Contracting out public participation to external consultants: Observations on epistemic justice

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Lia Levin
• Date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13517

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Contracting out public participation to external consultants:

Observations on epistemic justice

Lia Levin

Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv

University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Correspondence

Lia Levin, Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel

Aviv University, POB 39040, Tel Aviv 6997801,

Israel.

Email: levinlia@tauex.tau.ac.il

Funding information

Israel Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number:

1371/17

Abstract

Recent years have seen a rapidly growing trend of outsourcing elements of public partic-

ipation from public institutions to external citizen engagement consultants (CECs). This

study examined this phenomenon using the theoretical framework of epistemic in/jus-

tice. It is based on a sequential deductive-inductive analysis of interviews with public

administrators, private CECs, and citizens, all involved in participative initiatives in locali-

ties across Israel. While previous research on public participation has focused primarily

on the dyadic relationship between governing institutions and selected beneficiaries of

their services, the findings of the present study enable offering some observations about

what happens when this dyad turns into a triad. A critical review of the findings suggests

that while outsourcing public participation is often presented using discourses of pro-

gress and inclusion, in fact, it may preserve, or even deepen, epistemic injustices, espe-

cially for citizens belonging to vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Evidence for Practice

•The notion of epistemic in/justice can provide a useful framework for the identi-

fication and discussion of how citizens’knowledge is treated in processes of

public participation.

•Contracting out public participation does not automatically produce changes in

how citizens’knowledge is treated in public participation processes.

•Citizen engagement consultants’(CECs) involvement in public participation processes

may entrench existing epistemic injustices and/or hinder their correction.

•The presentation of contracting out public participation to CECs using progressive

and inclusive rhetoric can veil instances wherein epistemic injustices are preserved.

•It is important to explore epistemic injustices reflected in low levels of equality,

legitimacy, and accountability in the treatment of citizens’knowledge, especially

in the context of vulnerable or historically excluded communities.

INTRODUCTION

Despite the implied civil commitments attached to liberal

democracy, many institutions self-identified as liberal-

democratic and are governed without the adequate rep-

resentation of all of their constituents (Althaus &

O’Faircheallaigh, 2022; Cooper et al., 2006). One conse-

quence thereof is that citizens’

1

distrust of political institu-

tions is exacerbated, and public institutions and services

are increasingly perceived as detached and extraneous

(Schmidthuber et al., 2021).

To address this “crisis of democracy”(Waylen, 2015),

several public institutions have shifted toward more par-

ticipative relationships with the public that they serve.

This engagement with citizens often referred to as “public

participation”(Häikiö, 2012), is reflected in processes

through which citizens can influence the decisions and

policies made by such institutions, especially with regard

to issues that affect their communities.

Recent years have seen a rapidly growing trend of

outsourcing elements of public participation from public

institutions to external citizen engagement consultants

Received: 13 July 2021 Revised: 24 March 2022 Accepted: 26 April 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13517

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

© 2022 The Author. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

92 Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:92–102.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar