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Online Deliberation and Impact on Decision:

A Local Planning Case

Nicolas Desquinabo (UMR G-Eau, Cemagref & Telecom ParisTech / France)Nils Ferrand (UMR G-Eau, Cemagref / France)OD 2010, Leeds, UK, 30 June - 2 July 2010

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Outline

• Local planning & Online deliberation

• Camargue OD context & design

• Hypotheses & Evaluation design

• Main results

• Conclusion

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Local planning governance

• Goals and policies for urban development and natural resources management at the local scale

• Final decisions are taken by local representatives (and ratified by national government in France)

• Long processes (3 to 6 years form diagnosis to policy plan), long texts over 100 pages with complex topics

• The texts proposed are co-written by a limited number of stakeholders:

• Mostly experts from public agencies and business lobbies invited in small “thematic” groups

• Generally, their proposals are written by a moderator (if no one insists to modify it)

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Potential for OD on local planning

• « Large » stakeholder deliberations are limited by :• organisational costs • inequality of speech and inequality of influence • between “lay” and “professional” stakeholders

• Organisational and financial costs of online deliberation processes are limited

• Online interfaces could facilitate the expression and the impact on decision of the less expert and organized (Spears & Lea, 1992; Strauss, 1996; Coleman, 2004; Price, 2006; Monnoyer-Smith, 2006)

• Moderation problems (Wright, 2006; Wojcik, 2007) could be less important: the participants are not anonymous and they also meet in face-to-face meetings

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Camargue Park planning process

Steps Participation

Area diagnosis

(05-06/2006)

A few governments experts and selected stakeholders

General goals (09/2006-06/2007)

A phone survey (250 participants) and 20 public meetings (300 participants)

Plan “elaboration” (12/2006-07/2007)

40 thematic workshops (5 themes x 8 meetings) with 100 stakeholders invited

Plan “precision” (10/2008-03/2009)

16 thematic workshops and one global meeting with the same 100 stakeholders Online deliberation of around 80 stakeholders

Plan “validation” (Summer 2009-End of 2010)

“Public consultation” (mostly informative)

Local and National government vote

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Design of Camargue online deliberation

• 82 stakeholders were invited with an email and an identifying login/pwd (10 local governments, 17 public agency experts, 31 business lobbies, 24 associations)

• Software of the Intermed project (2008-2011, funded by the French National Research Agency) :• Stakeholders could read any part of the management plan project

(120 pages), annotate it and read the other annotations

• They were are asked to precise if they wanted to suppress, modify or just comment the selected part of the plan

• The debates were not moderated : the participants were just warned that “illegal” messages could be suppressed

• The sponsor (representatives committee) was clearly the “final judge” of the proposals integration in the management plan

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Online deliberation interface

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Why these design choices ?

• Annotation tool :• entice the participants to read the different parts of the document

• collect “localized” comments (on the 120 pages document)

• facilitate the “integration” process of the annotations

• Free text :• collect complex information and evaluation of stakeholders

• But a form of pre-structured expression has been suggested (suppression, modification or comment “mode”)

• Controlled and identifying type of login • create accountability

• limit the need for moderation (less cost and more trust)

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Hypotheses

• More deliberative process than comparable face-to-face debates ? (Strauss, 1996; Witschge, 2004):• less concentration of speech (% of words by participant),

• less thematic specialisation (% of plan chapters discussed)

• without a significant increase of “flames” (e.g. blames or insults of groups or individuals)

• More “deliberative” outcomes ? (Gastil & Levine, 2005):• increased perception of satisfaction and competence gain by the

participants

• more influence on decision by “lay” stakeholders (vs. “expert” or “professional” stakeholders)

• Economic and organisational benefits ?• organizers satisfaction (participation rate, type and quantity of information

and opinions gathered)

• limited cost (preparation, moderation, processing) vs. comparable face-to-face processes

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Evaluation design

• Data collected on two set of face-to-face workshops (vs. online process):• Interviews of organizers (cost, process features, satisfaction)• Workshops proceedings analysis (participation rate, etc.) • Online deliberation analysis (participation, flames, etc.)

• Interviews of 60% of the invited stakeholders:• data on their practices (previous participations, use of Internet) • their assessment of the online deliberation• the reasons why they did or did not post messages

• Impact on decision assessment:• pre-deliberation plan, post-deliberation plan and posts comparison• Seven types of modification proposals :

• “form” (syntax or spelling)• “self-commitment” (a stakeholder suggest to modify his commitment)• “diagnosis”• “general goal”• “park (joint union) commitment”• “action or limitation” (e.g. ban motorcycles on certain roads)• “other stakeholder commitment” (a stakeholder suggest to add or modify

another stakeholder’s commitment)

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Main results (1)

Local Governments

Agency Experts

Business lobbies

Other lobbies

Total

2009 online deliberation (38 days)Nbr of invited stakeholders

10 17 31 24 82

% who visited the site and read posts

> 90% > 80% > 40% > 50% > 60%

% who posted at least 1 message

60%(n=6)

30%(n=5)

10%(n=3)

27%(n=6)

24%(n=20)

2008 workshops (16 meetings)Nbr of invited 10 ~35 ~40 25 110

% who attended at least 1 meeting

70% 46% 45% 28% 44%

2007 workshops (40 meetings)Nbr of invited 10 ~35 32 23 100

% who attended at least 1 meeting

70% 51% 44% 52% 51%

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Main results (2)

• High volume of posts (625 posts, 21 296 words, M=34 words/post) • Participation clearly concentrated (20 stakeholders sent at least one post,

the 10 most active posted 88% of the messages and 82% of the words)

• Main reasons for “non-posting” :• “lack of time” (37% of the interviewed “non-posters”)

• Opinion “already included in the plan” (22% of the “non-posters”)

• Internet access or website usability (only 11%)

• The length of the deliberation (too short for 15 “big” stakeholders)

• Buisness representatives are particularly absent online:• “big” lobbies (mostly business ones) for organisational reasons,

• “small” lobbies (small business lobbies or cultural associations) because “already included in the plan” or access problems.

• The level of flames has certainly not increased significantly (only 2 flames can be observed in the online posts)

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Main results (3)

• Thematic specialization has significantly been reduced (most of the themes vs. most on “one” theme)

• Disagreement with the content of the plan is frequent (40% of messages)

• Direct expression of disagreement between participants is as rare online as offline (<5 % of messages)• Less than 10% of the posts are linked to a common part of the plan

• But “new bridge on the Rhône issue” concentrate 28% of the words

• For the interviewed stakeholders who read at least several posts (n=22):• 77% found the debate interesting

• 68% claim that the opinions expressed were enough “diverse”

• 50% “increased their knowledge” on other participants’ opinions

• 41% “increased their knowledge” on the management plan.

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Main results (4): Impact on decision

• Most of « form correction » and « self-commitment » are accepted (83% and 91%)

• Proposals of « general goals » or « park commitments » by « Lay lobbies » are less accepted (~35% vs. ~60%)

• Only a few « collective action » and « other stakeholder commitment » are proposed and accepted

• The most influential stakeholder is a well funded ecological association with many experts who work frequently with the park representatives and who are “pro-park” and “anti-bridge”

Local Govts.

Agency experts

Professionallobbies

Lay lobbies

Total

Nbr of modificationproposals

172 76 193 53 494

% accepted 78% 70% 69% 34% (69%)

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Main results (5): Organisational benefits

• Many additional comments, proposals and form corrections have been collected (625 posts and 494 modification proposals) with a limited cost and without a flame increase

• The total costs estimated by the park managers are approximately:• 30 000€ for the 40 workshops (~590€ per participant)

• 15 000€ for the 16 workshops (~305€ per participant)

• 5 000€ for the online deliberation (~100€ per participant “who read at least a few posts”)

• Most of the online deliberation cost was for the processing: the posts analysis and the “integration process”

• But the leading public manager emphasized that the annotation system induced the posters to “locate” their comment in the text and consequently allowed an easier “integration process”

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Conclusion

• Many additional policy proposals and form corrections with a limited cost and without an increase of flames

• Several “deliberative” benefits observed (more diverse opinions on more topics, some knowledge gains, etc.)

• But speech is apparently more concentrated than in face-to-face events (even if many “non-posters” did not post because they had “all their comments already included”)

• High global impact on the new version of the plan.

• Yet, most of the “policy proposals” on precise collective goals or actions were not accepted.

• The “lay” stakeholders had an impact but less than local governments and professional (and consensual) associations

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Discussion

• For this type of online deliberation, a moderation tool is not useful and online polls would have been not informative enough

• Improvements of the tools usability and additional tools (cartographic or multi-criteria decision supports) could probably enhance the participation

• But the main barriers to a wider and more deliberative participative e-governance remain “institutional” (length, complexity and vagueness of the management plan, rare “salient” issues, etc.)

• Methodological improvements:• Direct observation of similar face-to-face events would have improved

the comparison (speech concentration and disagreement expression)

• Online deliberation processes using different e-tools in similar institutional and social contexts.

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Appendix

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Visits and visitors

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Distribution of annotations (= 621)

TdeValat 206

Region PACA 101

SM Palissade 71

Dept 13 44

Ass salin com 35

SMG Gard 21

Mairie Ste MM 20

SM Pays Arles 20

ARPE 19

SMG Asynd 15

Mairie Arles 14

Comité de soutien 13

Confrerie Gardians 10

CCI Arles 8

Nacioun Gardiano 7

SMT Rhone 7

PNR Alpilles 3

CIQ Tete Camargue 1

Comp Salins Midi 1

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Impact on decision

Local govts.

Agency experts

Professionallobbies

Lay lobbies

Total

Nbr of modification proposals

172 76 193 53 494

% accepted 78% 70% 69% 34% (69%)

Nbr of “form correction” 12 25 48 3 88

% accepted 92% 88% 77% 100% (83%)

Nbr of “self-commitment” 97 16 15 7 135

% accepted 91% 95% 93% 86% (91%)

Nbr of “diagnosis” 14 12 32 5 63

% accepted 64% 67% 78% 0% (67%)

Nbr of “general goal” 16 7 27 16 66

% accepted 81% 57% 63% 38% (61%)

Nbr of “park commitment” 23 10 45 3 81

% accepted 52% 40% 64% 33% (57%)

Nbr of “collective action or limitation”

3 2 10 17 32

% accepted 0% 50% 40% 6% (19%)

Nbr of “other stake-holder commitment”

7 4 16 2 29

% accepted 29% 0% 50% 50% (38%)