Institutional Participatory Governance Policies and Strategies

Background

Participatory governance is a perspective of democracy and sustainability in public policy with citizen participation. Participation is linked to governance concerning the policy process from being the elected representatives, experts, and bureaucratic to the inclusion of citizens and the recognition of experiential forms and expert knowledge. Participatory development and democracy approaches are variant initiatives in different contexts linked to policy and governance. Participatory governance is characterized by the creation of new institutions supported by a participative policies and strategy approach. Institutions include different actors, stakeholders and representatives in the consultation, deliberation, and decision-making processes to analyze the conditions for participatory governance arrangements, the institutional designs and cultural cooperation development at all the levels of policy making, representing institutions that have already experienced in practice.

There are ongoing discussions and debates on public participation and creating methods and tools for participatory governance processes through the implementation of representative democracy in some contexts of institutional policymaking. Well informed and knowledgeable participants in the debates become more technical in content and policy processes strategic adaption in a long-term orientation. The technocratic positivist approach to policy analysis is inherent to the orthodox concept of government. Science provides arguments for policy analysis advocacy, political disputes, and contra expertise (Jennings, 1987; Sclove, 1995). Participatory state initiated governance arrangements articulate institutional forms for interactive policy analysis, decision making, agenda setting in which non-state actors actively engage in formal political institutions (Rowe & Frewer 2004). Participatory governance arrangements are instrumentally set in policy design and implementation (Papadopoulos & Warin, 2007, p. 446), and practices take place in the design and implementation of policies aimed to urban rehabilitation and regeneration, social inclusion, community development and safety, and so forth.

At the core of the policy and strategy debates of institutional participatory governance are the issues and concerns of the state formation, liberal democracy, public participation, civil society organizations, economic development, citizenship capabilities, social inclusion and equity, sustainable environment, etc., all of which may lead to the implementation of different types of development programs. The theoretical studies of participatory governance have engaged in dialogue beyond their boundaries in open structures for cooperation and negotiations with other stakeholders, agencies, and public participation without considering the transaction cost and undermining policy strategic performance (Harter, 1982; Harmon, 1995; Roberts, 2002; Mee, 1997; Ansell,2011). At the participatory policy making level and strategy, the participatory governance has been proved to be positive (Singleton, 2002; Innes & Booher, 1999; Freeman, 1997; Wondolleck & Yaffee, 2000; Gunningham, 2009; Kelly, 2004).

The increasing public participatory democracy to become influential in policy making must undergo through political and strategic administrative reforms and changes that affect the functions’ performance of citizens within the decision making processes. The institutions of participatory governance may affect diverse economic, social, environmental sustainability, institutional, and policymaking environments. Consensus-based models are useful and praised for the mitigation of naturally occurring conflicts emerging during policy and strategy formulation and decision-making processes.