An Experimental Study Using SDS Tools for a Participatory Approach to Local Land Use Planning

2011 ◽  
pp. 150-166
Author(s):  
Piotr Jankowski ◽  
Milosz Stasik
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Spatial Understanding ◽  
Analytical Thinking ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making

Participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) have been touted as a technology to democratize local decision making. The promise of PGIS has been largely pinned on the assumption that maps as tools of communication are rich in informational content, and capable of fostering shared understanding and analytical thinking. Whether maps alone can indeed be the medium for supporting shared understanding and analytical thinking in participatory decision making is still an open question. Much of our knowledge in this area is still anecdotal, and there is a need for empirical work to supply the evidence. In an attempt to test the applicability of maps, decision models, and Internet-based communication tools for PGIS, software called spatial understanding and decision support system (SUDSS) was built using asynchronous spatiotemporal environment, and tested in a realistic setting representing public land-use planning debate. This chapter provides a description of the software and the experiment, followed by the discussion of its results and their significance for the future development of similar public participation spatial-decision support tools.

scholarly journals Operationalizing ecosystem service bundles for strategic sustainability planning: A participatory approach

AMBIO ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 314-331
Author(s):  
Katja Malmborg ◽  
Elin Enfors-Kautsky ◽  
Cibele Queiroz ◽  
Albert Norström ◽  
Lisen Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Participatory Process ◽  
Southern Sweden ◽  
Sustainability Planning ◽  
Sense Of Ownership ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Multifunctional Landscape ◽  
Local Decision Making

AbstractThe ecosystem service concept is recognized as a useful tool to support sustainability in decision-making. In this study, we collaborated with actors in the Helge å catchment, southern Sweden, in an iterative participatory ecosystem service assessment. Through workshops and interviews, we jointly decided which ecosystem services to assess and indicators to use in order to achieve a sense of ownership and a higher legitimacy of the assessment. Subsequently, we explored the landscape-level interactions between the 15 assessed services, and found that the area can be described using three distinct ecosystem service bundles. The iterative, participatory process strengthened our analysis and created a shared understanding and overview of the multifunctional landscape around Helge å among participants. Importantly, this allowed for the generated knowledge to impact local strategic sustainability planning. With this study, we illustrate how similar processes can support local decision-making for a more sustainable future.

scholarly journals The G1000 Firework Dialogue as a Social Learning System: A Community of Practice Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Eckardt ◽  
Paul Benneworth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Social Learning System

New public governance studies have increasingly sought to highlight the importance of citizen engagement in local decision-making processes as a way to identify suitable approaches to matters of public concern. There is a particular absence of good theoretical development building upon empirical work exploring citizen participatory processes as potential sites for social learning. In this paper, we asked the overall research question of the extent to which a new citizen participation process can be designed as a social learning system to facilitate the integration of citizen types of interests and knowledge in local decision-making. To answer this question, the study’s results provided deeper insights into the internal social learning dynamics within one particular deliberately designed collective local decision-making process, the G1000 firework dialogue in Enschede, The Netherlands. Using Wenger’s concept of “communities of practice” (CoP) as a baseline for analysis, the results of this study indicated that the G1000 firework dialogue process encouraged the creation of activities that may be considered to correspond to the different structural dimensions of CoP and that new design-based models of citizen participation would benefit from adopting a more explicit incorporation of and orientation towards social learning practices and theories. Consequently, we argue that local governance should invest more in citizen participation processes that encourage and enable learning among different societal stakeholders with different interests through constructive dialogues over political matters.

The Veil of Bureaucracy: How Officials Evade Partisan Politics in Participatory Settings

2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110288
Author(s):  
Meaghan Stiman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Community Voice ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Do So

In theory, participatory democracies are thought to empower citizens in local decision-making processes. However, in practice, community voice is rarely representative, and even in cases of equal representation, citizens are often disempowered through bureaucratic processes. Drawing on the case of a firearm discharge debate from a rural county’s municipal meetings in Virginia, I extend research about how power operates in participatory settings. Partisan political ideology fueled the debate amongst constituents in expected ways, wherein citizens engaged collectivist and individualist frames to sway the county municipal board ( Celinska 2007 ). However, it was a third frame that ultimately explains the ordinance’s repeal: the bureaucratic frame, an ideological orientation to participatory processes that defers decision-making to disembodied abstract rules and procedures. This frame derives its power from its depoliticization potential, allowing bureaucrats to evade contentious political debates. Whoever is best able to wield this frame not only depoliticizes the debate to gain rationalized legitimacy but can do so in such a way to favor a partisan agenda. This study advances gun research and participatory democracy research by analyzing how the bureaucratic frame, which veils partisanship, offers an alternative political possibility for elected officials, community leaders, and citizens to adjudicate partisan debates.

Allocating HIV prevention resources: A tool for state and local decision making

Health Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Richter ◽  
Katherine A. Hicks ◽  
Stephanie R. Earnshaw ◽  
Amanda A. Honeycutt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Hiv Prevention ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Local Decision Making

Excluded communities and participatory land-use planning: experience from informal Roma settlements in Serbia

2021 ◽  
pp. 095624782110240
Author(s):  
Zlata Vuksanović-Macura ◽  
Igor Miščević
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Participatory Approach ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Active Involvement

Citizen participation in the planning and decision-making process in the European post-socialist context is much debated. Still, the involvement of excluded communities in the urban planning process remains understudied. This paper presents and discusses the application of an innovative participatory approach designed to ensure active involvement of an excluded ethnic minority, the Roma community, in the process of formulating and adopting land-use plans for informal settlements in Serbia. By analysing the development of land-use plans in 11 municipalities, we observe that the applied participatory approach enhanced the inhabitants’ active participation and helped build consensus on the planned solution between the key actors. Findings also suggested that further work with citizens, capacity building of planners and administration, and secured financial mechanisms are needed to move citizen participation in urban planning beyond the limited statutory requirements.

Translating a risk-based land-use planning issue to a decision making tool using simple GIS approaches

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Carroll ◽  
Evan Thomas ◽  
Lloyd Fielding ◽  
Charles Dowding ◽  
Les Dawes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Decision Making Tool

scholarly journals Social work in municipalities

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Rolv Lyngstad
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Wide Sense ◽  
Professional Discretion ◽  
Local Decision ◽  
Local Discretion ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Local Decision Making ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
The Relationship

The point of departure of this article is contemporary changes in the relationship between national and local decision making in the Norwegian political system. The last decades’ centralization tendencies seem to be challenged by a “new” emphasis on local discretion, and the article discusses how this will affect social work in municipalities. The changes are contested and controversial and allude to questions such as how much discretion should be given to local decision makers in the name of local democracy, and how much difference should be accepted in the name of diversity? The article argues that professional social work must be context-specific, meaning that in a wide sense local knowledge is a prerequisite for good social work. Devolution and local political and professional discretion are necessary in many cases, but not sufficient in themselves as conditions for success. Professional social workers will encounter a lot of difficult dilemmas arousing from issues related to the equality/liberty debate and the diversity/difference/equality debate in social work discourses. In order to approach these dilemmas, more of a focus on local deliberation and place shaping, in combination with a social work focus on democratic professionalism, is necessary. If this is done successfully, devolution and a recapturing of local discretion and decision-making power will empower clients as well as professionals. Thus, current changes in the relationship between different levels of decision making will enlarge the possibilities for professional social work in the municipalities.

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