Participation (decision making)

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Participation (decision making)

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Participation in social science is an umbrella term including different means for the public to directly participate in political, economic, management or other social decisions. Ideally, each actor would have a say in decisions directly proportional to the degree that particular decision affects him or her. Those not affected by a decision would have no say and those exclusively affected by a decision would have full say. Likewise, those most affected would have the most say while those least affected would have the least say. Participatory decision making infers a level of proportionate decision making power and can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic (ie Participatory economics

Participatory economics

Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participation as an economics to guide the production, consumption and allocation of factors of production in a given society....
), political (ie Participatory democracy

Participatory democracy

Participatory democracy, sometimes called "direct democracy," is a process promoted by the New Left in the early 1960's and on through the 1980's, emphasizing the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems....
or parpolity), cultural (ie intercommunalism) or familial (ie Feminism

Feminism

Feminism is the belief that women should have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men. It involves various movements, Theory, and philosophies, all concerned with issues of gender difference, that advocate equality for women and that campaign for women's rights and interests....
).

The term is used in management

Management

Management in business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leadership or directing, and Control an organization or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal....
theory (as in "participatory management

Participatory management

Participatory management is the practice of empowerment employees to participate in organizational decision making. This practice grew out of the human relations movement in the 1920s, and is based on some of the principles discovered by scholars doing research in management and organization studies, such as the Hawthorne Effect....
") to denote a style of management that calls for a high level of participation of workers and supervisors in decisions that affect their work. The term is also used in Participatory Economics or "parecon" as it is theorized and elaborated in that model.

For well-informed participation to occur, some version of transparency

Transparency (humanities)

Transparency, as used in the humanities, when used in a Social actions context, implies openness, communication, and accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the meaning a "transparency " object is one that can be seen through....
, e.g. radical transparency

Radical transparency

Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly.All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, the decisions about the decision making process itself, and all final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly archived....
, is necessary, but not sufficient. It has been suggested in the participatory economics

Participatory economics

Balanced job complex

A balanced job complex is a way of organizing a workplace or group that is both directly democratic and also creates relative equal Empowerment among all people involved....
is necessary: self-confidence, empowerment and information must be equitably distributed.

Sherry Arnstein discusses types of participation and "nonparticipation" in A Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969). She defines citizen participation as the redistribution of power that enables the havenot citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the future. Multiple other "ladders" of participation have been presented, most notably Connor's "A new ladder of citizen participation" (1988), Wiedemann and Femers' "Public Participation in waste management decision making: analysis and management of conflicts" (1993) and Dorcey et al. "Public Involvement in government decision making: choosing the right model" (1994) and Rocha's "A Ladder of Empowerment" (1997).

External links

Database with best practice examples of new forms of decision making in the Alps
A leading informal journal on participatory learning and action approaches and methods, providing a forum for those engaged in participatory work - community workers, activists and researchers - to share their experiences, conceptual reflections and methodological innovations with others.
The Participation Website was established in 1999 by the Informal Working Group on Participatory Approaches and Methods to Support Sustainable Livelihoods and Food Security (IWG-PA) from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The objective of the Participation Website is to bring together under one virtual roof, a broad cross-section of stakeholders interested in participatory approaches and methods in support of sustainable rural livelihoods and food security.
An original method to make decisions and also resolve conflicts, used in South Africa and spreading in the world.