环境治理中的协商式公众参与——基于文献案例的研究

An Evaluation of the Procedures and Outcomes of Deliberative Environmental Public Participation

环境治理是国家治理的重要组成部分,公众参与能够给环境治理提供丰富的制度资本和智力资源。在与环境相关的治理领域,公众协商作为一种公众参与形式,特别适合于利益相关方覆盖广、对公众可接受度要求高的环境议题。在信息充分的前提下,通过组织利益相关方共同交流、商讨,形成政策建议,可以引导利益相关方的理性对话,增强地方政府环境决策的有效性及合法性。在我国,关于环境议题的公众参与是被写入法律中的,但是关于协商式公众参与的程序设计和效果评估的探讨相对较少。本文基于国内外文献案例,针对协商过程和协商效果两个方面,围绕参与者的能力、协商过程的公平性以及协商的效果和质量等归纳出了协商式公众参与的评估框架,并对协商式公众参与可能出现的偏倚进行了讨论。研究结论可为我国协商式公众参与的设计和评估提供参考。

Environmental governance, as a critical part of national governance, requires abundant institutional and intellectual resources provided through public participation. Among the different kinds of public participation in environmental governance, public deliberation is appropriate for special environmental issues that have different stakeholders and that require relatively high public acceptance. By maintaining sufficient information,public deliberation guides rational dialogue among the stakeholders, thus enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of environmental decision-making by local governments. Deliberative public participation with respect to environmental issues is legally permitted in China, but the specific procedures and effects remain unclear. The present article frames an system of evaluation of deliberative public participation following clues from a literature review of international case studies, focusing on the participants’ ability, the fairness of the negotiation process, and the effect and quality of the negotiations. The system provides a point of reference for designing and evaluating standards for deliberative public participation in China. Such designed standards for participation will introduce more effective information and provide knowledge for local governments and ultimately for public policy.