摘要：This paper presents a framework for evaluating mechanisms that involve the public inenvironmental decision-making. These include traditional participatory mechanisms--such aspublic hearings, notice and comment procedures, and advisory committees--as well as thoseconsidered more innovative--such as regulatory negotiations, mediations, and citizen juries.The framework is based on a set of "social goals," defined as those goals which are valuedoutcomes of a participatory process, but which transcend the immediate interests of any partyin that process. The goals are: educating the public, incorporating public values andknowledge into decision-making, building trust, reducing conflict, and assuring cost-effectivedecision-making.The paper begins with a discussion of the need for an evaluative framework which1) identifies the strengths and weaknesses of a number of different participatory mechanisms,2) is "objective" in the sense of not taking the perspective of any one party to a decision, and3) measures tangible outcomes. Section One presents the social goals framework as anapproach for meeting these objectives. It illustrates how the framework can be applied to onecase study in environmental decision-making: the performance of the Restoration AdvisoryBoard at the Fort Ord military base in California. In Section Two, we contrast the social goalsframework with two alternative approaches to evaluation, one based on participatoryprocesses and one based on stakeholder interests. We find that, while useful for answeringsome questions about public involvement, these two approaches fail to meet all threeobjectives and may miss important information about the success of a particular participatoryeffort. In Section Three we take a closer look at participatory mechanisms and discusses howeach is likely to perform against the various social goals.
关键词：public participation; alternative dispute resolution; consensus building; public;hearing; advisory committee; regulatory negotiation; mediation; evaluation; trust;social capital
