Modeling public participation as discourse: An application of Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action.

摘要

Recently, new problems associated with decision making about technological dangers and environmental management have driven the need for novel approaches to public participation in decision making. These types of decision-problems challenge the capabilities and capacities of existing democratic institutions and procedures for two reasons. First, because they are inclusive of both cognitive and normative aspects, they cannot be managed solely by technical-scientific rationality or political rationality. This is the problem of competence. Second, because they usually involve a distribution of negative impacts among a locally impacted population, while a larger, more diffuse population reaps the benefits, majority vote is an inappropriate resolution tool. This is the problem of fairness.;The goal of this dissertation is to assemble a normative-analytical theory for evaluating the competence and fairness of existing models of public participation and to use this theory to proactively design a novel model that is better able to meet the demands of these decision-problems. The hypothesis is that this can be done using a theory of social interaction. Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action is used to fulfill this need. Its normative element is embodied in two main concepts: the ideal speech situation and communicative competence. The main accomplishment is that Habermas's concepts of communicative competence and the ideal speech situation are united into a workable definition of rational discourse. The definition is operationalized into criteria and indicators for fairness and competence.;To demonstrate the feasibility of the criteria, several models of participation common in the United States are evaluated: public hearings, surveys, citizen advisory committees, negotiated rulemaking, and citizen panels. Two case studies, which apply novel "hybrid" combinations of these models are also evaluated. Finally, a new hybrid model is designed based on the criteria.;The major observation is that public participation needs to integrate the rationalities of experts, interest groups, government officials, and citizens in a fair and competent decision making procedure. Provoking critical self-reflection among all the participants encourages them to discover commonalities and discuss what type of society they would like to have.