How Can Chinese Citizens Participate in Public Policy Making - Essay Example

?How can Chinese citizens participate in public policy making? Introduction Public policy can be simply referred to an attempt by the government to address a particular public issue or set of public issues through decisions, regulations, and actions. According to one definition, a public policy “is a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a government entity or its representatives” (Kilpatrick, n.d.). Evidently, a public policy tries to address a specific area of public issue so as to improve overall wellbeing of the public. Since general public are the ultimate beneficiaries of public policies, it is important for citizens to get involved in the public policy making. Therefore, public participation is a central principle of public policy making in many countries. In the United Kingdom, all levels of government have begun to promote citizen and stakeholder involvement in their public policy making processes. In UK, public participation strategies include focus group research, deliberative citizen juries, online discussion forums, and large scale consultations (Gregory et al. 2008). Today, governments worldwide consider public participation as an effective tool in order to ensure that their planning, organising, and funding activities are in line with public interests. With public involvement in public policy making, governments also aim to identify achievable goals, assess effects, and obtain lessons for future operations. The US federal government also gives importance to public participation. In the country, the government keeps proposed public policies subject to public comments for a particular period of time. This paper will discuss why and how citizens participate in public policy making with particular focus given to Chinese citizens’ involvement in public policy decisions. Why and how citizens participate in the public policy making? Today, the idea of citizen participation in public policy making has attained worldwide popularity because governments perceive it as a tool to convince the public. In addition, governmental bodies think that citizen participation is a better strategy to promote democratic accountability and legitimacy. From the viewpoint of citizen participation advocates, this practice would contribute to the sovereignty of citizens. According to them, more citizen participation implies that more democracy, improved accountability, and efficient public policy decisions are attained. Hence, this strategy is an effective way for the government to add value to its public stature and to achieve public support. It is obvious that all democratic theories emphasise the concept ‘government of the people,’ and therefore public policy making would not be legitimate without effective citizen participation. Citizen participation strategy is better to increase the motivation of those involved because it gives a sense of belonging. More precisely, when people are allowed to take part in public policy making, they obtain a feeling that they constitute an integral part of the government. Referring to this, experts argue that citizen involvement is a better tool to enhance pubic cooperation in policy enforcement which in turn would assist government to reduce policing and other intervention costs. Public involvement is also key strategy to enhance knowledge and values concerning public policy making. In other words, governments can make public policy making more transparent and accountable by allowing citizens to take part in this process. In addition, this practice aids general public to obtain a clear view of government’s public policy making processes. Therefore, it can be claimed that citizen involvement in public policy making can initiate a social learning process. Public participation creates a potential opportunity for conflict resolution and achieving the common good. When citizen participation is allowed in policy making, conflicts are resolved in the early phases of the policy planning and hence there will be no disagreements during the post-policy implementation stages. This situation would greatly benefit governments to effectively execute the policies planned. When a public policy is formed after considering whole citizens’ views and opinions, there will be less chance of shortcomings and defects. Another potential feature of this informed public policy making strategy is that it would avoid litigation costs (ESCWA 2001). Moreover, strengthening government-citizens relations is a key element of good governance. Better public relation assists governments to take advantages of improved policy ideas, information, and other related resources while making public policy decisions. Evidently, citizen involvement contributes to public trust in government, civic capacity, and the quality of democracy (OECD 2001). Experts suggest that this practice is a potential way to promote the concept of representative democracy where parliaments play a major role. In addition, citizen participation is a better strategy to integrate public contributions into the policy making process and hence to respond to citizens’ expectations effectively. Today, public and media increasingly scrutinise government actions and therefore public participation in policy making is the best practice to avoid unnecessary disputes and conflicts. Finally, it is a potential way to improve declining public participation in democratic processes (ibid). There are a number of traditional as well as emerging techniques to promote citizen participation in public policy making. It is difficult to promote shared public policy decisions using traditional techniques which include focus groups, public meetings, advisory committees, open houses, print publications, workshops, and bilateral meetings (Smith 2003). Print publication is one of the major conventional ways to promote public participation. Print publications describe the problem, processes, and the situation; suggest possible options available; and request feedbacks from readers on their views and opinions. Similarly, public meetings are held to provide people with a detailed overview of the problems and the situation. After evaluating the situation, people can raise their concerns, suggest alternatives, or ask questions to expert panellists. Open house is another traditional technique for the public to take part in public policy making. Under this technique, information relating to a particular policy proposal is communicated through a series of displays. There will be government representatives to answer queries and to give explanation. Participants are required to share their views once the presentation is ended. Advisory committee is a common form of public participation technique in which groups/committees are chosen to “represent a cross section of interests” and are asked to make recommendations (Smith 2003). Citizens can also participate in public policy making through workshop programmes that intend to educate participants and to develop policy responses. Under the focus group method, groups of 8 or 10 people are chosen to represent the interests of a particular audience group affected by an issue. Here, a moderator leads the discussion of the specified issue and gathers feelings, concerns, and interests of the audience group. If the policy issue is a topic of high level conflict, people may obtain an opportunity to take part in decision making through bilateral meetings. Here, the sponsoring agencies directly collect feedbacks from beneficiary groups. It is observed that people can more conveniently involve in public policy making toll-free phone line. It is another common way of citizen participation promoted by most other countries. In this method, people can share their views and opinions with the person who is appointed to receive citizens’ calls. Sometimes, people’s comments on the subject are recorded due to lack of time. Other popular forms of traditional public participation techniques are interviews and surveys. Under the interview method, people obtain the opportunity to talk to government officials in person. Here, people obtain enough time to discuss the matter in depth. Finally, governments also use questionnaire survey method to gather public opinions on a particular issue. In order to address the weaknesses of citizen participation techniques discussed above, there were some new techniques emerged recently. Today, e-participation is the most widely used public participation method. Here, citizens can analyse the particular issue using websites and bulletin boards and express their views and opinions through e-mail, online discussion forums, and chat and news groups. In the context of growing popularity of computer and internet, it seems to be the best way to foster citizen participation in public policy making. In developed countries like US and UK, people engage in public policy decision through the e-participation method. The major advantage of this approach is that it can cover a broad geographic area cost effectively. Citizens can make sure their involvement in policy making through public policy dialogue technique too. Under this technique, policy discussions are organized in a committee or workshop format so as to “achieve consensus on diverse views” (Smith 2003). In olden days, the People’s Republic of China barely allowed its citizens to participate in public policy decision making. However, recently the government realised that public participation is the potential way to address growing issues like civil unrest and violence in the country. Furthermore, the government tries to promote the communist principle of ‘from the people, to the people’. The regulators also identified that citizen participation is vital to effectively govern a complex country like China. “For more than a decade, China has been exploring and beginning to institutionalise mechanisms to make governance more transparent and participatory, and to permit the general public to have greater input into the government decisions, laws and regulations that affect their daily lives” (Horsley 2009). In order to promote a transparent and participatory legislative process, the Chinese government provides its citizens with the opportunity to engage in public policy making through public hearings, public workshops, and publishing draft policies to collect feedbacks from the general public. Chinese citizens are encouraged to take part in public policy decision through legislative hearings. Under this process, citizens are allowed to participate in the legislative sessions to understand the proceedings; this practice is now promoted by the National People’s Congress (NPC) also. Although they are not permitted to involve in the policy discussion or to ask questions, they can submit written comments on their views and suggestions for the legislation. It seems that the Chinese government greatly fosters public participation in policy making concerning environmental protection. The environmental impact assessment law 2003 asks the Chinese people to get involved in environmental impact assessments through public hearings. This law also requires the establishment of other improved mechanisms when a public policy plan is likely to have an unintended effect on public and their environmental rights and interests. Reports indicate that Chinese people’s interests and involvement in the environmental decision making continue to increase as a result of strong government support. In China, urban planning, land use, and other major project decisions are some other key areas where public participation is greatly encouraged. The Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources made provision in 2004 for encouraging citizen participation in the formulation of laws and regulations relating to some sensitive land issues like compensation for land takings and land use (Horsley, 2009). Similarly, the 2008 Urban and Rural Planning Law states that urban and rural land use policy proposals have to be published for comments for at least 30 days, and views and opinions of experts as well as the general public must be gathered through hearings, expert meetings, and other techniques (ibid). In addition, these opinions should be set out in a report together with the policy proposal submitted for approval. The concept of public participation assisted the Chinese people to terminate the Shanghai government’s plan to extend a high-speed maglev train line (Horsley, 2009). Residents have raises their concerns over issues like noise, dangerous electromagnetic radiations, loss of houses, and drop in property values. The Mayor Han Zheng considered the feelings of residents and promised that the government would improve citizen participation in public affairs through public opinion surveys and public hearings (ibid). A 2008 State Council decision also emphasised the need of fostering public participation in the country. It is identified that China has also taken extensive measures to improve villagers’ participation in public policy making. Xinhe town’s budget democratic discussion in 2006 and Zeguo town’s urban construction democratic discussion are two notable examples of citizen participation in public policy making (Siu et al. 2009). The budget democratic discussion was performed in Xinhe town on March 6-9th 2006. 93 town NPCs and 193 villagers attended this discussion to plan the township-budget for the next year (ibid). Many key areas of the budget including administrative management, government spending, and education investment were addressed in the discussion (Wu 2009). Similarly, on 20th March 2006, the urban construction democratic discussion was held in a middle school in Zeguo town. This democratic discussion involved two rounds of group discussions including as a meeting and group discussion. The participants were required to complete two questionnaires before and after the democratic discussion (Siu et al. 2009). The government staff evaluated the questionnaire surveys collected and arranged all the urban construction projects on the basis of their priority. After government office conference, a particular number of urban construction projects chosen were submitted for deliberation and voting. According to Li Fei, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature had published over 30 draft policy drafts on its website (Xinhuva 2011). This practice greatly assisted the Chinese people to participate in legislation through submitting proposals online. Today, Chinese people have increased access to internet even though globally popular websites like Google, Facebook, and You Tube have been banned in the country. Therefore, it is easy for the Chinese citizens to get involved in the government’s public policy making. However, it is to be noted that the scope of public participation in China is less as compared to other developed nations. Chinese communist government imposes many restrictions on citizen participation including prison terms in order to suppress direct criticism against top government leaders or Communist Party (The U.S. Government Printing Office 2006). Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that citizen participation in public policy making is vital to promote democratic accountability and legitimacy. In addition, this practice is a better way to promote public awareness of policy making procedures and to initiate social learning. Today, people and media are increasingly concerned over the transparency and accountability of government decisions. Therefore, people involvement would assist the government to avoid future conflicts and to eliminate litigation costs. Traditional public participation techniques include focus groups, public meetings, advisory committees, open houses, print publications, workshops, and bilateral meetings as well as emerging techniques such as e-participation and open public dialogue. Today, e-participation is the most common form of public participation technique employed by countries including China because it can cover a broad geographic area at cheap costs. Reports indicate that Chinese government now increasingly encourages its citizens to take part in public decision making in order to achieve greater level of public support and to improve governance activities. Currently, Chinese citizens involve in public decision making mainly through public hearings and e-participation. Xinhe town’s budget democratic discussion and Zeguo town’s urban construction democratic discussion held in 2006 indicate the changes occurred in the Chinese political environment over the last decade. It is advisable for the Chinese government to withdraw the current regulations on public participation and allow its citizens to freely raise their concerns, ask questions, and suggest alternatives about the issue under consideration. In addition, the government must also ensure active participation of people from all classes and segments of the society. References ESCWA. (2001) Measures needed for public participation in policy making processes, 3 (2): 1-8. 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