Looking Back to Look Forward: Federal Officials’ Perceptions of Public Engagement

• Author: Larkin Dudley,Kathryn E. Webb Farley,Noel Gniady Banford
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Date: 01 May 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718763162
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718763162

Administration & Society

2018, Vol. 50(5) 679 –698

© The Author(s) 2018

DOI: 10.1177/0095399718763162

journals.sagepub.com/home/aas

Article

Looking Back to Look

Forward: Federal

Officials’ Perceptions of

Public Engagement

Larkin Dudley1, Kathryn E. Webb Farley2,

and Noel Gniady Banford1

Abstract

The authors of the Refounding volumes raised concerns about citizen inclusion

in agency decision making. We respond by studying public participation in

federal decision making through 61 interviews with federal officials. We

examine the interviewees’ candid perceptions of public engagement through

three themes of the Refounding: the importance of deliberation, attention

to whose words are heard, and facilitation of the processes of interaction.

Our findings suggest that while agencies do work to engage the public, there

are still many challenges to achieving meaningful public participation, which

yields consequences for legitimacy and trust.

Keywords

refounding, public participation, federal decision making, federal government,

engagement

As part of this symposium on issues raised in Refounding Public

Administration (Wamsley et al., 1990, hereafter Manifesto) and Refounding

Democratic Public Administration (Wamsley & Wolf, 1996, hereafter

1Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

2Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kathryn E. Webb Farley, Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University, 224 Joyce

Lawrence Lane, Boone, NC 28608-2026, USA.

Email: Webbfarleyke@appstate.edu

763162AASXXX10.1177/0095399718763162Administration & SocietyDudley et al.

research-article2018

680 Administration & Society 50(5)

Refounding Democratic),1 we look back to gauge those authors’ prescriptions

for citizen involvement. In the Manifesto, only Camilla Stivers (1990) and

Orion White (1990) give primary attention to citizen inclusion, although

other Refounders noted the importance of valuing public sentiments.

Wamsley (1990b) asserted the importance of wider participation; Rohr (1990)

described the issues around representative bureaucracy in the Constitutional

adoption debates; and Goodsell (1990) asserted that the verbal symbol of the

public interest included political responsiveness to citizens. Filling the

Manifesto’s omission of a greater emphasis on citizens, several authors in

Refounding Democratic (1996), on whom we draw for this article, advocated

for a better relationship between administration and citizens (Barth, 1996;

Dennard, 1996; Stivers, 1996; Wamsley, 1996; Weinberg, 1996).

Our goal is to surface some main concerns of the Refounding authors

about citizen inclusion and to examine how federal officials’ perceptions

relate to these concerns. We begin with a review of selected literature and our

methods. Drawing on interviews with officials at nine federal departments

and others involved in electronic democracy, we discuss below our findings

in terms of three themes concerning citizen inclusion gleaned from the

Refounders’ arguments: the importance of public deliberation, recognizing

whose voices are heard, and organizing interaction. Our findings suggest that

although agencies do attempt to engage the public, efforts vary widely and

focus more on providing information rather than receiving substantive input

that helps to define problems. While agencies do often engage stakeholders

in constructing options, we find that whose voices are heard, and how, sug-

gests there is still much work to be done on improving participation at the

federal level. We conclude with suggestions for future research and reflec-

tions on our findings’ meaning.

The Refounders and the Literature on Including

Citizens’ Voices

Enhancing public administration’s legitimacy is at the core of much of the

Manifesto’s reasoning. Legitimacy is more than legality, but includes confi-

dence, respect, and sometimes affection (Rohr, 1990). Administrators must

find ways of combining authority and participation in effective interaction

with others (White, 1990). Wamsley (1990a) argued that power must be

brought together with authority to enable legitimacy, describing what we call

deliberation when he calls for participation that “entails genuine respect for

individuals, accepts conflict as a natural part of the process of deliberation,

and then fosters conditions permitting the exercise of choice” (p. 147).