新作坊

Planning in the public interest: an evaluation of civil society participation in collaborative land use planning in British Columbia

摘要：

Collaborative planning is defined as a "collective process for resolving conflicts and advancing shared visions involving a set of diverse stakeholders" (Carr et al. 1998: 768). In collaborative planning, stakeholders become involved in tackling contentious natural resource issues together. By identifying and developing common goals, stakeholders can create practical solutions through consensus (Wondolleck 1988; Yaffee and Wondolleck 1995; Wondolleck et al. 1996; Wondolleck 1998a, 1998b; Wondolleck and Ryan 1999; Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). Such collaborative processes usually result in solutions that better reflect the public interest by seeking a consensus-based solution that meets the goals of all stakeholders. Plans developed by CP are more likely to be successfully implemented because stakeholders, who can otherwise impede implementation, are more likely to support implementation because they were involved in the process to develop the plan. CP can also generate additional benefits such as improved stakeholder relationships, stakeholder skills, and knowledge. These benefits, which are sometimes referred to as "social capital" increase community capacity to solve other problems. While some planning theorists espouse the benefits of collaboration, others caution against promoting the approach as a panacea (Amy 1987; Gray 1989; Gunton and Flynn 1992; Caton Campbell and Floyd 1996). Gunton, and Day (2003), for example, list potential challenges to CP including logistical issues such as time and cost of managing diverse stakeholder groups, difficulties in reaching consensus for the large proportion of issues involving value differences, second best solutions based on vague compromises, and inequalities in power between stakeholder groups that impede effective representation. Moreover, achieving the benefits of CP has been seen as contingent upon effective representation of all stakeholder interests in the planning process. Disagreement on the benefits and challenges inherent in collaborative planning highlights the need to study these types of processes comprehensively and systematically. What are the implications of the findings from this study for the arguments for and against civil society stakeholder participation in collaborative planning? First, the findings confirm that CP provides important opportunities for civil society to affect resource and environmental decisions. Civil society stakeholders agreed that they were able to affect the outcomes and the design of the planning process and a majority agreed that the process was a success and achieved the public interest. Second, the findings confirm that there are significant social capital benefits to the participation of civil society stakeholders in CP - including improved knowledge, skills, and relationships with other stakeholders - that ultimately enhance the role of civil society stakeholders in other facets of resource and environmental management beyond the specific preparation of an LRMP. Third, these stakeholders were able to overcome the "two table" problem of participating in a multistakeholder land use table and their own constituency table. There was strong agreement from them that they were able to obtain direction and were accountable to their own organizations. Fourth, the findings confirm that these stakeholders face a greater handicap in resources to participate in CP than other stakeholders. Interestingly, inferior resources do not seem to reduce civil society effectiveness in cooperative planning. Civil society stakeholders felt that they had more influence than other stakeholders on the design of the planning process and just as much influence on the outcomes. Further, they were also as satisfied as other stakeholders with the outcomes of the process. This conclusion of the benefits to civil society participating in collaborative planning is further shown by stronger support from these stakeholders than from other stakeholders for CP processes and their overwhelming agreement that they would participate in a similar process again.