the role of citizen participation is mainly voting; in the models of associative democracy, deliberative democracy, and participatory democracy, other aspects of citizen participation are emphasized. This article investigates the extent to which the theoretical debate on democracy is reflected in the public debate on democracy and in democratic practices. It does so for the Dutch case. The analysis shows that the representative model dominates the Dutch debate on democracy among opinion makers and political parties. As far as elements of other models are mentioned, there appears to be a connection with the (ideological) background of the defenders of that perspective: the associative concept of democracy is mainly debated among Christian Democrats, the participatory model among parties from the Left, and the deliberative model among academics. Although the representative model is dominant in the public debate on democracy, the article also shows examples of local democratic practices in which elements of different models of democracy appear to be present.

Engaging the poor to challenge corrupt governance

English This article summarizes four popular anti-corruption approaches, including universal legal reform, public-sector reform, social action and democratic participation. It specifically addresses how social workers can engage the poor in challenging corrupt practices, and cites examples where practitioners have been successful at implementing these strategies. French Cet article récapitule quatre approches populaires anti-corruption incluant une réforme légale universelle, une réforme du secteur public, l'action sociale et la participation démocratique. Il s'intéresse spécifiquement à savoir comment les assistants sociaux peuvent encourager les pauvres à défier les pratiques corrompues et cite des exemples dans lesquels les praticiens ont été couronnés de succés pour mettre en oeuvre ces stratégies. Spanish Se resumen cuatro abordamientos populares contra la corrupción: reforma legal universal; reforma del sector público; acción social; participación democrática. Se expone cómo los trabajadores sociales pueden activar a los pobres para la lucha contra la corrupción, y da ejemplos en los que la implementación de tales prácticas se vio coronada por el éxito.

The role of citizen participation and action research principles in Main Street revitalization

This article examines the use of citizen participation techniques during the planning process for neighborhood revitalization in the Village of Depew which is an industrial suburb of Buffalo, New York. The article focuses on how action research principles can inform and enhance traditional approaches to citizen participation. In particular, we discuss our role as university-based consultants in the local planning process and how drawing from action research principles helped us remain focused on advocating for broad-based citizen participation. Our analysis was based on the application of action research principles and participant observation techniques. During the time that each of us was involved in the planning process for Depew's neighborhood revitalization, reflexive field notes and other data were collected. The article critiques how citizen participation was used to plan for neighborhood revitalization in Depew, and discusses the degree to which action research principles can be applied to future citizen participation efforts.

Creating Great Places: The Role of Citizen Participation

Smart growth strategies can help ensure that development projects yield better community, economic, environmental, and public health outcomes. A principle component of these strategies is meaningful stakeholder participation in development decision-making. This paper (1) discusses how increased and meaningful participation can lead to better projects and a more predictable and fair development process, and (2) outlines some of the tools the public and private sector have begun to use. Within the development process, community members need information about a range of possible alternatives before voicing choices or concerns. Under most citizen participation processes, only a small portion of the community engages in decision-making because of socioeconomic, linguistic, or educational class barriers. To better engage all residents, local governments and the development community can get creative in identifying and using new methods for soliciting, responding to, and sharing information. Reaching out and working with community residents in a meaningful and enduring process will allow communities to realize their vision for where and how to grow next.

NIMBY opposition and solid waste incinerator siting in democratizing Taiwan

To address Taiwan's waste crisis, the Taiwanese government has embraced incinerators as a major policy instrument for waste disposal. Although the adoption of waste burning policy was not debated much, the siting of incinerators has been vigorously opposed by community-based protest movements, emerged with Taiwan's transition to democracy. In response, both the Kuomintang (KMT) government and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government have used compensation to induce the acceptance of local hosting communities as in other countries. Nevertheless, the use of compensation has never been effective in resolving not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) conflict without mobilizing local political and government support to suppress NIMBY protests in order to enforce the timely construction of needed incinerators. To accommodate the rising democratic expectation of public participation in deliberations over the incineration waste policy, this article also argues that the role of citizen participation must be addressed to increase public support for incinerator option in managing Taiwan's waste.

Managing the Environmental Legitimation Crisis

The authors discuss and extend the crisis theory of Habermas and Offe by adding and arguing for the semiautonomy of a fourth system—the ecological system. Based on Habermas's crisis systems theory and J. O'Connor's fiscal crisis-of-the-state thesis, they develop a crisis systems model (CSM) applicable to late capitalist societies. Within the framework of the CSM, they outline the three crises identified in earlier research— accumulation crisis of overproduction, accumulation crisis of underproduction, and social welfare legitimation—and argue for the relevance of a fourth crisis—the environmental legitimation crisis. They assess the empirical import of the CSM and the cogency of the environmental legitimation crisis by examining the evolving role of citizen participation in natural resource management in the United States. The authors conclude that the democratization of environmental decision making is, in part, an adaptive response by natural resources agencies to avoid an environmental legitimation crisis.