Participatory Planning

Justification

Participation approaches has been increasingly sought and embedded into national and international policy and it seen as a best practice due to the complex and dynamic nature of problems (Reed, 2008). There are so many reasons for the public involvement in the planning process such as it can build consensus around appropriate actions and a sense of ownership of the goals of the plan (Coenen, 2007).

These participation approaches in decision making have progressed through a series of recognizable phases from awareness rising in the late 1960s to a growing ‘‘post-participation’’ consensus over best practice, learning from the mistakes and successes of this long history (Reed, 2008). One of the several participatory practices such as Local Agenda 21 (LA21) focus on the ‘local authorities’ to engage in a dialogue to seeks for a new participation process where the communication between local authorities and all local stakeholders goes beyond existing and traditional consultation(Coenen, 2007).

Objective

Like Brigg says, there some reasons behind the claim for the salient of participatory approaches in decision making are;

can produce better substantive ideas,

useful relationships and stronger civic institutions,

new agreements across stubborn divides,

and the kind of legitimacy and political support that’s increasingly important for acting on social problems. (Briggs, 2003)

However, the quality of decisions made through participation is strongly dependant on the nature of the process leading to them (Reed, 2008). Although many benefits have been claimed for participation, disillusionment has grown amongst practitioners and stakeholders who have felt let down when these claims are not realized (Reed, 2008).

Research question

This review try to find out the limitations and potentials or benefits of participatory approaches base on the questions; Why should we engage participatory in planning?

Benefit / Potential

Public participation is getting more and more popular in the decision making process. Participation is one thing that determines the degree of success of a program, especially in the context of spatial planning. One reason why planning is changing and has to change is because governance and societies have changed (Coenen, 2007). Although few of the claims that are made have been tested, there is evidence that stakeholder participation can enhance the quality of environmental decisions by considering more comprehensive information inputs (Reed, 2008).

In the concept of participation of each party involved or involved expected to be able to participate in every stage where he was involved / engaged and perhaps quality and durability of decisions is likely to be greater by involving stakeholders in decision making (Reed, 2008).

There are some arguments or perspectives for the participation in decision making process, such as normative and functional arguments, and in the sustainable development decision making, participation is considered necessary using both normative and functional argument for participation (Coenen, 2007). Many of argument for public participation seem to be more functional/instrumental, with an emphasis on pragmatic usage which focus on participation as a means to an end (Coenen, 2009; Reed, 2008), rather than normative perspective, with an emphasis on democratic and emancipatory values, because policy practitioners tend to take an instrumental position and stress efficiency and effectiveness (Coenen, 2009). Reed (2008) also gives some reviews of typologies of participation which different base on the nature and/or the decision making context.

Participatory approach is based on the concept of democracy, in other words all parties / people directly affected by a decision are appropriately involved in the decision making process and where relevant Reed suggested that participation should be as early as possible and throughout the process and participation is essentially about empowerment or learning democratic skills (Coenen, 2007)

From the pint of view functional or pragmatic perspective some benefits or argument for public participation can generally :

increase the legitimacy of decisions taken and reduce the level of conflict

contributes to the quality of decision-making

people will learn of the environmental problems that society faces and change their behaviour (Coenen, 2009)

From instrumental/pragmatic perspective, a participatory decision-making process has some potentially considerable advantages over non-participatory decision-making processes (Coenen, 2009), like reduces the likelihood that those on the periphery of the decision-making context or society are marginalised, increase public trust in decisions and civil society, can empower stakeholders through the co-generation of knowledge with researchers, and may also promote social learning (Reed, 2008), and also provide the possibility of articulating the interests of the various stakeholders (Coenen, 2007) and the effective participation demands good strategy as much as good tactics (Briggs, 2003).

Through participation, people will learn of the problems that society faces, and how to interact with others that have different opinions or interests (Coenen, 2007). By taking local interests and concerns into account at an early stage, it may be possible to inform project design with a variety of ideas and perspectives, and in this way increase the likelihood that local needs and priorities are successfully met (Reed, 2008),

It is argued that participation enables interventions and technologies to be better adapted to local socio-cultural and environmental conditions. This may enhance their rate of adoption and diffusion among target groups, and their capacity to meet local needs and priorities (Reed, 2008). In other side the absence of participation in decision making process make decisions will not be seen as legitimate because they will not reflect the will and the values of the people (Coenen, 2007)

Limitation

In general, a decision-making process begins with problem identification phase, design development steps / plans, dissemination of ideas and implementation of design / planning and implementation phases and stages of evaluation in which the limitation appears in the term of representativeness of the participant, time and cost effectiveness (Coenen, 2007). In participatory approach we have to maintain the commitment between all parties involved; who will be included, what will they do, and when? (Briggs, 2003) and there are also problems with meeting the ambition of broad participation because of the actual number of participants is rather limited (Coenen, 2007), and the concept of participation is desperately needed a long time, therefore need a strategy to overcome time constraints for the application of the concept of participation.

Much disagreement still exist over what constitute best practice (Reed, 2003) and also disagreement as to whether participation leads to better decisions (Yosie & Herbst, 1998 in Coenen, 2009) in participatory process particularly to realize broad public involvement in which will collide with the ability and willingness of participant to participate in practice (Coenen, 2007).

In the concept of participation also affect the time required and the availability of adequate information, so that ideally all parties engage fully and with adequate information, and so far the concept of participation is seen as having a weak spot as the concept of development as there are weaknesses, especially with time constraints this raises a potential of tension between participatory and representative democracy. That is the reason why Briggs tries to elaborate four factors that define participation strategy and practice;