Refining our vision of citizen participation: Lessons from a moose reintroduction proposal

We evaluated the conceptual basis of a citizen participation program that was part of a process used to decide whether or not to reintroduce moose to northern New York. We used criticisms of liberal political theory to illustrate the potential weaknesses of basing policy decisions mainly on citizens’ preferences. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) determined that it would make its decision about whether to reintroduce moose to northern New York on the basis of citizens ‘ preferences. This strongly influenced how DEC designed its citizen participation strategies. The strategies designed were appropriate for measuring citizens’ preferences, but not for encouraging citizens to develop informed opinions. We argue that for some natural resource policy decisions an expanded vision of citizen participation is necessary. Such a vision should be consistent with the work of Mark Sagoff on the role of values versus preferences, and should seek to discover what citizens think is right a...

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