A Need for Discourse on Citizen Participation: Objectives and Structure of the Book

More and more the decision makers and affected parties engaged in solving environmental problems are recognizing that traditional decision making strategies are insufficient. Often heavily shaped by scientific analysis and judgment, these kinds of decisions are vulnerable to two major critiques. First, because they de-emphasize the consideration of affected interests in favor of “objective” analyses, they suffer from a lack of popular acceptance. Second, because they rely almost exclusively on systematic observations and general theories, they slight the local and anecdotal knowledge of the people most familiar with the problem and risk producing outcomes that are incompetent, irrelevant, or simply unworkable.