Public Involvement and Governmental Effectiveness

Public managers have faced a difficult challenge in recent years: Involve the public more actively in the managerial process, they are told, but not at the expense of governmental effectiveness. Earlier research suggested that a model adapted from the literature on small-group decision making may help in meeting this challenge. According to the model the desirable degree of public involvement varies by issue; issues carrying greater needs for "acceptability" demand more involvement, issues with greater needs for "quality" demand less. This Effective Decision Model must still be tested against competing explanations of governmental effectiveness and assessed for its practical utility. This article undertakes those tasks using data from a reanalysis of 42 public decisions made with varying degrees of public involvement. The findings suggest that the Effective Decision Model can substantially improve our understanding of the relationship between public involvement and governmental effectiveness. The article concludes by explaining the model's implications for how public managers should approach issues of public involvement.