Design principles for better citizen participation

By Menno Hurenkamp & Evelien Tonkens

Citizen participation is increasingly embedded in legislation and policy. Participation is often vaguely indicated. This offers little protection against exclusion processes known from the literature. A current example is the 'Environmental Act' that will come into effect in 2021. In this article we discuss the citizen participation section of that bill to identify and combat such exclusion mechanisms.