...continues to be topic of much research, contemplation, and discussion. This collection of articles makes a unique contribution to this discussion.

There are many forms of political activity. In this volume, authors concentrate on intentionally designed structures for participation in policymaking and decision making. We adopt the definition of "public participation" as forums that are organized for the purpose of facilitating communication among interested and affected citizens and groups, scientists, experts, political officials, and regulators for the purpose of making a specific decision of governance or solving a shared problem. This definition explicitly excludes activities such as protest, expert workshops, voting, letter writing, campaigning, lobbying, and serving as government officials. It is inclusive of public hearings, public meetings, focus groups, collaborative partnerships, consensus conferences, citizen advisory committees, citizen juries, and other such models.

A great number of applications of public participation in Western countries are in the realm of environmental and risk decision making. These fields generate particularly challenging policy problems mainly because they lie--at least partially--outside the realm of economic markets; thus, they require political solutions. Examples include decisions about waste management, resource management, biodiversity conservation, global climate change, ethics of medicine, and risks from bioengineering or nanotechnologies. Recently, we have seen increasing interest in public participation within the fields of health and medicine. Examples include ethical decisions about research (stem cell research), making policy decisions about the appropriate uses of medical treatments and the design of effective outreach and interventions to improve public health (such as vaccinations and nutrition). Although the fields of environment and health represent the largest application of public participation techniques, there are applications in other fields as well including international development, city planning, education,...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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