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• In parallel, citizen science, an approach that takes advantage of the fact that the human brain is exquisitely tuned to. Of new participants during the.

Current events in Rio have left many citizens upset and onlookers confused. The State’s Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) program was felt to have so much potential to finally bring security services to underserved parts of the city, and yet, five years on, Rio is steeped in violence and the communities intended to benefit, increasingly victimized by those same police. The Federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) was expected to bring much-needed infrastructure to the city’s favelas, yet the programs launched have been deemed low priority and at times even counter-productive, and so concrete broadly-felt impacts are minimal. Similar concerns can be expressed over the City’s well-written Morar Carioca favela upgrading program, its UPP Social program, and the federal Minha Casa Minha Vida public housing program. While there are many causes and effects involved in the limited success, failures and limitations of each program, what unites them all is the sheer lack of authentic citizen participation.

Perhaps the most clear and insightful understanding of the gradations and potential of citizen participation was developed by Sherry Arnstein. In her pioneering 1969 article, A Ladder of Citizen Participation, a mainstay among US city planning educators to this day, she explains the concept using a ladder. Each step of the ladder represents a different level of involvement by the community, and as you go up the ladder, community members are given more power in the process of decision-making. Here we give a brief description of each level of participation, starting at the bottom.

Non-Participation

The first two steps on the ladder of participation are not only considered “Non-Participatory” they are also harmful and disrespectful of citizens.

Manipulation
This level usually includes the appearance of participation, with the creation of community committees or associations. However, these groups are not given any control, and are instead used by those in power to “demonstrate” the use of citizen participation. Often, these meetings end up being more about those in power persuading the participants to think like them, instead of the community members helping the power holders better understand the community. This level of participation has been common historically in Rio’s favelas, particularly during the military regime through the 1980s.

Therapy
There is some overlap between this level and the previous one, manipulation. This level sees the powerlessness of the poor and marginalized as something that can be “cured.” Thus, “participation” ends up exhibiting characteristics of group therapy sessions. With “experts” setting the tone and agenda of these community participation meetings, they often focus on adjusting the values and attitudes of community members so they become more in line with those of broader society.

Tokenism

Within this degree of participation are some good tools and steps toward holistic citizen participation. However, good singular acts are not able to take the place of real community involvement.

Informing
If community involvement stops at being told by officials what is happening, or will happen in the future, little, if any, participation has actually occurred. Some characteristics of this level are that information is given at a very late stage of the process when changes can no longer be made, questions are discouraged, and the information is superficial, irrelevant or incomplete. The PAC program, exemplified by the creation of the cable car in Complexo do Alemão, has typically received this level of participation, calling residents to meetings but not implementing their priorities, instead informing residents of what will happen, and using their signatures of presence at a meeting as approval of the government’s plan. Unfortunately, this is currently the maximum standard of participation in the vast majority of programs in Rio’s favelas. The result is poor quality programs.

Consultation
In the United States, the most common form of participation is the survey. For many in poor and marginalized communities, surveys and questionnaires are all too common. They know how many times they have given their opinion and never seen the effects or results from them. When this happens, it creates a distrust between community members and those in power, undermining future attempts at citizen participation. This is the level of participation typical of the UPP Social program, meant to consult with residents in UPP-occupied territories so that social services may follow. The UPP Social has instead turned into a> recently spent a year an a half in Rio de Janeiro, where she interned with CatComm, while completing her MA in Transformational Urban Leadership from Azusa Pacific University

Published in May 2014

Participation is a ‘buzz word’ in international development, a term that embraces a wide range of possible meanings. Many different actors in development adopt the language of participation, but with different and sometimes contradictory motivations and objectives. Here we look at different meanings of participation and discuss two important typologies that highlight the different ways the word has been used and the outcomes that have resulted.

The many meanings of participation

As one of the key words in development, participation is used by actors from very different political backgrounds. Lack of conceptual clarity poses real risks. Representatives from opposite ends of the political spectrum use the language of participation but mean different things. Some speak of transforming power structures in society that oppress the poor, while others talk of the economic participation needed to advance a neoliberal agenda. In local politics, ‘participation’ can mask manipulation, or the legitimation of interventions driven by more powerful actors in which citizens have no control.

Clarity and specificity are therefore necessary in any policy discussion or intervention claiming to make use of participatory approaches. It helps to understand what citizens actually do, or what is done to them, when they are encouraged to participate. It also helps to understand participation as something deeply political, and to retain the notion of rights and empowerment.

To clarify the concept of participation, a number of scholars have formulated typologies which outline different levels of participation. Two well-known efforts are Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 ladder of citizen participation and Sarah White’s 1996 work on the forms and functions of participation.

The ladder of citizen participation

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The ladder of citizen participation (shown below) has eight steps, each representing a different level of participation. From bottom to top, the steps explain the extent of citizen participation and how much real power citizens have to determine the process and outcomes.

The ladder is a useful tool for interpreting what is meant when programmes and policies refer to ‘participation’. Arnstein uses the terms ‘the powerful’ and ‘citizens’ as shorthand, but emphasises that neither are homogenous entities; and that each grouping contains actors with more or less power.

At the lowest end of the ladder, forms of non-participation are used by powerful actors to impose their agendas. Participation as tokenism occurs when participants hear about interventions and may say something about them, which power holders denote as ‘input’. However, the voices of participants will not have any effect on the intervention; thus participation does not lead to change. At the higher end of the ladder, participation is about citizens having more power to negotiate and change the status quo. Their voices are heard and responded to.

Source: Arnstein, S. (1969) ‘A ladder of citizen participation’, Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35.4: 216–224

What the ladder does not show are the actions and barriers to move from one level to the next. Finally, in real-life situations many more levels may exist, and people may move up and down the ladder over time within the same intervention.

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The forms and functions of participation

Sarah White distinguishes four forms of participation: nominal, instrumental, representative and transformative. She reasons that each form has different functions, and argues actors ‘at the top’ (more powerful) and ‘at the grass roots’ (less powerful) have different perceptions of and interests in each form.

• Nominalparticipation is often used by more powerful actors to give legitimacy to development plans. Less powerful people become involved in it through a desire for inclusion. But it is little more than a display, and does not result in change.
• Instrumental participation sees community participation being used as a means towards a stated end – often the efficient use of the skills and knowledge of community members in project implementation.
• Representative participation involves giving community members a voice in the decision-making and implementation process of projects or policies that effect them. For the more powerful, representative participation increases the chances of their intervention being sustainable; for the less powerful, it may offer a chance for leverage.
• Transformative participation results in the empowerment of those involved, and as a result alters the structures and institutions that lead to marginalisation and exclusion.

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White’s work helps us to think about hidden agendas and the dynamic relationships between more and less powerful actors. Discussing the differences or compatibilities between bottom-up and top-down interests can lead to a clearer understanding of the politics of participation. The actors at the top may talk about participation, but intend to maintain the status quo. It is only in ‘transformative participation’ that the power holders are in solidarity with the less powerful to take actions and shape decisions.

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White emphasises that this framework needs to be seen as something dynamic, and that a single intervention can include more than one form of participation.