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The Principle of Participation
incorporated into GALA. In addition, general regulations for community-level participation at the local and regional levels are contained in the Municipalities Act and the Provinces Act. The advantages of this form of participation are that citizens can influence the policymaking process and, as a result, the administration starts paying more attention to the various social interests involved in the proposal. This means that, in theory, the quality of administrative practices improves. Disadvantages include uncertainty as to whether the views and opinions expressed will actually be translated into action by the public administration. Furthermore, there is only a limited chance that the intended administrative practice will be affected if there are opposing opinions and interests on the citizens’ side.
4. Institutions Involved All the government institutions, in the broad sense, have regulations about the participation aspects of their behaviour. This means that not only the three traditional powers should adhere to these norms, but the fourth power should as well. These institutions encourage public participation. In fact, the type of participation in administrative departments varies depending on their individual characteristics. The situation in the Netherlands is similar to one in Australia, where legislators are the main codifiers of effectiveness in public authorities and controlling institutions. For instance, the Commonwealth Ombudsman Act empowers the Commonwealth Ombudsman to investigate any unreasonable delays in the exercise of power (section 10). The need for administrative agencies to not be unreasonable in exercising their competences underlies these systems. The actual effectiveness of participation is relevant as well. Various analyses of local- level public participation have been developed in the literature22 of why or how citizens are motivated to participate. Three models have been developed: (1) the civic voluntarism model in which citizens are prepared to participate if given sufficient opportunity, are politically active, and are encouraged to do so; (2) the rational choice model in which citizens are prepared to participate if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages; and (3) the social capital model in which citizens are prepared to participate when there is mutual trust between the citizen and the institution involved. One of the more recent models, the CLEAR model,23 is intriguing as it links the three models mentioned above: CLEAR stands for: C = Can citizens participate? L = Do they Like to participate? E = Are they Enabled to participate? A = Are they Asked to participate? R = Are they Responded to if they do participate?
Suitable (skills) Involved (commitment) Organized (collaboration) Asked (by public authorities) Appreciated (by public authorities)
The five relevant factors to be studied are: (1) suitability; (2) sense of involvement; (3) degree of organization; (4) whether the citizens have been asked to participate; and (5) whether the citizens’ participation is appreciated. For each factor, there are several variables. Suitability depends on the level of education, profession, age and social
22
Steur and Van der Groot 2006.
23
Lowndes and others 2001.
