Tradeoffs Between Characteristics of Good Participatory Processes: Initial Insights from European River Basin Scenario Workshops

Sarkki, Simo, Riku Varjopuro and Mathijs van

Vliet (2011) Tradeoffs Between

Characteristics of Good Participatory

Processes: Initial Insights from European

River Basin Scenario Workshops.

In: Mark Nuttall, Hannah Strauss and Kaarina

Tervo-Kankare (eds), Society, Environment

and Place in Northern Regions.

University of Oulu: Thule Institute, pp. 61-74

ISBN 978-951-42-9741-0 electronic version

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Tradeoffs Between Characteristics of Good Participatory Processes:Initial Insights from European River Basin Scenario Workshops

Simo Sarkki, Riku Varjopuro and Mathijs van Vliet

Introduction

Public participation is part of a trend of a move away from government towards governance; power and authority are horizontally decentralized and devolved to members of a society (Har-rington et al., 2008). The public should be involved in environmental decision-making (Beierle and Cayford, 2002; Reed, 2008), but what is a solid way to involve citizens? This question has led to a quest for principles that characterize good participation processes and numerous characteristics have been identified for ideal participatory processes (Webler, 1995; Rowe and Frewer, 2004). But can they all be achieved in the same process, and what are the possible tradeoffs between differ-ent characteristics? Here we take one feature of a good process, time management, and inspect how it impacts on other features of good process (see Chilvers, 2008: 441).

Participatory meetings have become an important methodological tool for examining environ-mental questions (Chambers, 2002; Creighton, 2005), and often policy and planning process take form in these venues. We examine how the issues related to time management impact on the ac-tualizations of other features of a good process within the context of the SCENES project, which aims to build participatory scenarios for fresh water futures in Europe up to 2050. This article uses data from 12 participatory workshops held in the SCENES project. There are ten pilot areas within Europe, which develop basin specific scenarios, one regional panel for the Eastern Baltic, and a Pan European Panel responsible for European scale scenarios. This article is based on initial findings of the process.

We start with a brief literature review of characteristics of good participation processes. The characteristics of a good process are identified in this review in order to enable the possibility of identifying tradeoffs between them. Next, we introduce the SCENES project to elucidate the con-text in which the participatory workshops happened, and to illuminate the material and methods used in this study. Then, we present the time-related tradeoffs that emerged from the SCENES workshops at their initial stages. We connect these tradeoffs to the literature on characteristics of a good process. Finally we end with brief conclusions, and with a table, which summarizes the time related tradeoffs.

Characteristics of good participatory processes

Participation has become one of the catchwords of our times (for a recent review, see Reed, 2008), but why it is needed? Firstly, governments and lay people are no longer satisfied with the unchecked autonomy of the expert scientific community. This leads to calls for more stimulating participatory innovations in democratic governance and scientific knowledge production (Cor-burn, 2007). Secondly, coping with complex environmental problems is a joint challenge for sci-

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ence, policy and society (Klein et al., 2001; van de Kerkhof, 2006). Thirdly, expertise is needed, but its role is very much contested. Thus, the question of whose knowledge is recognized and trans-ferred into action is a key aspect for enhancing democracy (Nowotny, 2003; Dalrymple, 2006). Fourthly, improved roles for stakeholders in decision-making and in knowledge production in-creases the knowledge base and may improve what decisions are made (e.g. Fischer, 2000). Fifthly, both scientific knowledge and political decisions gain legitimacy if they also involve stakeholders and the public into the processes (e.g. van de Kerkhof, 2006; Gibbons, 1999). Sixthly, if the poten-tial users of scientific knowledge are included into the knowledge production processes, it can aid in developing mutual understanding among scientists and stakeholders, and also enhance the usability of the end products (Sarewitz et al., 2004). Finally, as science and its products are often intersecting with human values, publics are claiming stronger roles in the regulation of science and the shaping of research agendas (Leshner, 2005).

The first thing to note when thinking about what makes a good participation process is the in-clusion of an appropriate, representative, fair and balanced range of stakeholders (Webler et al., 2003; Mascarenhas and Scarce, 2004; Carter and Howe, 2006). Involving citizens and communities is not a straightforward task as different types of communities exist (Harrington et al., 2008), and different types of subgroups within communities (Goodlad et al., 2005). In addition, geographical scale has to be taken into account (Sneddon et al., 2002; Kenyon, 2005), for example, people living in upper river basin areas may have contrasting views if compared to those living in lower basin areas. Thus, it is essential to think carefully which communities, interest groups or stakeholders are represented by the invited persons.

Being present in the workshops does not guarantee active participation and empowerment (Cart-er and Howe, 2006). For example, it has been explicated that different and innovative strategies are needed to engage both men and women fully in decision making processes, and to take advantage of the possible divergences that gendered ‘cultures of being’ embody (Davidson and Black, 2001; Anthony et al., 2004). For example, there may be cultural barriers that inhibit women to speak, and there might be also other marginalized groups, or otherwise silent people, whose input would be valuable for the process. Thus, ways to empower silent people must be sought for in order to make participatory meetings participatory.

Fairness is one characteristic of a good participation process (Webler et al., 2001, 2003). Fairness means that all participants have the same possibilities to participate, and also genuine opportuni-ties to have some influence in the decision or process outcomes (Chase et al., 2004). Masuda et al. (2008) imply that it is possible that participation is not done for democratic consensus, but it might be used to legitimate narrow interests. For example, researchers may have pre-defined research agendas, which they want to legitimate by using participatory methods, which eventually may suffer from a lack of participation. Thus, the role of experts and facilitators should be considered carefully (Kenyon, 2005).

Committed leadership is important in collaborative settings and also in participatory processes (Webler et al., 2001; Matta et al., 2005). Key participants, facilitators or organizers can take the role of a leader. What is essential is that leader is able to drive the process forward, and possibly sometimes mediate contradictions between different participants. In addition, leaders can aid in

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creating a sense of responsibility in participants, which is key to a successful process (McCool and Guthrie, 2001).

Participatory processes should be open and transparent (Webler et al., 2003). This basically means that underlying assumptions, including the scientific and political ones, should be opened for the participants. It would be also important to explicate what is the actual role of the participants in the project or political process, what are the limits of their participation, and what are proce-dural obligations and requirements that may cause those limitations (Lachapelle et al., 2003). In collaborative settings it is important to ensure that there is explicitness and shared understanding about key concepts and also the goals of the process (Chess and Purcell, 1999; Mabee and Ho-berg, 2006). Furthermore, lack of agreement on goals jeopardizes a successful process (Lachapelle et al., 2003).

Recently it has been also acknowledged that learning should be enabled during the process (Chase et al., 2004; Keen and Mahanty, 2006; Stringer et al., 2006; Bull et al., 2008; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008). Thus, in participatory workshops learning about the issue under inspection, for example a river basin, should be enabled, but it would be also essential to learn how to take advantage from the diverging perspectives to produce learning in participants as well as interesting results (Ferreyra and Beard, 2007). One of the key issues promoting learning is the iterative nature of participation (Webler et al., 2003). According to Schusler et al. (2003), social learning is fostered by: open communication, diverse participation, unrestrained thinking, constructive conflict, demo-cratic structure, multiple sources of knowledge, extended engagement, and facilitation.

Webler and Tuler (2001) note that a process is good when it produces solid outcomes. Successful outcomes may help in gaining political and social acceptability, which are important in solving so called wicked environmental problems (McCool and Guthrie, 2001). However, one must not for-get the process and focus solely on outcomes, as target based processes might lack perspectives that would enhance networking and also deliberation (Matta et al., 2005).

Webler et al. (2001) state that the conceptions people have about the legitimacy of a process are important. Issues generating legitimacy are, for example, appropriate resources for a consensus driven process (Mascarenhas and Scarce, 2004). Thus, some authors argue that consensus orientation is important for good process (e.g. Susskind, 1999). Consensus building is defined by Susskind (1999: 6) as “a process of seeking unanimous agreement. It involves a good-faith effort to meet the interests of all stakeholders. Consensus has been reached when everyone agrees they can live with whatever is proposed after every effort has been made to meet the interests of all stakeholder parties”. The positive aspects of consensus building are that it reduces conflicts, increases compliance, improves policy, prevents litigation, and promotes public participation. Sec-ondary effects are relationship and trust building, and joint learning (van de Kerkhof, 2006). How-ever, consensus building tends to exclude some views and close-down, in contrast to opening-up inclusively (see Stirling, 2008).

Coglianese (1997), who studied several consensus processes in the USA, stated that a focus on consensus is not in fact the key attribute for achieving the above benefits, but they can derive from other factors. Coglianese (1999) also argued that in consensus building processes the ul-

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timate goal shifts away from reaching a quality decision towards reaching an agreeable decision. This may lead to biased selection of stakeholders, as the ones who benefit from consensus are most likely to join in the process, and discourage those stakeholders who feel that they are forced to form a consensus which they do not like. Finally, consensus building will not work in situations where stakeholders diverge in relation to their assumptions and concepts regarding the problem at hands (van de Kerkhof, 2006). Thus, deliberative processes have emerged as an option to con-sensus building.

The idea of deliberation comes from an idea put forward by Habermas (1970) about the conditions of the ideal speech situation. According to van de Kerkhof (2006: 282) "deliberation refers to a process of argumentation and communication in which the participants engage into an open process in which they exchange opinions and viewpoints, weigh and balance arguments, and offer reflections and associations". In addition, van de Kerkhof (2006) states that importance of deliberation relates to the importance of problem definition. In consensus building processes it is assumed that all participants agree on the problem, hence it is readily defined. In contrast, in deliberative processes problems can be discussed by participants—this broadens the discussions and helps to prevent exclusions on the level of problem definition. The purpose of deliberative processes is to reach a broad and qualified understanding of the natural system and the linkages it has to the society, to the people living within the system (van den Hove, 2006). A deliberative pro-cess results in social learning that will help the stakeholders to deal with the problems affiliated to the river basin in better ways. Naturally, a deliberative process can result in finding a common understanding of a consensus, but that is not a prerequisite (Stirling, 2008; Chambers, 2003: 309; Delli Carpini et al., 2004; van de Kerkhof, 2006).

Finally, the appropriateness of time and timing as a feature of a good participatory process is de-fined by Chilvers (2008: 442) as follows: "allow enough time for participants to become informed and develop competent understandings". And another definition that Chilvers (2008: 425) offers is that sufficient resources (e.g. time) should be provided to participants for effective participa-tion. Thus, it can be said that arranging participatory workshops is largely about managing time, providing time for different tasks, deliberations and presentations. Yet time plays a part also out-side time management in the workshops. For example, timing of the workshop, temporal distance between two iterative workshops, and length of a workshop may effect on the actualizations of the characteristics of a good process, as we show below. Before entering into the time related tradeoffs, we first present the SCENES project and our material and methods.

SCENES project

SCENES is a four year EU funded project, which aims at developing a set of comprehensive sce-narios for Europe's freshwater futures up to 2050. The goal is that developed scenarios will work as a reference point for long term planning of European water development, alert policymakers and other stakeholders about occurring problems, and take into account surprises and uncertain-ties pertaining to water resources (see Water Scenarios for Europe and for Neighbouring States – SCENES www.environment.fi/syke/scenes).

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There are ten pilot areas within the SCENES project, which are located in the following regions: Baltic, Black Sea, Danube basin, and Mediterranean. Each Pilot Area has its own panel that devel-ops scenarios related to their basin. In addition, there is a Baltic regional panel, and a Pan Euro-pean Panel (PEP). The results of the pilot areas are (via the regions) used to enrich the European scale scenarios developed by PEP.

In general the number of participants of the workshops was between 15 and 30, with the aver-age being 22. In some cases, there were workshops with less than 10 and some with more than 50 participants. In the workshops there were tasks done with the whole group, some tasks were done in small groups, and some individually. Participants were mostly water management people (e.g. concerned with water administration), but scientists, farmers, members of NGOs, journalists, representatives of industry, irrigators, and government officials were also often present.

Material and methods

The material used for this article derives from four sources. Firstly, workshop organizers were interviewed with the use of semistructured interviews. Questions concerned the workshop; the methods used, the general atmosphere, and stakeholder participation. Secondly, we went through a feedback form filled in by the workshop organizers, in which they assessed their opinions about the workshop. Thirdly, in every workshop there was an external (SCENES) observer and an internal observer who made notes on the workshop in a preformatted template. The internal observer was part of the pilot area group organizing the process. The external observer did have a role in the SCENES project, but was not from the pilot area group. The external observers often faced language barriers, because pilot areas are located in various countries and were held in the local language. Usually, parts of the discussions in workshops were translated to outside observ-ers. Fourthly, in some pilot areas participants filled in a questionnaire.

How did we use this data to identify the tradeoffs? First, we did a literature review on features of a good participation processes. Then we realized that time had played a major role in SCENES workshops. This was illustrated by the fact that many participants and workshop organisers re-ported a lack of time in the first series of the workshops. Yet the implications of time to other features of good participation process seemed not to be addressed by the participation literature. Thus, we came up with the central research question of this article: what implications does time have for other features of a good participatory process? Second, we went through the data and searched for observations that seemed to be related to characteristics of a good process. When we had mapped the observations concerning these characteristics, we inspected how these ob-servations were related to time. We then determined that time-related tradeoffs seemed to be emerging from the data and we connected the empirical observations to the theoretical views on characteristics of a good process.

Time and tradeoffs between good characteristics of the process

In this section we identify some time related tradeoffs between characteristics of good par-

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ticipatory processes. This should be read as a consideration of how issues of time might affect participation. However, these assumptions or hypotheses are grounded in empirical observations. We divided this section based on the heuristics presented in the second section of this article. Thus, each of the tradeoffs we discuss constitutes its own temporal cycle and distinct rhythm in participatory workshops. We connect the empirical observations about the tradeoffs to the literature concerning participation. There are also other tradeoffs, but we explicate some of those that are related to time. Tradeoff 1: Individual time management

In almost all the SCENES workshops some people left in the midst of the meeting, and maybe the most visible example of this was when, in one pilot area, farmers left the meeting when some problems had emerged in their farms which they had to solve urgently. Thus, individuals make tradeoffs on how they use their time; to stay in the participatory workshops or to do something else. Participant commitment is important for a successful workshop and organizers can try to gain this commitment, for example by presenting background information about the project, and emphasizing its possible political dimensions. However, the decision whether to join in the work-shop or to leave in the middle of it remains a major consideration for participants.

Tradeoff 2: Deliberation vs. consensus-oriented processes

We observed a phenomenon that we labeled as ‘ordered consensus’ in the SCENES workshops. By this we mean that during group work people are asked to come to a consensus on the issue in a given timeframe. Thus, the participants are under pressure to form a consensus, because they probably feel that they have to complete the tasks given to them. In conclusion, ‘ordered consensus’ pressures participants to come to a consensus quickly, which is a barrier to careful deliberations and in-depth debates.

The other option is to focus on deliberation and debates, where consensus is not necessary. True deliberation takes time, and consensus is not necessarily formed, which might be needed to pro-duce scientific results or to proceed in political process. However, deliberation enables learning (Schusler et al., 2003). On the other hand, if people are asked to form a consensus, they prob-ably converge faster than in deliberative setting, as they are under pressure to form a consensus. Thus, a consensus-driven process may save time, create legitimacy, and produce results, and is thus desirable (Mascarenhas and Scarce, 2004), but common understanding may be shallow and learning may not take place as thoroughly as in deliberative processes. In addition, some people may feel frustrated if they are just given a task to discuss a certain issue, without any clearer goals that are expected to result from the discussion. It was also noticed in SCENES workshops that people need guidance, and in one workshop participants stated that "we would have liked better instructions on what the organizers expect from us".

Tradeoff 3: Heterogeneous vs. Homogeneous groups

When arranging small group exercises, two differing strategies were used: participants were di-vided into homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. By heterogeneous groups we mean groups

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in which participants represented different interests and organizations—in homogeneous groups people from the same interest group and institutional affiliation were put together. It was ob-served that homogeneous groups were able to produce consensus faster than the heterogeneous groups, and interest group specific information was gained with homogeneous groups. On the other hand, heterogeneous groups might enable social learning better as there is more diver-gence from which to take advantage.

Tradeoff 4: To give time on presentations or participatory tasks

What was common to all 12 workshops regardless of their length, was that according to partici-pant feedback there was too little time to complement the participatory tasks. Presentations on scientific backgrounds and process goals would enable transparency, which is one of the charac-teristics of good participatory process (Chess and Purcell, 1999). In addition, being transparent might increase acceptance and also legitimacy of the process in the eyes of the participants. This would be important as in some workshops lack of acceptance of the methods was observed. However, presentations take time away from participatory tasks, and might result in lack of time for deliberation and creating the actual results in the process. Participant empowerment is an-other characteristic of a good process (Webler et al., 2003). It was observed in some pilot areas, that some people remained quiet, although the organizers knew that they would have had valu-able insights to contribute. Empowering silent persons requires effort; it takes time to ask ques-tions and to go through comment rounds. There thus might be a tradeoff between transparency (giving many presentations) and empowerment (giving lots of time to participatory tasks in small groups).

Tradeoff 5: To situate participatory tasks in the mornings or afternoons

In some pilot areas it was observed that consensus was produced faster towards the end of the day, when factors such as tolerance and fatigue were taken into consideration. Thus, it may speed up the process when participants are tired, but consensus might be produced quickly for proper deliberation. Thus, timing of the participant exercises is something to think of, if the participatory sessions and exercises are arranged in the morning with fresh participants they may deliberate more, but also use more time for the tasks.

Tradeoff 6: Defining the main concepts in the beginning, or not?

Facilitators may also have an important role in generating common understandings about key goals and key definitions in the process. For example, during FCM sessions some pilot areas used a considerable amount of time to define the main issues for the given basin. For instance to define what is meant by industry or climate change, or what the actual area addressed by the process is. It probably takes a lot of time to define every methodological and empirical concept explicitly in the beginning of the workshop. However, defining the concepts would be good for transparency and common understanding (Mabee and Hoberg, 2006) and it may also save time in the later phases of the process.

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Tradeoff 7: To have many or few participants?

If the group is large it is probable that there is also diverse representation of multiple stakeholders, which is important for a successful process (Mascarenhas and Scarce, 2004, Carter and Howe, 2006). However, with a small number of participants there is more time to work with empower-ing the marginalized persons, which is also important (Webler et al., 2003). Thus, the number of participants impacts on the rhythms within one workshop. In conclusion, it might be best to have carefully selected groups who would still represent wide range of interests and expertise.

Tradeoff 8: To have strict or free facilitation?

It was observed in one pilot area that free facilitation may allow more in-depth debates and deliberation, but that it takes time. On the other hand, strict facilitation saves time, but also re-sults in problems related to deliberation and free participation. The facilitators' role as an expert might also be biased towards some direction (see Kenyon, 2005). Furthermore, strict facilitation may turn participatory workshops to merely legitimating narrow expert views (see Masuda et al., 2008).

Tradeoff 9: Long workshop and lots of results – short workshop and more committed participants that are actually there It is obvious that in a longer period of time it is possible to produce more results, but it was observed in some two day workshops that some participants left in the midst of the process. In one day workshops the loss of participants was not so evident. According to various workshop organizers, many stakeholders said that one day participation is feasible, but workshops of two or three days are impossible. Thus, the shorter the workshop the more possibilities there seem to be to have more committed participants. Furthermore, creating responsibility in participants is important (McCool and Guthrie, 2001), and short workshops may produce a better sense of commitment and also responsibility in participants than long workshops, as during long work-shops other responsibilities often start to pressure the participants.

Tradeoff 10: Short or long time between two workshops

If the time between two workshops is long, organizers have the possibility to process the results and they can be presented to participants in the next workshop. For example in SCENES it takes considerable time to run the WaterGAP model, and a few months is not enough for processing the results. However, if the time between workshops is long it is probable that the participant composition will change. Scientific results are important for good process (Webler and Tuler, 2001), but so is learning and continuity.

Tradeoff 11: The number of workshops If there are many iterative workshops learning is enabled, which is important goal of participation (Chase et al., 2004; Keen and Mahanty, 2006; Stringer et al., 2006; Bull et al., 2008; Pahl-Wostl et al., 2008). The higher the number of workshops, however, the smaller possibilities there are that

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the participant composition would be the same. Continuity, which is also important for relation-ship building (Wagner and Fernandez-Gimenez, 2008), is then endangered. Also learning might be difficult if there is no continuity on participants’ side, as the process will go forward, but the participants will not be able to take an advantage from the iteration.

Tradeoff 12: Timing of the workshop – near or far from other participatory processes?

If scientific workshops are arranged temporally near to policy processes, with some of the same participants, the learning and networks from the one may be used in the other and visa versa. This increases the policy relevance of the scientific workshops. This could help to build acceptance for the scientific process in stakeholders as there would be some realized benefits (see McCool and Guthrie, 2001). However, participants may grow tired of participatory processes if they are too numerous. On the other hand, if the workshops are held temporally distant from the policy processes, then participants would probably be eager to participate, but the policy relevance would be lower.

Conclusions

We have illustrated some time-related tradeoffs between characteristics of good participation processes. We believe that these can be used while arranging participatory meetings, whether related to knowledge production or focused on policy processes. The core argument is that time plays a strong role in the actualizations of different characteristics of good participation. Thus, we propose that in addition to continuing the quest for the features of a good process, and their actualizations and related problems in certain cases, it would be fruitful to inspect whether or not there are possible tradeoffs between these characteristics. We identified 12 tradeoffs that are time related and these are summarized in Table 1.

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Table 1. Tradeoffs related mostly to time and also to good characteristics of a participatory pro-cess.

TradeoffsTradeoff 1: People’s preferences how to use time, and tradeoffs in individual level

Tradeoff 2: Consensus is asked – people converge faster, but consensus may be shallow and learning may not take place. People know what to do.

Deliberation is asked - takes lot of time, and consensus is not necessarily formed, but learning is enabled. People may be confused about what to do.

Tradeoff 3: Homogeneous groups - faster consen-sus and interest specific knowledge.

Heterogeneous groups - slower consensus, but enabling social learning

Tradeoff 4: To use time on presentations - Trans-parency and presenting background information, but time for empowerment and deliberation are limited.

To use time on participatory tasks – time for empowerment and deliberation in small groups, but not so much time to give presentations, which would enhance transparency.

Tradeoff 5: Participatory tasks located in the after-noons - Tired people and faster consensus

Participatory tasks in the morning and after lunch - fresh participants, deliberation and more time needed

Tradeoff 6: Not defining the main concepts in the beginning – saves lot of time (at least initially)

Defining the main concepts in the beginning - Good for transparency and creating common understanding and ensuring that all participants understand the key concepts in a same way. May save time in the later phases of the process.

Tradeoff 7: Number of participants is high – Better possibilities for diverse representation.

Number of participants is low – Groups smaller and more time to empower silent people.

Tradeoff 8: Facilitator is strict and cognizant about the methods - produces results fast, but maybe with low deliberation.

Facilitator is free and not necessarily cognizant about the methods – takes more time to produce the results, but is better for enabling in-depth debates and deliberation.

Tradeoff 9: Long workshop – lot’s of results Short workshop – more committed participants that will be there

Tradeoff 10: Long - more probably changes in participant composition, but time to process the results and possibly to use quantitative models, which may take lot of time.

Short - no time to process the results so thor-oughly, but more probable that the same partici-pants will come.

Tradeoff 11: Many workshops- iteration and en-abling learning, but changes in participant compo-sition.

One or two workshops – Probably the same par-ticipant composition, but learning is not enhanced.

Tradeoff 12: Workshop located temporally near other participatory processes -Fatigue – possible collaboration, and application of the learned issues in other processes.

Workshop temporally far from the other participatory processes – eagerness to participate, but not so good policy relevance.

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Some of the tradeoffs are time related, but there might be other important factors as well, which are structuring the actualization of the features of a good process. It would be valuable to identify such factors also in addition to time, because then they could be paid attention to. And when participatory workshop organizers are aware of the factors that shape the conditions of partici-pation, they could be managed to produce that kind of participation that is at every time needed. The purposes of participation vary, and hence deliberations among workshop organizers about the tradeoffs and factors influencing them might help to tailor suitable workshop structures for successful participatory meeting, which will correspond to the needs of the organizers and par-ticipants.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the SCENES team and especially the workshop organizers and report writers for valuable material. Our writing was hosted by the Finnish Environment Institute. We want to acknowledge the support of SCENES by the European Commission under contract number 036822.

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