Public Participation (Gene Rowe)

here is widespread concern in many democratic societies about a loss of public trust in authorities, politicians, and scientists (or at least, in those scientists that advise policy makers). This has presented difficulties to the traditional policy making process, in which policy makers, helped by expert advisors, make decisions and then communicate these to the public, in the expectation that the public will understand and accept these, and think and behave accordingly. This issue is particularly pertinent to the food domain, which has both influenced, and been affected by, this trend. The BSE crisis is seen as one of the major causes of this trend, especially in the UK. In this case, initial assurances by government (informed by expert advice) that eating beef was ‘safe’, later turned out to be dangerously wrong. Following this event, it is perhaps of no surprise that the public have become somewhat sceptical about more recent expert/policy maker assurances about the safety of other technologies or products, such as genetically modified foods. In this case, widespread public concern has undermined the utility of this potentially valuable technology.

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One potential solution to this crisis in public trust and governance, which has become popular in the UK, Europe, and other democracies, is to involve the public more fully in the policy process – that is, to seek public views and participation, instead of treating the public as simply passive recipients of policy decisions. It has been assumed by many political theorists, social commentators, and even politicians that such ‘public participation’ will lead to many benefits, such as increasing public trust in authorities, improving citizen political efficacy, enhancing democratic ideals and even improving the quality of policy decisions. However, these assumptions are largely untested, and the benefits of ‘participation’ are yet to be confirmed.