Public Participation and Local Sustainability: Questioning a Common Agenda in Urban Governance
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract In the context of calls for more effective processes to facilitate deliberative democracy in cities, and the connection often asserted between participatory means and sustainability ends in urban governance, this article examines a case of public participation for sustainability indicator selection in Vancouver, Canada. Sustainability indicator systems are often introduced via participatory exercises, but the quality of this participation and its outcomes are questionable. Based upon current debates in deliberative democratic theory, our judgment of the quality of a particular process depends on the level and mode of interaction. Do we expect, along with Healey, that participants build a rational consensus beginning from root values and visions, or do we expect, along with Mouffe, a conflictual consensus among participants working from incommensurably diverse life worlds? An examination of governmentality theory, based on the work of Rydin, adds to this a way of understanding the impact on participation outcomes of what participants learn about their own and others' roles in democratic urban governance as they prepare recommendations specific to local sustainability. This case study analysis reflects on these theoretical debates in terms of the unfolding of a public participation process for sustainability indicator selection. It offers lessons for public process design that is better aligned with the expectations of radicalized communicative rationality and for the specific learning values of engagement for participants, which were at least as strongly related to democratic practice as they were to sustainability per se. Résumé Sur fond de demandes de processus décisionnels plus efficaces facilitant la démocratie délibérative dans les villes, et de lien souvent revendiqué entre méthodes participatives et objectifs de développement durable en matière de gouvernance urbaine, l’article étudie un cas de participation publique visant la sélection d’indicateurs de durabilitéà Vancouver, au Canada. Les systèmes d’indicateurs de durabilité apparaissent souvent avec les pratiques participatives, mais la qualité de cette participation et ses résultats sont discutables. D’après les débats actuels sur la théorie de la démocratie délibérative, l’évaluation de la qualité de tel ou tel processus dépend de ses niveau et mode d’interactions. Veut‐on croire, tel Healey, que les participants bâtiront un consensus rationnel en commençant par des valeurs et perspectives fondamentales ou, telle Mouffe, qu’un consensus conflictuel se créera entre des participants émanant d’univers de vie sans commune mesure? L’étude de la théorie de la gouvernementalitéà partir des travaux de Rydin offre un moyen de comprendre comment les résultats de la participation sont affectés par ce que les participants apprennent sur leur rôle personnel et sur le rôle des autres dans la gouvernance urbaine démocratique, pendant qu’ils préparent leurs recommandations en matière de durabilité locale. L’analyse de l’étude de cas revient sur ces débats théoriques pour expliciter un processus de participation publique visant la sélection d’indicateurs de durabilité. Elle en tire des enseignements qui suggèrent une conception des processus publics plus conforme aux attentes d’une rationalité communicative radicalisée et qui déterminent, pour les participants, les valeurs d’apprentissage social propres à l’engagement, valeurs qui ont été liées à la pratique démocratique au moins autant qu’au développement durable lui‐même.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.027 | 0.018 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.021 | 0.080 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.022 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.016 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".