Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions : the Promise and Limits of Participatory Processes for the Quality of Environmentally Related Decision-making

__Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions__ is about a specific ‘promise’ that participation holds for environmental decision-making. Many of the arguments for public participation in (inter)national environmental policy documents are functional, that is to say they see public participation as a means to an end. Sound solutions to environmental problems require participation beyond experts and political elites. Neglecting information from the public leads to legitimacy questions and potential conflicts. There is a discourse in the literature and in policy practice as to whether decision-making improves in quality as additional relevant information by the public is considered. The promise that public participation holds has to be weighed against the limitations of public participation in terms of costs and interest conflicts. The question that __Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions__ seeks to answer for academics, planners and civil servants in all environmental relevant policy fields is: What restricts and what enables information to hold the ‘promise’ that public participation lead to better environmental decision-making and better outcomes?

Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions is about a specific ‘promise’ that participation holds for environmental decision-making. Many of the arguments for public participation in (inter)national environmental policy documents are functional, that is to say they see public participation as a means to an end. Sound solutions to environmental problems require participation beyond experts and political elites. Neglecting information from the public leads to legitimacy questions and potential conflicts.

There is a discourse in the literature and in policy practice as to whether decision-making improves in quality as additional relevant information by the public is considered. The promise that public participation holds has to be weighed against the limitations of public participation in terms of costs and interest conflicts. The question that Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions seeks to answer for academics, planners and civil servants in all environmental relevant policy fields is: What restricts and what enables information to hold the ‘promise’ that public participation lead to better environmental decision-making and better outcomes?

Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-19 Citizens' Voices in Environmental Policy....Pages 21-34 The Use of Focus Groups in Assessing Ethnic and Racial Group Concerns About Nuclear Waste Cleanup....Pages 35-55 Planning Cells and Citizen Juries in Environmental Policy: Deliberation and Its Limits....Pages 57-71 The Power of Visioning: The Contribution of Future Search Conferences to Decision-Making in Local Agenda 21 Processes....Pages 73-88 Participatory Decision-Making for Sustainable Consumption....Pages 89-110 Hazardous Waste Anyone?....Pages 111-133 Fora, Networks and Public Examinations....Pages 135-152 Concepts of Participatory Decision-Making in Dutch Infrastructure Planning....Pages 153-163 Local Agenda 21: ‘Meaningful and Effective ’ Participation?....Pages 165-182 Conclusions....Pages 183-209 A work about a specific 'promise' that participation holds for environmental decision-making. It seeks answer to the question: What restricts and what enables information to hold the 'promise' that public participation lead to better environmental decision-making and better outcomes? Coenen_FM.pdf 1 Coenen_Ch01.pdf 8 Coenen_Ch02.pdf 27 Coenen_Ch03.pdf 41 Coenen_Ch04.pdf 62 Coenen_Ch05.pdf 77 Coenen_Ch06.pdf 93 Coenen_Ch07.pdf 115 Coenen_Ch08.pdf 138 Coenen_Ch09.pdf 156 Coenen_Ch10.pdf 167 Coenen_Ch11.pdf 185