Improving Citizen Participation in Public Policy Development

Active citizen participation in public life is important for democratic societies to
flourish. Many democratic states have sought to increase public engagement in public policy
development because of the immense benefits that such engagement bring. The benefits
include improving the effectiveness of the policies, resolving any potential conflicts that may
emerge during implementation of the policy, solidify legitimacy of government, and
generally improve the government’s openness in decision-making (Reggi & Dawes, 2016).
Even though both government officials and citizens understand these benefits, there still
remains relatively low citizen participation in public policy development and implementation.
One of the reasons for the low citizen participation in public policy development and
implementation is that many citizens are not equipped to effectively participate in public
policy deliberations (Reggi & Dawes, 2016). When citizens have little to no information
about a given policy or public project, they are unlikely to develop any interest in civic
engagement on any aspect of the policy development or implementation. Therefore, access to
information is important in not only generating interest for public engagement among citizens
but also equipping them in a manner that allows them to engage in public policy development
and implementation in a more meaningful way.
Governments at all levels can ensure that citizens have the information that they need
to effectively engage in public policy deliberations and other forms of public policy
engagement through increasing transparency using methods such as sharing information on
various public policy issues on their websites. By sharing such information in a manner that
is easily accessible to the public, government agencies significantly improve civic
participation in public policy development and implementation by increasing citizen interest
for such participation and improving their capacity to make meaningful engagement.

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References

Reggi, L., & Dawes, S. (2016, September). Open government data ecosystems: Linking
transparency for innovation with transparency for participation and accountability.
In International Conference on Electronic Government (pp. 74-86). Springer, Cham.