Overview
- Examines the relation between public participation and the quality of decision making from a functional perspective
- Contributes to an important discourse on the role of public participation in environmental decision making
- Explores cases of environmental decision making in different policy settings and countries and from different disciplinary angles
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
Keywords
About this book
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?
Reviews
From the reviews:
“This edited collection is an inquiry into the impact of public participation on the quality of environmental decision making. … for the policy scientist interested in delving into decision processes, Coenen and collaborators provide a worthwhile contribution that introduces the reader to many of the benefits and challenges of participatory decision making and provides plenty of examples from a wide array of decision-making arenas and methods. Overall, Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions contributes nicely to the growing body of empirical evidence about participatory processes.” (Cedar Morton, Policy Sciences, Vol. 44, 2011)Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions
Book Subtitle: The Promise and Limits of Participatory Processes for the Quality of Environmentally Related Decision-making
Editors: Frans H. J. M. Coenen
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9325-8
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-9324-1Published: 02 December 2008
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-8107-0Published: 19 October 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-9325-8Published: 12 December 2008
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 209
Topics: Pollution, general, Sustainable Development, Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice, Environment, general, Political Science, Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning