Public Values and Public Participation: A Case of Collaborative Governance of a Planning Process

• Author: Jill K. Clark
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• Date: 01 April 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020956397
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020956397

American Review of Public Administration

2021, Vol. 51(3) 199 –212

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074020956397

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Article

Introduction

Communities face many complex challenges, such as the

impacts of climate change or persistent food insecurity.

Traditional community planning approaches alone cannot

solve these systemic issues. Just as in other facets of local

public administration, the field of urban planning has looked

to collaborative rationality to address systemic problems

(Innes & Booher, 2016). A collaborative approach engages

diverse participants representing public and private organi-

zations in a deliberative process. At the same time, planning

and other local public administration disciplines face pres-

sure to include community members in planning processes.

There is increasing recognition that “lay” community mem-

bers’ expertise can contribute to the planning process, and so

is the expectation that the public should be engaged in prob-

lem-solving and governance structures (Nabatchi &

Leighninger, 2015). For example, the food movement calls

for “food democracy,” or “food citizenship,” as a cross-sec-

tor approach that includes lay community members to solve

complex problems in the food system (Renting et al., 2012;

Scherb et al., 2012).

Since the 1960s, the planning profession has taken public

participation seriously, with citizen engagement even being

codified into the ethical practice of the American Institute of

Certified Planners (Shipley & Utz, 2012). Despite debate

over the effectiveness of many of the standard approaches to

public participation, participation techniques continue to

evolve as citizen involvement has become a mainstay in plan-

ning practice. A research focus in planning, as well as in the

broader public participation literature, is on the role of local

government in engaging the public, with the aim of increasing

governance capacity and legitimacy while improving policy

outcomes. As a result, public participation research tends to

focus on technical design choices, such as the format of par-

ticipation, which version of the “public” is invited, the level

956397ARPXXX10.1177/0275074020956397The American Review of Public AdministrationClark

research-article2020

1The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jill K. Clark, John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The Ohio State

University, 1810 College Road South, Page Hall, Columbus, OH 43210,

USA.

Email: clark.1099@osu.edu

Public Values and Public

Participation: A Case of Collaborative

Governance of a Planning Process

Jill K. Clark1

Abstract

Research on public participation in community planning processes often focuses on the design of participation activities and

the tensions therein. Past research, however, gives little attention to the question of who makes these design decisions,

what public values they hold, and how those values affect decisions about design. Addressing this gap, this study empirically

illustrates the connection between public value frames, design choices, and public participation in a collaborative policymaking

process. The case analyzed is a local public planning process designed collaboratively by public and private organizations.

The analysis uses participant observation, documents, and interviews. Results demonstrate how effective collaborative

governance of the design process and interorganizational power-sharing forced partners to reveal, recognize, and interrogate

their own public values while navigating others’ values. The collaborative governance of the planning process allowed the

organizations to capitalize on, rather than suffer from, differences in values frames by changing tensions in planning to

opportunities and increasing equity in public participation. Findings suggest that research attention should be aimed not just

at which stakeholders are invited to participate (and how), but at who designs the participation agenda in the first place.

Furthermore, findings suggest that public values frame reflection and collaborative governance of participation design can be

key practices improving planning and policy outputs.

Keywords

public participation design, public values, collaborative governance, collaborative planning, social equity