Chapter 9 discussed the importance of stakeholder engagement in policy making. The author presented several benefits and an analysis of five cases in which stakeholder engagement added value to the policy making process. If you were leading a project to develop a comprehensive policy for managing pedestrian traffic flow in a popular downtown metropolitan district, what measures would you take to engage stakeholders in that project? Your answer should outline your suggestions and clearly explain why each one would add value.As indicated above, you will assume the role of project manager of a project to develop a comprehensive policy for managing pedestrian traffic flow in a popular downtown metropolitan district, what measures would you take to engage stakeholders in that project? Your answer should identify the project stakeholders, outline your suggestions and clearly explain why each one would add value.
Chapter 9
Stakeholder Engagement in Policy Development:
Observations and Lessons from International
Experience
Natalie Helbig, Sharon Dawes, Zamira Dzhusupova, Bram Klievink
and Catherine Gerald Mkude
Abstract This chapter provides a starting point for better understanding how
different approaches, tools, and technologies can support effective stakeholder participation in policy development. Participatory policy making involves stakeholders
in various stages of the policy process and can focus on both the substance of the
policy problem or on improving the tools and processes of policy development. We
examine five international cases of stakeholder engagement in policy development to
explore two questions: (1) what types of engagement tools and processes are useful
for different stakeholders and contexts? And (2) what factors support the effective use
of particular tools and technologies toward constructive outcomes? The cases address
e-government strategic planning in a developing country, energy policy in a transitional economy, development of new technology and policy innovations in global
trade, exploration of tools for policy-relevant evidence in early childhood decision
making, and development of indicators for evaluating policy options in urban planning. Following a comparison of the cases, we discuss salient factors of stakeholder
N. Helbig () · S. Dawes
Center for Technology in Government, University at Albany, 187 Wolf Road,
Suite 301, 12205 Albany, New York, USA
e-mail: nhelbig@ctg.albany.edu
S. Dawes
e-mail: sdawes@ctg.albany.edu
Z. Dzhusupova
Department of Public Administration and Development Management
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), New York, USA
e-mail: dzhusupova@un.org
B. Klievink
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology,
Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX, Delft, The Netherlands
e-mail: a.j.klievink@tudelft.nl
C. G. Mkude
Institute for IS Research, University of Koblenz-Landau, Universitätsstr. 1,
56070 Koblenz, Germany
e-mail: cmkude@uni-koblenz.de
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
M. Janssen et al. (eds.), Policy Practice and Digital Science,
Public Administration and Information Technology 10, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-12784-2_9
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selection and representation, stakeholder support and education, the value of stakeholder engagement for dealing with complexity, and the usefulness of third-party
experts for enhancing transparency and improving tools for engagement.
9.1
Introduction
Complex public problems are shared and dispersed across multiple organizations and
domains (Kettl 2002). Consider, for example, the array of concerns associated with
improving air quality or assuring the safety of food products. The formal governmental responses to these specific public needs are addressed through public policies.
Policy might focus on different geographic locations, processes, or products, or
could specify how certain outcomes are defined, observed, and assessed. Moreover,
individuals, families, communities, industry, and government itself are all affected
by policy choices, and they all have interests in both the decision-making process
and the final decisions (Bryson 2004).
In light of seemingly intractable and complex social problems, public administrators have shifted toward governance activities that allow citizens and stakeholders to
have deeper involvement in the policy-making process and the work of government
(Bingham et al. 2005). Governance models which focus on quasi-legislative activities such as participatory budgeting, citizen juries, focus groups, roundtables, or
town meetings (Bingham et al. 2005; Fishkin 1995) create opportunities for citizens
and stakeholders to envision their future growth (Myers and Kitsuse 2000), clarify
their own policy preferences, engage in dialogue on policy choices, or bring various
groups to consensus on proposals (McAfee 2004). The models vary based on degree
of involvement by the general population, whether they occur in public spaces, if the
stakeholders are actually empowered, and whether they lead to tangible outcomes
(Bingham et al. 2005).
Stakeholder engagement objectives may also vary by their point of connection
with the policy process (Fung 2006). The policy process is complex and there are
many different ways to conceptualize how it works. The stages heuristic of public
policy making is one of the most broadly accepted (Sabatier 1991). Although the
utility of the stages model has limits, and numerous advances in theories and methods
for understanding the policy process have been made, the stages heuristic continues
to offer useful conceptualizations (Jenkins-Smith and Sabatier 1993). While specification and content of the stages vary somewhat throughout the literature, however (as
shown in Fig. 9.1), models often comprise some combination of problem identification, agenda setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and policy evaluation
(Lasswell 1951; Easton 1965; Jones 1977). More recent conceptualizations involve
feedback across the various stages.
Research in both the public and private sectors has identified a number of benefits associated with stakeholder engagement in governance. Stakeholders’ interests
illuminate the multiplicity of factors that underlie policy problems, decisions, and
implementation. Direct engagement of stakeholders increases public understanding
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Fig. 9.1 Stages of the policy process
of the issues and the consequences of different choices. Accordingly, engagement
generates more options for policies or actions. Engagement brings more information
into the deliberation process from different kinds of stakeholders so that decisions are
more likely to avoid unintended consequences and fit better into existing contexts.
Engagement also reveals both conflicts and agreements among different stakeholder
groups. While taking stakeholders into account is a crucial aspect of solving public
problems, policy development includes both powerful and powerless stakeholders
within the process (Bryson 2004). Some stakeholders have the power, knowledge,
or resources to affect the policy content, while others are relatively powerless but
nevertheless are affected, sometimes in dramatic ways (Brugha and Varvasovszky
2000). Thus, open and evenhanded stakeholder engagement, especially among those
with conflicting viewpoints, can sometimes resolve differences and build trust in the
policy-making process and help secure public acceptance of decisions (e.g., Klievink
et al. 2012).
In the past 20 years, specialized technologies, electronic communication, and
advanced analytical, modeling, and simulation techniques have been developed to
support governance processes. Administrators, analysts, and planners must decide
how and when to engage citizens and stakeholders in governance, particularly during
the different stages of policy making. They must also consider which mechanisms
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to use for managing the relationships (Bryson 2004) and must select from a variety
of tools and techniques. In this chapter, we begin to explore two questions: (1)
What types of engagement tools and processes are useful for different stakeholders
and contexts? And (2) what factors support the effective use of particular tools and
technologies toward constructive outcomes?
The next sections start by reviewing the foundational elements of stakeholder theory and its relation to governance, including a summary of tools and techniques used
to identify stakeholders and analyze stakeholder interests and ways to classify types
of engagement. We then offer five case stories of stakeholder engagement in complex
and dynamic settings across the world including e-government strategic planning in a
developing country, exploring different uses of evidence in early childhood decision
making, developing technology and policy innovations in global trade, and involving
citizens in the design of energy policy and transportation planning. The cases vary in
both policy content and the extent to which newer technologies were used to deal with
the complexity of the engagement process, their accessibility and understandability
to outsiders, and the advantages and disadvantages they offer to expert stakeholders
as compared to laymen. We then compare the cases, discuss their similarities and
differences, and conclude with a discussion of the usefulness of different tools and
processes for different stakeholders and contexts and the factors that support their
effectiveness.
9.2
Foundations of Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement, as a concept, originated within organizational studies as an
approach to managing corporations (Freeman 2010; Bingham et al. 2005; Donaldson and Preston 1995; Mitchell et al. 1997). This approach has since been adapted
for use by public sector organizations to highlight the importance of stakeholders in
various aspects of the policy-making process (Bingham et al. 2005). Bingham et al.
(2005) situate stakeholders as part of “new governance” concepts where government
actively involves citizens as stakeholders in decision making through activities such
as deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, or collaborative policy making.
Research on stakeholder inclusion in government processes has been found to enhance accountability, efficiency in decision-making processes, and good governance
(Ackerman 2004; Flak and Rose 2005; Yetano et al. 2010). The growing popularity
of stakeholder analysis reflects an increasing recognition of stakeholder influences
on decision-making processes (Brugha and Varvasovszky 2000).
9.2.1
Defining Stakeholders
The term “stakeholder” is defined differently by different disciplines. Most definitions mention similar stakeholder categories such as companies and their employees
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or external entities such as suppliers, customers, governments, or creditors. In the
public sector, the definition of stakeholder emphasizes categories of citizens defined
by demographic characteristics, life stages, interest groups, or organizational boundaries (Bingham et al. 2005; Ackerman 2004; Yetano et al. 2010). Stakeholders can
be both internal to the government (e.g., the government organizations responsible
for policy implementation) and external to it (e.g., the industries, communities, or
individuals to be affected by government actions or rules).
In this chapter, we use Freeman’s (1984) definition of stakeholder as any group
or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organization’s
objectives. In the public sector, “organization” is understood to mean a government
entity or body with responsibility for public policies or services. In the simplest terms,
those who can affect or may be affected by a policy can be considered stakeholders
in that policy. In traditional expert-based approaches to policy making, the needs of
stakeholders are indirectly addressed by public agencies and acknowledged experts
(Bijlsma et al. 2011; De Marchi 2003). In these expert-based approaches, internal
and external stakeholders may be consulted, but in participatory approaches, stakeholders are not only consulted but are also involved in a structured way to influence
problem framing, policy analysis, and decision making. Bijlsma et al. (2011) define
participatory policy development as the “influence of stakeholder involvement on the
development of substance in policy development, notably the framing of the policy
problem, the policy analysis and design, and the creation and use of knowledge”
(p. 51).
9.2.2
Stakeholder Identification and Analysis
Stakeholder identification and analysis is an important first phase in stakeholder engagement processes (Freeman 2010). Analysis typically involves five steps (Kennon
et al. 2009): identifying stakeholders, understanding and managing stakeholders,
setting goals, identifying the costs of engagement, and evaluating and revisiting the
analysis. Through these various steps, an analysis helps to distinguish stakeholders
from non-stakeholders and to identify the ways that stakeholders need to be engaged
during different parts of the policy cycle. Over time, the mix of stakeholders in a
particular policy issue is likely to change, as new stakeholders may join the engagement activities, while others may drop out (Elias et al. 2002) or shift among different
types. Joining, dropping out, or moving among types thus dynamically changes the
configuration and analysis of stakeholders over time.
Various techniques for stakeholder identification and analysis are reviewed in
the literature. These techniques focus attention on the interrelations of groups or
organizations with respect to their interests in, or impacts on policies within, a
broader political, economic, and cultural context. These techniques also provide
ways for analysts to understand stakeholder power, influence, needs, and conflicts
of interest. Bryson (2004) characterized stakeholder identification as an iterative
process highlighting the need to determine the purpose of involving stakeholders
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and cautioning that these purposes may change over time. He describes a stage
approach to selecting stakeholders: someone or a small group responsible for the
policy analysis develops an initial stakeholder list as a starting point for thinking
about which stakeholders are missing. Brainstorming and the use of interviews,
questionnaires, focus groups, or other information-gathering techniques can be used
to expand the list. Bryson (2004) notes “this staged process embodies a kind of
technical, political, and ethical rationality” (p. 29). He also lists a variety of analysis
techniques, such as power and influence grids (Eden and Ackermann 1998), bases of
power diagrams (Bryson et al. 2002), stakeholder–issue interrelationship diagrams
(Bryant 2003), problem-frame stakeholder maps (Anderson et al. 1999), ethical
analysis grids (Lewis 1991), or policy attractiveness versus stakeholder capability
grids (Bryson et al. 1986). Each of these tools is used in different situations to help
understand and identify various aspects of stakeholder interests.
9.2.3
Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder engagement methods are the means by which stakeholder views, information, and opinions are elicited, or by which stakeholders are involved in decision
making. Engagement can take various forms. The International Association for Public Participation identified five levels of stakeholder engagement: (IAP2 2007). At
the simplest level, informing, stakeholders are merely informed, for example, via
websites, fact sheets, newsletters, or allowing visitors to observe policy discussions.
The level of engagement in this form is very low and suitable only to engage those
stakeholders with low urgency, influence, importance, or interest (Bryson 2004).
Various methods are available for consulting, including conducting interviews, administering surveys to gather information, opening up draft policy documents for
public comment, or using Web 2.0 tools to gather ideas. The main goal of this form
of engagement is to elicit the views and interests, as well as the salient information
that stakeholders have with regard to the policy concern.
Involving stakeholders is a more intensive engagement where stakeholders work
together during the policy development process. Some tools used to ensure that ideas,
interests, and concerns are consistently understood and addressed include scenario
building (Wimmer et al. 2012), engaging panels of experts such as the Delphi method
(Linstone and Turoff 1975), or group model building that includes simulating policy
choices, games, or role playing (Andersen et al. 2007; Vennix et al. 1996). Models,
simulations, or scenarios can be used as boundary objects (Black and Andersen
2012; Star and Griesemer 1989) to enable diverse sets of stakeholders to have a
shared experience and to exchange localized or specialized knowledge in order to
learn, create common understanding, and identify alternative choices. All these levels
focus on the flow of information among actors, but the direction and intensity vary.
The most intense engagement is realized through full collaboration with or even
empowerment of stakeholders. In the IAP2 spectrum of public participation, collaboration means stakeholders’ advice and recommendations will be incorporated in
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the final decisions to a maximum extent (IAP2 2007). Empowerment means that the
final decision making is actually in the hands of the public. Realistically, collaboration and empowerment exist within institutional and legal parameters. For example,
the policy-making body (usually a government agency) will need to put some constraints or boundaries around the policy options that comport with the limits of its
legal authority. For both levels, consensus-building approaches are essential. This
can be done through citizen juries (Smith and en Wales 2000), the enactment of a
stakeholder board (urbanAPI1 ; Klievink et al. 2012), or by setting up living labs
(Tan et al. 2011; Higgins and Klein 2011) in which stakeholders collaboratively
develop, implement, and evaluate solutions within a given context. All of these
approaches not only assist in incorporating stakeholders’ views into the policy process but also enhance acceptance by stakeholders because they were part of the
deliberation process (e.g., see Klievink and Lucassen 2013).
9.3
Cases
Below we offer five case stories about stakeholder engagement in policy making.
The cases were recommended by a diverse set of eGovPoliNet consortium partners
who shared an interest in tools and techniques to support the policy process. The
main goal of the case stories is to highlight the roles that stakeholders can play in
policy development and to discuss how different methods, tools, and technologies
could be used for engaging stakeholders in the policy process. Each case describes a
situation where stakeholders were involved in the problem definition, agenda setting,
and formulation stages of the policy cycle. In all cases, a trusted third party, generally
university researchers, facilitated the process and applied the tools. The cases vary in
policy content and in the extent of technology use in the engagement process. They
represent different policy domains, and governments at different stages of development with different political systems. The first three cases focus on substantive policy
choices for e-government strategic planning, alternative energy policy, and global
trade inspection. The last two concentrate on stakeholder involvement in improving
tools to support the policy-making process. Of those, the first focuses on connecting policy makers and modelers in building a supportive framework for assessing
early childhood programs and second involves stakeholders in defining assessment
indicators to be built into a model that supports urban planning decisions.
In this section, we describe these diverse situations as the foundation for the
comparison presented in Sect. 9.4 where we identify similarities and differences that
suggest approaches, tools, and techniques that are useful and effective in different
contexts and with different kinds of stakeholders.
For each case below, we present the key characteristics of the policy-making situation and assess the purpose of stakeholder engagement. With respect to stakeholder
1
UrbanAPI is an EC FP7 project focused on interactive analysis, simulation, and visualization
tools for agile urban policy implementation http://www.urbanapi.eu/.
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identification and analysis, we cover both the identification of stakeholders (types)
involved and the methods used for identification and analysis. With respect to stakeholder engagement (see Sect. 9.2.3), we analyze the engagement approach followed
in each case, as well as the type of participation and the methods of stakeholder engagement. We also inventory which tools and technologies were used and describe
the results and outcomes of each engagement process.
9.3.1
E-Government Strategic Planning in Afghanistan
The EGOV.AF project was a joint initiative of the Afghanistan Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the United Nations University–
International Institute for Software Technology–Center for Electronic Governance
(UNU-IIST-EGOV). One goal of EGOV.AF was to develop a nationally owned
EGOV strategy and program (Dzhusupova et al. 2011). In many developing countries,
two major challenges to long-term sustainability of e-government initiatives exist:
(1) too much reliance on donor funding (Ali and Weerakkody 2009) and (2) lack
of understanding regarding citizen demand for e-government services (Basu 2004).
To mitigate these challenges, a strategy of the EGOV.AF project was to reach out
to stakeholders in a systematic way before putting together a national e-government
policy. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world (World Bank 2012)
plagued by a recent history of war and conflict, with a significant digital divide
between rural and urban areas. Thus, identifying important stakeholders and understanding their interests, expectations, capacity, and influence were very important,
but also very difficult.
In 2011, the UNU-IIST-EGOV team engaged in action research with the MCIT
through the development of a stakeholder analysis tool and execution of a series of
stakeholder identification exercises, analyses, and workshops. The MCIT was the
project owner and lead agency, while the UNU-IIST-EGOV provided mentorship,
additional experience, expertise to apply stakeholder analysis tools and engagement
methods, and capacity to facilitate the process.
Historically, standard exercises at the MCIT around e-government planning had
focused only on consultation with technology stakeholders, such as consulting companies. Initially, the MCIT did not see the value in involving citizens, local provinces,
international organizations, academics, or nonprofit organizations that focus on governance. The case was made by UNU to engage people outside of government to
address several factors: Many of the nonprofit organizations are advocates for transparency and good governance, donor organizations assert influence over the process
through special programs and funding, and the provincial governments work closely
and most directly with citizens.
To expand MCIT’s limited understanding of this broad set of stakeholders, they
conducted a series of consultation and involvement activities. The first instance of
engagement with stakeholders was a survey that asked questions about their interests, needs, activities, and conditions. The team also collected additional contextual
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information from websites and professional contacts. The second stage of engagement occurred after the analysis of the survey. Using the stakeholder analysis tool
developed by UNU, the MCIT identified from the survey results a set of interested
and relevant stakeholders, defined the roles for major stakeholders in the policy process, and developed communication strategies. Later these stakeholders were invited
to attend two stakeholder workshops. One workshop was designed as a “visioning”
exercise and another designed to elicit “strategy development.” During the workshops, MCIT and UNU-IIST-EGOV were able to provide participants with general
knowledge about approaches and methodologies regarding strategy development,
provided examples from other countries, and facilitated discussions focused on egovernment in the local Afghanistan context. Participants in the workshops were
encouraged to share their ideas and to discuss and prioritize strategic goals and tasks
for e-government based on the mutual consensus among them. The last stage of
the stakeholder engagement was to complete a series of face-to-face meetings and
e-mails in which the MCIT collected suggestions on strategic actions. Additional
feedback was taken through an e-forum set up on the government website to collect
comments on a draft national strategy.
The key result of the overall project was the successful completion of a nationally
owned EGOV vision and strategy agreed upon by most important stakeholders. The
most critical points of the vision and strategy were to better respond to Afghan
citizens’ expectations that e-government would bring convenient public services,
transparency, accountability, and responsiveness and would help to deter widespread
corruption. The project provided evidence that stakeholder engagement in nationallevel planning processes was possible, and that involving stakeholders can increase
commitment, build consensus, and demonstrate transparency and openness in the
strategic e-government planning process.
9.3.2
Renewable Energy Policy for Kosice, Slovakia
The process of developing an energy policy in Kosice self-governing region (KSR)
in Slovakia is surrounded by political, economic, and environmental challenges.
High dependency on imported energy from Russia and Ukraine, presented KSR
with economic and political vulnerabilities. The emergence of domestic small to
medium enterprises (SMEs) within the energy sector has provided new opportunities
for employment and new technologies for utilizing local energy sources. Control
of energy production with respect to emissions also impacted the policy-making
environment. Any change in the sources of energy would likely affect the pricing of
energy consumption and directly affect citizens and businesses. This case not only
is a matter for policy makers and the authorities devising new energy policies but
also affects the KSR government entities, energy importing companies, local SMEs,
and citizens. Creating a new policy in such an environment required considerations
of a wide variety of stakeholders; the goal was to ensure the new policy would be
realistic, supported, and agreed upon.
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This case describes a pilot of the Open Collaboration for Policy Modeling
(OCOPOMO) project.2 The main objective of the OCOPOMO project was to develop an online environment for, and information and communications technology
(ICT) tools for, policy modeling in collaboration with stakeholders (Wimmer et al.
2012). Presenting complex information on policy choices for renewable energy requires some technical expertise and is influenced by individual beliefs. The pilot
project in Kosice focused on capturing stakeholders’ views on alternative renewable
sources of energy versus traditional energy production and consumption. It provided
an understanding of various choices in relation to different policies for promoting the
use of renewable energy, the perceived market potential for different energy sources,
barriers hindering different kinds of energy generation in the region, and the motivating factors leading citizens and companies towards renewable energy sources. It
also provided an early understanding of employment, financial, and environmental
impacts of any potential policy (Furdík et al. 2010). This pilot was the first time that
Kosice used advanced ICTs in policy making and the first time the region involved
a range of stakeholders other than policy makers, experts, and key representatives
from private heat producers and distribution companies.
The project team met with regional government committees and identified and
analyzed relevant stakeholders ranging from heating producers to distribution companies, building construction experts to technology experts, to household associations,
citizens, and city employees. Desk research and surveys were used to identify the
stakeholders, their roles, and expectations in the engagement process. The local authorities were mainly responsible for identifying the stakeholders. The project team
and the local government applied action research to engage these stakeholders in
the process and involvement was by invitation only. Several methods of engagement
were used. Workshops were used to clarify tasks and expectations of stakeholders in
the engagement process. Collaborative scenario development enabled stakeholders to
provide evidence documents and to generate scenarios related to the policy problem.
This method also allowed stakeholders to collaborate among themselves by exchanging views and concerns about the policy problem and possible solutions. Conceptual
modeling transformed stakeholder-generated scenarios and evidences into formal
policy models for simulation and then transformed the model-based scenarios into
narrative scenarios to enable understanding of simulation results to stakeholders and
steer further collaboration on the results. This process was iterative as new scenarios
emerging from the discussions of results could be evaluated and simulated again.
The stakeholders first met with the project team and were given a tutorial of how
the OCOPOMO online platform is used and they were free to use the platform for
about 1 month. The online platform provided background and supporting materials
to inform stakeholders of the different policy options available. After reviewing
existing options, stakeholders could propose several scenarios—for example, they
could propose a type of renewable energy and discuss what should be done from
the stakeholder’s own perspective. Scenarios, based on these stakeholder proposals,
2
http://www.ocopomo.eu/in-a-nutshell/piloting-cases/kosice-self-governing-region-slovakia.
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were later turned into formal policy models for simulation. The consistent conceptual
description (CCD) tool was used to perform this task.
The next phase began almost 1 year later with another face-to-face meeting to
inform stakeholders of the purpose of the second iteration. Given the length of
time between the first exercise and the second, some stakeholders were involved
in the first face-to-face one but not the second, and some started in the second. In
the second iteration, stakeholders were presented with simulation results of their
policy choices. Additional background documents were provided to help educate
them such as a return on investment (ROI) of different energy sources proposed.
Stakeholders, particularly policy owners, provided comments on the model-based
scenarios and then published one new evidence-based scenario. The topics which
were most discussed leading to the new scenario included detailed technical pros
and cons of a local versus central heating system, ROIs, legislation proposed by
heat producers that would affect customers who decided to disconnect from the
central heating system, and financial tools for investments in building renovation or
installation of new heat sources.
The project was successful in highlighting the need for and usefulness of more
innovative approaches to policy development processes. These innovative approaches
proved to be particularly important with diverse stakeholders with different interests
in an existing problem and potential solutions (Wimmer et al. 2012). The added
value of OCOPOMO to traditional approaches is the added confidence for policy
makers about the expected outcomes of a policy in respect to stakeholders involved.
Moreover, the stakeholder engagement process in Kosice was positively viewed by
the stakeholders themselves. It enabled better understanding of the policy problem
through background documents provided in the platform, and it also provided a tool
where different stakeholders’ views and expectations could be explicitly captured.
9.3.3
Redesigning the European Union’s Inspection Capability
for International Trade
The European Union (EU) is implementing a risk-based approach (RBA) policy
to government supervision of international trade lanes. As part of this approach,
the risk posed by cargo entering and leaving the EU is analyzed on the basis of
cargo information submitted electronically in a single declaration by operators prior
to departure or arrival. However, this policy can only be effective if the data that
circulate among the supply chain partners are accurate, timely, and of sufficient
quality to be relied upon, which is currently not the case (Hesketh 2010). This case
draws from two projects: Extended Single Window (ESW): Information Gateway
to Europe, funded by the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics (DINALOG), and
common assessment and analysis of risk in global supply chains (CASSANDRA),
funded by the 7th Framework Program of the European Commission. The goal of
both projects was to improve supply chain visibility.
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Transparency is important for both government and commercial interests; it relates to having access to the transaction data necessary to know what is actually
happening in the supply chain. However, major challenges exist in today’s global
supply chains, including lack of trust and understanding between public and private
entities and among private entities (Klievink et al. 2012) about existing laws and
ways of working among EU countries and other countries. Without the involvement
of international trading businesses and other stakeholders, and without their active
contribution to data sharing solutions that enable the RBA policy, the policy will not
lead to the intended results for government and may lead to unnecessary increases
in the administrative burden of legitimate traders.
To overcome these challenges, the project team assembled an international consortium of government bodies that included multiple European customs organizations,
in addition to universities, IT providers, logistics operators, and standardization bodies. The project team conducted desk research and a survey based on Bryson (2004)
to elicit stakeholders’interests, urgency, influence, and importance. The total number
of entities involved in international supply chains is so large that it was necessary to
choose stakeholders that would reasonably represent the range of actors. Therefore,
selection was based on criticality and representativeness. For example, the consortium involved representatives of a several very large and medium-sized freight
forwarders. This was done to ensure different perspectives within this stakeholder
group without having to involve the hundreds of parties that can be involved with the
cargo on any single ship. Stakeholders were also grouped according to trade lanes.
This approach limited the total number of actors by using the trade lane as a boundary.
To ensure diversity in interests, ten different global trade lanes were modeled, including lanes between Shenzhen (China) and Felixstowe (UK), Penang (Malaysia)
and Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Alexandria (Egypt) and Barcelona (Spain), and
Bremerhaven (Germany) and Charleston (USA). Using this method, the stakeholders were able to see the common themes across trade lanes that are important for
each of the key stakeholder groups.
In order to engage stakeholders to innovate within a real-life setting, a living lab
approach was used. Tan et al. (2011) describe a living lab methodology as bringing
together multiple stakeholders, across multiple locations, and seeing stakeholders
as co-innovators. A living lab methodology is suitable for situations where a neutral
party, often academics, acts as honest brokers to bring the different stakeholders to
consensus. Each living lab group used real trade lanes to model the physical flow
of data, information system landscape, and administrative burden in order to configure, demonstrate, and refine the entire system with the stakeholders. The consortium
team created visual models and data-flow diagrams of the existing and to-be situations to enable the stakeholders to sort out the policy and data-sharing issues among
themselves. Another goal was for stakeholders to come to common understanding of
their respective situations, ultimately joining up different systems of different stakeholders in order to capture the data they collectively needed. The overall dataset was
visualized in a dashboard with role-based access. The dashboard enabled discussion
of how the system would impact the day-to-day processes of the various businesses
and inspection authorities.
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Involving stakeholders early helped increase commitment and consensus to this
initiative. However, decision making remained relatively slow due to the considerable time it takes to design technical tools, models, and diagrams, and to constantly
update them to reflect the feedback from stakeholders’ advice and recommendations.
By providing a comprehensive overview of the roles, the data sources, and the work
processes using them, parties came to an understanding of how the innovations were
used. Through this, they over time build trust towards those potential vulnerabilities
that the innovation might bring, would not be exploited. This facilitated acceptance
and uptake by the various stakeholder groups. In addition, not all of the potential
answers the living lab groups provided are also enabled by existing European legislation. Alignment between the business stakeholder groups, national governments,
and European bodies is still needed. One of the outcomes of the project is therefore
a consensus-based agenda for further policy development.
9.3.4
Understanding Child Health Outcomes in New Zealand
The next case examines the Modelling the Early Life-Course (MEL-C) project in
New Zealand, which was supported by a public good research grant provided to
researchers at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (Milne et al. 2014). Lifecourse studies examine “the biological, behavioral and psychosocial pathways that
operate across an individual’s life course, as well as across generations, to influence
the development of chronic diseases” (Ben-Shlomo and Kuh 2002). An abundance
of research evidence can be found about the early life course of children and the
determinants of health. The goal of the project was to develop a decision support
software tool for policy makers to test different policy scenarios against realistic
data and to consider this evidence alongside other policy-relevant information such
as politics, other evaluations, or expert consultations. The main purpose was not to
develop a specific policy but to develop a process and tool for better identification
and use of data in this policy domain.
In an environment where a great deal of information about a policy exists, the tool
is meant to help bridge the research–policy translation gap (Milne et al. 2014). The
lack of research evidence uptake by policy makers is well documented (Lomas 2007;
Van Egmond et al. 2011). One main factor is the lack of uptake in the “translation
gap”—characterized as the mismatch between the knowledge that research produces
and the knowledge that policy makers want (Milne et al. 2014). Milne et al. (2014)
identify two solutions to bridge the gap—knowledge brokers (Frost et al. 2012;
Knight and Lightowler 2010; Lomas 2007) and research–policy partnerships (Best
and Holmes 2010; Van Egmond et al. 2011). Knowledge brokers act as translators,
turning the research evidence into information that is easily understood and usable
by policy makers. Research–policy partnerships involve a more intense interaction
between both groups, where they work together to produce the evidence needed for
policy purposes. Previous work focused on database interventions aimed at knowledge translation where all relevant documents synthesizing research results could be
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found (Milne et al. 2014). However, with the online databases the onus is still on
policy makers to search for relevant papers, assess their content for relevance, and
evaluate their importance for the policy question under consideration. The MEL-C
project took a different approach with a decision-support tool “where the evidence
is embedded in a working model and can be interrogated to address specific policy
questions” (p. 8).
Using a micro-simulation model, the tool incorporates longitudinal data to
determine the normal transition of children through their life course and the impact of policy interventions on their outcomes. Two representatives each from
four New Zealand government ministries—Health, Education, Justice, and Social
Development—formed a “policy reference group” for the project (Milne et al. 2014).
The representatives were selected because they represented people who could understand the aims of the project and were data and technology savvy. Thus, the boundary
for engagement was limited to the translation gap, and did not extend to the behavior
of the children modeled within the system. The main strategy for involving policy
makers was to hold regular, face-to-face meetings for almost 2 years to discuss the
development of the MEL-C tool, including the simulation model and graphical user
interface. The discussions were facilitated and documented by the task leader for
end-user engagement.
The simulation model was shown to stakeholders who then provided feedback and
became collaborators in the development of user interfaces and the types of key policy
questions that the model needed to be able to address. The results of this specialized
form of stakeholder engagement included a much more useful decision-support tool
than might have been developed otherwise, an ongoing process of collaborative
refinement, and a set of potential users and advocates for the tool.
Results of the model are beginning to be explored. For example, for child health
service use outcomes it was found that appreciable improvement was only effected
by modifying multiple determinants; structural determinants (e.g., ethnicity, family
structure) were relatively more important than intermediary determinants (e.g., overcrowding, parental smoking) as potential policy levers; there was a social gradient
of effect; and interventions bestowed the greatest benefit to the most disadvantaged
groups with a corresponding reduction in disparities between the worst-off and the
best-off (Lay-Yee et al. 2014).
9.3.5
Transportation and Urban Planning Indicator Development
in the USA
Understanding how choices today will impact life in the future is a major concern
for policy making in any area. In transportation and urban planning, it is even more
important because the infrastructure created is not easily changed, once roads and
buildings are built and patterns of living start to evolve around them. The urban planning context is fraught with different stakeholders who often have fundamentally
opposing beliefs and value systems (Pace 1990; Borning et al. 2005). They embody
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widely divergent opinions regarding urban development and land use. Each stakeholder group is likely to have their own philosophies about different forms of land
use in urban environments, and different views about how long-term planning should
occur, what situations constitute problematic conditions, what solutions should be
sought for those problems, and what constitutes successful outcomes.
Under these contentious conditions, advanced computer simulation tools that
show the long-term potential effects of different choices can contribute to legitimation
of the policy process as well as to well-considered decisions. However, in order to
achieve this, the model itself must be considered legitimate. In other words, its
structure, inputs, processes, and outputs must be transparent and understandable to
all stakeholders. Our last case, UrbanSim, is a land-use modeling system, developed
over the past 20 years, that helps policy makers and stakeholders understand the
20–30-year impacts of different choices regarding land use and transportation on
community outcomes including effects on the economy and the environment. It has
been used widely in the USA and Europe and is of growing interest globally. The
system not only estimates the direct effects of different infrastructure and policy
choices but also estimates how individual and group responses to those choices will
affect the outcomes (Borning et al. 2005; Borning et al. 2008).
UrbanSim simulation results are mainly presented to users as indicators. These
indicators are variables that convey information about an attribute of the system at a
given time. Indicators in UrbanSim include such variables as the population density
in different neighborhoods, the ratio of car trips to bus trips for the region, and
the projected cost of land per acre in different parts of the region. These and other
indicators are presented under different possible scenarios over the course of the
full simulation, generally 30 years. Indicator values are presented in tables, graphs,
charts, or maps (Friedman et al. 2008). These indicators allow stakeholders to assess
and compare the results of different policy scenarios on a consistent set of dimensions.
For example, if a city has the goal of supporting more walkable densely populated
urban neighborhoods as an alternative to sprawl surrounding the city center, then
changes in the “population density” indicator in different neighborhoods could be
used to assess the simulated outcomes of different policies over time (Borning et al.
2005).
In recent years, enhancements to UrbanSim have concentrated on making the
model more realistic and meaningful to stakeholders by expanding, categorizing,
and differentiating the stakeholder values represented by the indicators. The UrbanSim team had two goals: to make advocacy for different views more explicit and
contextualized, and to improve the overall legitimacy of the system by incorporating
these values in a wider range of indicators in the simulations. The involvement of
stakeholders, essentially a process of codevelopment of the model, was guided by
an overarching theory of value sensitive design (Friedman 1997). A key feature of
value sensitive design is designing technology that accounts for human values with
an emphasis on representing direct and indirect stakeholders (Borning et al. 2005).
The UrbanSim team partnered with three local organizations in the Seattle, Washington, region to develop and test new ways of expressing their values to model users
through the choice of indicators and related technical information. The partners (a
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government agency, a business association, and an environmental group) were selected to represent a range of known issues and stakeholder views about development
in the region. The goal was to create for each group a narrative value indicator perspective that explained the values of most importance to that group and to select,
define, and incorporate key indicators representing those views in the model. Stakeholders were convened in separate groups so that they could work independently to
formulate their indicator perspectives. This was an important design choice because
the goal was to present each group’s values and desires by essentially telling a story
advocating particular values and criteria for evaluating policy outcomes (Borning
et al 2005). The team engaged each stakeholder group through a series of faceto-face meetings and semi-structured interviews to help them craft and write both
narratives and descriptions of indicators that closely matched their core values and
views.
To assess the extent to which these approaches enhanced the legitimation of the
model, a separate group of citizen evaluators reviewed each grouping of stakeholderselected indicators and along with associated technical documentation as well as the
indicators in the system as a whole. They considered coherence, informativeness,
usefulness for supporting diverse opinions, usefulness for advocating for differing
views and values, and usefulness for supporting the democratic process. The evaluation showed positive scores on all measures and also produced additional findings
about the usefulness of different kinds of information (technical compared to advocacy), the importance of explicitly presenting and balancing diverse views, and the
overall perception of transparency and lack of bias in the modeling system itself.
9.4
Case Comparison
Table 9.1 presents key elements of each case story based on the following points
of comparison: (a) situation and approach, (b) types of stakeholders and type of
participation, (c) methods for stakeholder identification, (d) methods for stakeholder
engagement, (e) tools and technologies used, and (f) results.
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Ensure ownership,
commitment, and
transparency, in pursuit
of balancing
stakeholders’ interests
Purpose of
stakeholder
engagement
National
Level of
government
Action research—
involving trusted 3rd
party facilitates new
connections between
stakeholders and
government
Developing
Development
status
Approach
Slovakia
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Build consensus to
support a realistic policy
that would be widely
accepted
Action research—
involving collaborative
scenario building
through an online tool,
supplemented with
in-person meetings
Municipal
Transition
3 years
1 year
Afghanistan
Primary country
(ies)
Renewable energy
Case 2
Length of project
E-government
Policy area
Case 1
Table 9.1 Case comparison
Attune the system
towards the interests and
existing practices of the
stakeholders, thereby
building commitment
and supporting
consensus among
stakeholders to new
policies
Action research—
creation of a living lab
where stakeholders
themselves, facilitated
by 3rd parties, developed
solutions and implement
them
Multinational
Developed and
developing
European Union and
trading partners
3 years
International trade
Case 3
Facilitate synthesis of
research findings and
improve the usefulness
and usability of a
decision-support tool
for policy makers
Research–practice
partnership—
researchers and policy
makers worked
together through
iterative discussion,
demonstration, and
enhancements
National
Developed
New Zealand
5 years
Child health
Case 4
Enhance the legitimacy of
a modeling system used in
contentious policy areas
Action research—
using value-sensitive
design where stakeholder
values are made explicit in
the codevelopment of
enhancements to the
technology and model
system
Regional
Developed
USA
1 year
Urban planning
Case 5
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Representatives from
central government,
local governments,
public service providers,
IT and consulting firms,
NGOs, universities,
think tanks, resource
centers; international
organizations (donors
and sponsors)
Online surveys;
interviews; analysis of
interests, needs, and
capabilities
Involving
Face-to-face workshops
Stakeholder analysis
tool; online forum;
e-mail
Stakeholder types
involved
Method for
identifying
stakeholders
Type of
participation
Method of
stakeholder
engagement
Tools and
technologies used
Case 1
Table 9.1 (continued)
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OCOPOMO platform
and consistent
conceptual description
(CCD)
Face-to-face
workshops;
collaborative scenario
building
Involving
Desk research, survey
research, qualitative and
quantitative data
analysis. Face-to-face
meetings
Policy makers,
representatives from
energy-related
companies, expert
groups, representatives
from citizens and
housing associations
Case 2
Visual models; data-flow
diagrams; logistics-flow
diagrams; games
Face-to-face meetings;
consensus-building
workshops; interviews,
joint specification of
trade lane and of solution
Involving/collaboration
Detailed stakeholder
map for specific trade
lanes (including
commercial,
government, logistics,
and information
functions)
Involvement of
“exemplary” actors from
main stakeholder
groups: government,
international traders, IT
solution providers,
standards organizations
Case 3
Micro-simulation
modeling
Face-to-face meetings
between developers and
policy maker/users
Involving
Convenience sample of
policy makers in the
domain known to the
developers
Expert group drawn
from public agencies
responsible for
children’s health
Case 4
Simulation model
Separate face-to-face
meetings, interviews,
joint document
preparation with each
stakeholder
Involving
Convenience sample of
organizations known to
represent a range of
views about urban
development in the
region
Representatives of
selected nonprofit,
government, and
business interests known
to have strong views of
development in the
region
Case 5
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Results/outcomes
of engagement
process
Increased transparency
and openness of the
strategic planning
process
Increased commitment
and consensus among
key stakeholders
Case 1
Table 9.1 (continued)
Case 2
Engagement enabled
understanding of the
policy case among
stakeholders, and the
tool facilitated the
sharing of views to
support stakeholders’
views in a new policy
The stakeholder
engagement process was
perceived among
stakeholders as a useful
and an important process
in policy analysis
Case 3
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Joint process supports
consensus among
stakeholders (at least in
the same trade lane)
Making stakeholders
part of the fact-finding
and
solution-development
process supported
commitment of
stakeholders to the
solution
A dedicated group
innovation setting
enabled the stakeholders
to better understand the
needs between them,
which enables “trust”
and propagate solutions
that were not possible a
year ago
Case 4
This engagement also
established a group who
were able to be early
adopters of the
decision-support tool,
and who are able to
advocate for it
The engagement
facilitated the
development of a
decision-support tool for
policy making
Case 5
A method that allows
different stakeholders to
advocate for different
values, but for all
stakeholders to view the
implications of those
values in a standard set
of agreed-upon
indicators that measure
their long-term effects
A framework and
template for defining,
presenting, and
incorporating
value-based indicators in
the model
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9.5
N. Helbig et al.
Discussion
In this section, we return to our two guiding questions: What types of engagement
tools and processes are useful for different stakeholders and contexts? And what
factors support the effective use of particular tools and technologies toward constructive outcomes? The extant literature reveals a rich history of examining the role
of participation in democratic theory and complex governance (Fung 2006; Fung
et al. 2007). Various analytical tools in the literature address participant selection,
modes of communication, and involvement and many of these were present in the
cases. The cases confirm previous research regarding the importance of stakeholders
and the need for careful and goal-oriented stakeholder selection and engagement.
The cases also demonstrate the importance of support and education for participants
and the role of trusted facilitators, contributing to the knowledge in this field. This
section presents the key findings of our case comparison.
Identifying and Representing Relevant Stakeholders New governance means bringing in stakeholders who are not traditionally part of the policy-making process. Fung
(2006) describes a continuum of types of stakeholders in new governance, including
state representatives (described as expert administrators or elected representatives)
and mini-publics (described as professional and lay stakeholders with organized
interests). Professionals are paid participants (such as lobbyists) or not-for-profit
organizations. Lay stakeholders are those who volunteer their services such as individuals serving on school councils or neighborhood associations. The cases show
that effective stakeholder engagement requires a nuanced understanding of who are
the relevant stakeholders with respect to the specific goal of the engagement. Each
case represents a complex policy area where the different stakeholders selected or
invited to engage in the policy process represented particular aspects or viewpoints
about a complex problem. Our study confirms that stakeholder analysis helps policy makers understand differences in stakeholder behavior, intentions, preferences,
interrelations, and interests. It also helps them assess the influence and resources
different stakeholders bring to decision-making or implementation processes (Varvasovszky and Brugha 2000). We found that ordinary citizens were seldom involved
in these cases. Despite the common rhetoric of “citizen” participation, the cases show
how it is often impractical to engage members of the public or representatives of the
full range of relevant stakeholders. In these situations, policy modelers and policy
makers needed to appreciate the limitations of stakeholder engagement and aim for
results that take advantage of less-than-complete stakeholder participation.
For example, in the UrbanSim case, only three organizations participated in the
codevelopment of new indicators. The modelers did not treat these stakeholder views
as complete or definitive but rather they used this limited experience to create a
value-based indicator framework to guide further development of new indicators
and future applications of the UrbanSim model. In the international trade case, the
main stakeholder groups were each represented by up to four “exemplary” actors.
In this way, the key positions of these groups were reasonably well represented
in the various activities in the project. These representative actors also served as a
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starting point to identify specific trade lanes where innovations could take place,
and thereby also created awareness of other stakeholders that play a role in those
trade lanes. In the Kosice energy policy case, stakeholder identification was done
using a technique similar to that proposed by Bryson (2004). The local government
was mainly responsible for identifying relevant stakeholders that were invited to the
engagement process. Other complementary techniques such as surveys were used to
assess stakeholders’ roles and expectations. In the international trade case, similar
techniques were applied.
Providing for Participant Support and Education In order to participate in meaningful ways, stakeholders in our cases needed to be educated regarding the purpose
of the engagement, the processes and tools to be used, and the ways in which stakeholder input would be considered. For all the cases presented, stakeholders, including
those that were often not directly involved in policy making (e.g., citizens, smaller
companies), were made aware of the policy problem in some depth, presented with
opportunities to deliberate the different policy choices, and presented with the information necessary to understand the expected outcome from implementation of
different policy options.
In the case of EGOV Afghanistan, stakeholders were provided with the results
of an EGOV readiness assessment exercise for them to understand the crucial problems to be solved through the implementation of a national e-government policy.
Workshops offered them general knowledge about approaches and methodologies
for strategy development. In Kosice, participants were provided with the energy policy problem and background documents for additional information about the policy
such as the energy conceptions proposed for various cities in the region and studies
of ROI for various combinations of heat energy sources. The descriptive scenarios
and background documents were important for stakeholders to understand the policy
issue, its boundaries, and its challenges. In UrbanSim, the stakeholders were guided
through the process of creating narrative value statements as well as ways to describe
and document indicators in accurate, neutral language. All of these education and
support activities made the stakeholders’ deliberations and input more usable and
more relevant to the problem at hand.
Using Stakeholder Engagement Methods to Reveal and Explain Complex Policy
Problems and Contexts Our cases illustrated that stakeholder engagement is an important process in policy development as evidenced in the literature reviewed in
Sect. 9.2.3. Engagement helped in all cases to assure that policy processes and policy decisions were well grounded and responsive to both social values and practical
needs. Action research and living labs helped assure that involvement was not based
on an oversimplified view of the policy problem, Different tools acted as boundary
objects to facilitate knowledge sharing, consensus building, listening, and negotiating. Models of many kinds were used to break down complex processes and revise
mental models.
In very intractable public problems like trade lanes, in order to understand how
various actors would be affected by different policy options, it was important to understand how information flowed between actors. The specificity of the models used,
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as well as their comprehensiveness in representing the actual situation, facilitated a
focused debate between businesses and government agencies, forcing each party to
be clear about their precise activities and relevant policy concerns. As a result, no
stakeholder could hide behind a policy that allegedly forced or blocked a certain solution, and the consensus process could focus on the policy options that were feasible
in practice. The Kosice energy policy problem required a balance of diverse interests
of stakeholders both supplying and consuming energy. This presented policy makers with challenges in identifying and engaging those interests that will affect the
implementation of the new policy. Collaborative scenario building engaged both categories of stakeholders. This method was particularly important for policy makers to
increase the level of certainty of the policy choice by understanding the intersecting
interests of these stakeholders. Formal policy modeling and simulation were also
important to inform all stakeholders and policy makers of the different possible outcomes of their scenarios. In the child health case, stakeholders were educated about
the concepts and assumptions underlying the policy-modeling tool being developed.
They also learned from each other about the policy questions of greatest importance
to child health and development. The methods used in these cases are similar to
those identified in literature (Andersen et al. 2007; Vennix et al. 1996) and can be
employed to contribute to many different policy development efforts.
Using Trusted Third Parties to Enhance Transparency of the Process and Improve
the Tools of Engagement Negotiating, brokering, and collaboration skills and expertise with engagement tools are all essential for achieving new forms of governance
(Bingham et al. 2005). The tools and technologies used in our cases have different
characteristics that affect choice and suitability, including available expertise and financial resources, level of participation, type of policy problem, and the geographic
location or dispersion of stakeholders. The cases also address a factor that is less
often critically addressed, namely the ways that “trusted” third parties, such as researchers, are used in stakeholder engagement. In these situations, researchers were
not only doing academic research on engagement but also crafting, testing, and improving meaningful tools toward practical outcomes. As “brokers” in the process,
researchers and the tools and technologies they use can inhibit or promote better
models of engagement in policy making and governance.
In the case of EGOV Afghanistan, the use of online surveys by the UNU-IIST
team solved the issue of trying to reach a distributed set of stakeholders separated by
geography and also provided a confidential way to gather information about stakeholder interests, while the stakeholder analysis tool provided by UNU-IIST helped
MCIT to understand stakeholder preferences and concerns and to assess their potential to influence the policy process. The technology tools used were not intended
to “socialize” the interests of stakeholders but to gather intelligence by a trusted
third party that could be used in the strategic planning process. By comparison, the
intention of the online OCOPOMO platform used in the Kosice case was to bring
the stakeholders themselves into a virtual meeting place where they could see the
interests of other stakeholders. This technology choice, implemented by expert researchers, was intended to facilitate knowledge sharing in a multidirectional way.
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In the UrbanSim case, the stakeholders’ values and interests were intentionally developed in isolation from one another because the goal was to represent the distinct
values of each stakeholder type within the model. The simulation mechanism, built
by the academic experts, could then model and report indicators showing how these
different interests might interact over time. In the international trade case, a neutral
party designed the modeling approach and helped the stakeholder groups in each
trade lane model their own existing situations. This approach facilitated joint problem identification and solution development. In the New Zealand child health case,
researchers helped policy makers discover policy-relevant material while the policy makers helped the researchers understand what formats and other factors made
that material relevant and usable. Each example demonstrates the role of trusted,
independent experts who can select technology options, tools, and techniques that
introduce transparency into the process and are technically and practically suitable
to the situation. The researchers/modelers were trusted independent brokers who
gathered data, facilitated engagement, and built models or systems to transparently
reflect the reality of the stakeholders.
9.6
Conclusion
All of the cases we reviewed above used an active approach, assisted by third-party
experts, to bring stakeholders together in workshops, through a collaboration platform, or in living labs to support interaction in problem identification, codevelopment
of solutions, and foundations for gaining commitment or consensus by different types
of stakeholders. These experiences go well beyond eliciting stakeholders’ positions
and requirements, leaving the interpretation and balancing to be done by the policy
maker independently. The approaches used in these cases supported the stakeholders
directly in gaining a shared understanding of the problem, providing some insight into
the position and reasoning of other stakeholders, laying the groundwork for potential
negotiation or other ways to find common ground with respect to the policy issue, and
in some cases establishing or reinforcing trust among different stakeholders as well
as trust in the participation process. In line with the literature on this topic, the cases
also illustrate some of the cautions and limitations of stakeholder engagement, with
particular emphasis on the realistic limits of involvement and representation, and the
consequent necessity to match stakeholder selection and engagement methods to a
well-defined goal within the larger policy process.
We find that a careful identification of stakeholders is required, and the selection depends on the goals of engaging stakeholders. The appropriate selection of
stakeholders to involve can evolve over time, the identification and engagement of
stakeholders is a continuous process, as Bryson (2004) suggests. To illustrate this in
one of the cases, in the international trade case, the process started with a set of stakeholders needed to identify and initiate the demonstration trade lanes. These provided
grounds for further identifying other stakeholders that play a role in those trade lanes
or that were relevant to the initial set of stakeholders. These needed to be engaged
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also in order to meet the goals of engaging stakeholders. The goals themselves can
also evolve along the changing stakeholder involvement. In this case, especially in
the beginning, stakeholders were involved to elicit their views and interests in the
matter, whereas during the process this shifted toward engaging stakeholders to ensure commitment and to facilitate building consensus among the stakeholders. There
are similarities among the cases such as the use of surveys and convenience sampling as methods to identify stakeholders, face-to-face meetings, and workshops as
methods of engagement and use of modeling techniques as tools and technologies.
Although the literature provides various available methods and techniques used in
stakeholder engagement processes, the cases illustrate that the approaches, tools,
and technologies selected in each case are highly influenced by the purposes and
expected outcomes of the engagement effort. Therefore, we emphasize that every
stakeholder engagement needs to be tailored with well-selected processes and tools
that suit the overall purpose and expected outcomes.
As frequently highlighted in the literature, stakeholders’ involvement in policy
processes can help build consensus by balancing stakeholder interests and preferences, increasing their commitment for policy implementation, and ensuring
transparency and openness of the process. Often, these advantages of stakeholder
engagement are linked to the idea of empowering stakeholders as much as possible (i.e., stakeholders make key decisions). However, our study shows that all of
these advantages can also be gained by involving stakeholders, with less emphasis
on empowerment. We posit that these benefits can be realized when stakeholders
understand their roles and the objectives of their engagement, enabling them to bring
their own interests to the table while also gaining an understanding of other interests
and factors that influence decisions and results. Therefore, our findings on the importance of offering support and education for participants in order to enable them
to understand their role and the engagement process are an important contribution
to the literature. In a similar vein, the role that trusted (third-party) facilitators could
play in the engagement process is often underestimated in the literature, but is clearly
an important ingredient in the cases presented in this chapter.
Tools can take many different forms, some using technology and some not—the
important factor is to match the tool to the objective and the capabilities of the stakeholders involved. Making this match requires an understanding of the capabilities
of the stakeholders to use such tools and technologies, sometimes also in a specific country context. Furthermore, as the UrbanSim and child health case shows,
stakeholders can not only contribute to policy analysis and choices but also make
significant contributions to improving the effectiveness of policy processes, and the
validity and usability of models, and other tools.
Based on these findings, our study offers some practical insights for policy makers (and researchers) that want to engage stakeholders for policy development. The
first critical step is identification of salient stakeholders or stakeholder types. The
literature reviewed in this chapter as well as the five cases offer various approaches
to identify stakeholders. As concluded above, the method used to identify stakeholders is closely related to the intended purpose of stakeholder engagement. For
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example, when aiming to learn from stakeholders about a specific domain, a convenience sample of relevant actors is a suitable method. However, if the goal is to
ensure commitment or to build consensus, the methods employed need to be rigorous in identifying all key stakeholder groups. Desk research, surveys, interviews,
and stakeholder or interests mapping tools are useful approaches to do this. Iterative
stakeholder identification often helps create a more complete array of relevant stakeholders. Our research in combination with the relevant literature also shows other
purposes for stakeholder engagement that guide the selection of stakeholder types.
For example, transparency of the process, facilitating adoption, improving usefulness and usability of tools, and enhancing legitimacy are purposes of stakeholder
engagement we found in the cases.
Once the relevant stakeholders have been identified and the objective of involving
them is clear, the approach to stakeholder engagement needs to be selected. Whereas
the literature presents various options, all the cases we covered were in an advanced
stage and almost all employed some form of action research, in which stakeholders
(especially practitioners and policy makers) worked closely with each other and with
researchers in a collaborative way. This was found in all cases, as all cases were focused on involving stakeholders. In case the objective is to primarily inform or consult
stakeholders, other approaches are more suitable, and some suggestions have been
provided in the background section. When involving stakeholders, policy makers
and researchers will have to carefully consider what role the engaged stakeholders
will have; involving stakeholders to work in real-world complexity as much as possible will benefit from action research or living labs, but requires that the material,
objectives, activities, etc. be carefully prepared and designed, as stakeholders do not
always have a clear idea of what their involvement should look like or contribute to.
On the other hand, complexity can also be broken down to make the matter more
comprehensible for stakeholders. For this, modeling tools and simulations can be
used for both purposes. In either case, tools and models can function as boundary
objects that stakeholders can view, discuss, or manipulate to better understand how
a particular decision might play out. However, the conceptual capacity stakeholders that will need to have affects the kind and amount of work that should go into
preparing the engagement.
While much remains to be learned about stakeholder engagement in policy modeling, this chapter provides a starting point for better understanding how different
approaches, tools, and technologies can support effective stakeholder participation
toward better policy choices and outcomes. The cases presented here demonstrate
that stakeholder engagement processes, tools, and technologies are versatile and useful to both policy makers and the stakeholders themselves. With careful selection and
application, they can work in a wide variety of situations including different policy
domains and kinds of problems, different political systems, and different levels of
social and economic development.
Acknowledgment This comparison and analysis was conducted as a collaborative activity of
the eGovPoliNet Project, funded through the European Commission Framework 7 Program as
agreement FP7-ICT-2011–288136, and supported by US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant
w.jager@rug.nl
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IIS-0540069 to explore policy modeling and governance through an international consortium of
research institutions. Ideas and opinions expressed by the authors do not necessarily represent those
of all eGovPoliNet partners.
We also gratefully acknowledge the information and reference material provided by Peter Davis
and Barry Milne of the COMPASS Center at the University of Auckland regarding the New Zealand
case, and Alan Borning at the University of Washington regarding the UrbanSim case.
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Chapter 10
Values in Computational Models Revalued
The Influence of Designing Computational Models
on Public Decision-Making Processes
Rebecca Moody and Lasse Gerrits
Abstract This chapter aims to add to the technology debate in the sense that it aims
to research the role of values and trust in computational models in the policy process.
Six case studies in which a computational model was used within a complex policy
context were research for the role values play within these models. Conclusions
deal with the role of the designer of the model, the number of different actors, the
amount of trust already present, and the question of agency by humans or technology.
Additionally, margins of error within the model are discussed as well as authority by
one actor over others concerning the model.
10.1
Introduction
Policy makers are tasked with making decisions on issues characterized as wicked
problems because of controversies, unknown relationships between causes and consequences, and (consequently) uncertain futures. From this perspective, it would be
desirable to map the decisions and their possible outcomes prior to the actual decision making because that would generate certainty in ambiguous situations. Broadly
speaking, this provides the motive for using computational modeling for policy
making as expressed in, e.g., policy informatics. Although there are computational
models that are ready off-the-shelf, it is more common to work with models “modded off-the-shelf” (MOTS) or even tailor-made models to suit specific questions and
conditions. As such, the model itself becomes part of the decision-making process
during the acquisition.
We observe that this phase, during which scope, functionality, and deployment
are determined by commissioning actors and designers, is essential to the way the
models influence policy making. Although it may be assumed that such models are
neutral or value-free, they are not because of the changes that designer and client
R. Moody () · L. Gerrits
Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam,
P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail:moody@fsw.eur.nl
L. Gerrits
e-mail:gerrits@fsw.eur.nl
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
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Public Administration and Information Technology 10, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-12784-2_10
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R. Moody and L. Gerrits
introduce to the original model. This chapter aims to shed light on the relationships
between computational models and policy making by looking at the role values
play in commissioning, designing, and using such models in policy making. We
will rely on the notions set forward in the technology debate in order to understand
the way technical design can be perceived by actors and used in policy making.
These notions will also be used in our analysis in order to understand the way actors
within the policy process reach conclusions based on the models. We will primarily
look at the perception of the models in terms of values on which we will elaborate
below. We carried out a secondary analysis of case study data we collected for
other research (Gerrits 2008; Moody 2010). The case studies concern: (1) predicting
effects of deepening operations in rivers in Belgium and the Netherlands and (2) in
Germany; (3) determining flood risk prediction in Germany and the Netherlands; (4)
determining the implementation of congestion charging in the UK; (5) predicting and
containing the outbreak of live stock diseases in Germany; (6) predicting particular
matter concentrations in the Netherlands. The chapter is structured as follows. We
will first discuss the theoretical background of our analysis by looking at autonomy
of technology and technology as being deterministic, blending notions from the
technology debate with notions from public administration and public policy in
Sect. 10.2. The methodological approach is discussed in Sect. 10.3, the case studies
in Sect. 10.4, the analysis in Sect. 10.5, and the conclusions in Sect. 10.6.
10.2 Technological Perceptions: The Debate
To understand the implications of the design of computational models it is necessary
to understand the underlying assumptions of the design process. The way modelers
design different models can be viewed from different viewpoints as pointed out in the
technology debate. This is an ongoing debate in philosophy of science as well as in
sociology and technical studies. The technology debate revolves around technology
and humans, technology and society, and technology itself. It reflects on questions
of who drives technology: Are humans the drivers of technology or does technology
drive humans? Does technology possess any values of its own and are these values
given to technology by humans or does technology have no values whatsoever and
is it completely neutral? What is the relationship between technology and society,
does technology constitute society or is it the other way around?
A large number of authors have described the technology debate and placed their
opinion (see: Smith and Marx 1994; Scharff and Dusek 2003; Kaplan 2004). In the
technology debate, several issues are discussed. A central issue is who masters the
other, do humans master over technology, or does technology control humans? Another key theme is the question whether technology is autonomous and determines
its own causality. Another key feature is whether technology incorporates values or
should be seen as neutral. Finally, the relationship between technology and society
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