Policy makers who seek public input should understand the nature and limits of the information they seek. Do they want to know about community values? Or do they want to know some technical data about their options? Are they trying to give rational structure to their policy problem? Or, are they trying to evaluate alternative policies under consideration?
Involving the general public in complex public policy issues works best when, as a matter of empirical fact based on our experience in Oregon, policy makers, the public, and technical experts engage with one another as partners in a common endeavor. All three are members of the same community, but they have different roles to play in serving the common good. The general public articulates community values. Experts identify relevant facts and probabilities. Policy makers combine community values and the best available data in choosing among various alternatives.
Specifically, citizen participation contributes to the realization of three important goals: First, the normative rationale of deliberation gives meaning to democracy in policy formation and implementation. Second, value input from a broad range of the public can get decision makers to think outside the box and enhance the quality of the decision process; and third, participation plays an important educational and psychological role in the social development of the individual citizen.
The "Public Policy Partnership (PPP) Model" proposed here can be combined with various group process techniques such as focus groups, town hall meetings, or community meetings. These various approaches yield qualitative data to aid the policy maker's intuitive understanding of the values information relevant to the issue at hand. The model can also be combined with quantitative survey methods to assess the distribution and intensity of values held by members of a given community.
On the public side of the discourse, the process begins with the policy maker's desire to understand the community values relevant to the particular policy issue at stake. The key to this discourse mode is the question, "What is important to you about X?" followed by "Why?" asked recursively to move from superficial preferences to more stable core values.
Properly designed community meetings can generate public input that flows from questions that encourage wise discussion among a broad cross section of the public. For example, in the realm of science and technology, how private should genetic information be? Should it be exclusively under the control of the individual? The family? Humanity? Pharmaceutical companies? Who should have access to information about a person's genetic makeup? Private individuals or families? The State? These are not factual matters to be decided by experts, but rather matters related to the values held by the community.
Expert information, on the other hand, is evidence-based data about issues. Technical discourse relies on established norms for determining the most plausible evidence. Here the policy maker needs to hear and understand the strength of the evidence that a given explanation of an issue is the best one available. It is a common practice for the policy maker to commission technical reports from appropriate expert consultants. A difficult and critically important task of the policy maker is to guide the technical experts to focus on those specific aspects of their field of expertise relevant to the issue at hand.
In this model, the policy maker is a "receptor site." The policy decision maker--a committee, commission, legislature, board of directors, or negotiation team--must be committed to combine the public's input about values with expert information about facts into a coherent policy. A well-prepared receptor site will optimize this outcome by a) involving the decision makers in the design of the information-gathering process, and b) coming to agreement with them on how they can best bring the information obtained to bear in deciding among policy alternatives.
The PPP model proposed here replaces the usual three-step approach of 1)consulting with experts, 2) selecting among various policy options provided by those experts, and then 3) inviting public comment on a near final draft of a policy statement with a public participation process structured to partner citizens experts, and policy makers in a coordinated process that can broadly formulate the decision problem, guide analysis to improve participants' understanding of decisions, seek the meaning of analytic findings and uncertainties, and improve the ability of interested and affected parties to participate effectively in the risk decision process.
Comments (2)
This is a great concept.
I think that the American people would be much more aware of democracy and feel much more empowered (for the people by the people) if they just got a chance to voice their opinions and solutions on individual issues as opposed to being limited to voting for a representative who embodies a number of principles and ideals some of which they agree with and some of which they don't.
A look at where the American people stand on the issues, and the solutions they have to offer, may provide the policy makers great material to work through with technical representatives to create excellent policy that is what the people want.
I would not suggest that all policy be open to vote by the American people, but let them share their ideas and thoughts before the policy is already drafted.
We all know it takes a long time to generate policy so lets make sure that it is pollished with the best ideas of all of America, and with a solid base of support from the people before it comes to a vote. This should help make the policy process more efficient. I believe this would allow much more to get done.
- if it is right the first time it doesn't have to be re-drafted or repealed after damage is done. Once on the books it can stay for generations.
- if it already has a solid base of support amoungst the American people the House and Senate will be less stand offish to vote it in.
- if the American people play a role in it's developement then they will have BUY IN and they will work in their lives to make the policy a success. (afterall our representatives are now representing huge quantities of people. Can one man or woman alone, do as much as they could with the support of the thousands they represent?)
This idea has a proven track record in the Oregon Health Decisions projects and the work of Geneforum.org and Oregon State's Genetic Research Advisory Committee. Mostly, it seems to be used when there is already a new science or technology proposal on the table about which policy-makers are seeking public input: i.e., the creation of a state-wide biobank, etc. But that still puts the technical experts in the driver's seat, since they come up with the proposal in the first place, to which the public must react. I wonder if this partnership model would also work to help set the research agenda, as it does in community-based participatory public health research?
Of course, settling on community values is a political process, especially at the national level, and letting national politics shape science planning is usually seen as problematic: think of Lysenkoism, the space race, Bush's embryionic stem cell research ban (or Obama's reversal). Could this model scale up from local community dialogues to national science and technology policy without enountering "big P" politics?