The role of participation in environmental decision-making

After the world summit at Rio in 1992 the field of international environmental policy has known many dramatic changes. What is made increasingly understood by all parties involved both among the developed and developing countries that participated in Rio, is the fact that environmental problems have grown enormously the last decades and that nation-states, despite their concerted efforts, seem to be unable to control or even reduce them. The high levels of uncertainty and risk that surround environmental problems and their large spatial and temporal scales, makes it difficult to practically be controlled and managed. What was also made clear was the fact that to resolve or to be able to manage environmental problems in both a worldwide and local scale, what is needed is the unhindered participation by many actors who hold information or have the knowledge that could help national environmental authorities and ultimately have the power to invest decisions with legitimate empowerment. As a result, it is rather common nowadays to see or hear about participation and participatory practices in every level of decision making from local and regional to national and international political fields. In reviewing international literature, the practice of participatory processes, in decision making, emerges as a crucial factor for successful design and implementation of public policies and for the viability of policies such as environmental policies should be. However what we can also observe in the literature is that a clear definition of participation has not yet gained general acceptance and even less unanimity has been reached in defining operational concepts that may lead to clearcut empirical research. The resulting confusion seems to derive from the fact that implementation of participatory processes can be applied in many levels and in many occasions, with different means and goals and in different organizational settings as well with multiple dimensions. This paper addresses the unfolding of the multifaceted notion of participation with ultimate scope of interpreting the operational meaning of participation under different theoretical settings.