Citizen Participation Assessment

Citizen participation assessment is a method for evaluating how, and how genuinely, members of the public are involved in government decisions that affect them. Its conceptual backbone is Sherry Arnstein's 1969 'ladder of citizen participation,' which arranged forms of involvement on eight rungs ranging from manipulation and therapy (non-participation) through informing, consultation and placation (tokenism) up to partnership, delegated power and citizen control (degrees of citizen power). The assessment combines this ladder with surveys of participants and documentary review to classify a participation process by its level of real power-sharing, judge who is included, and diagnose whether engagement is substantive or merely symbolic.