Citizen participation
Involvement of members of the public in decisions that affect them.
Example
Consultations, assemblies and local planning processes can provide routes in.
The catch
Meaningful participation requires an opportunity to influence outcomes.
Related terms
Behaviour change, Bystander effect, Climate agency, Climate anxiety, Climate fatalism, Climate fatigue
In more depth
Citizen participation, explained.
Citizen participation ranges from being told about a decision to sharing the power to make it, and the label alone does not reveal which. In Europe, the Aarhus Convention gives the public legal rights to environmental information, to take part in certain decisions and to challenge them in court. Climate assemblies go further in method. Members are chosen by lottery to mirror the population, hear evidence from experts and deliberate before making recommendations.
Who turns up shapes the result. Open consultations tend to hear from people with time, confidence and a stake already in play, so random selection and paid participation widen the pool. The skew raises a climate justice problem, since the households most exposed to a flood scheme or a fuel price change are often the least represented.