ABSTRACT
Institutional changes in governance have brought more informal and participatory approaches to community involvement in the management of local services and the use of places. While most regeneration schemes have community involvement or community capacity-building as one of the objectives, achieving this has proved problematic. Robson et al. evaluated the achievements of government-sponsored regeneration in the UK between 1960 and 1993 and found that despite the provision of infrastructure in the programmes of urban regeneration, this ignored the needs of deprived innerarea residents and missed the opportunity to utilise their skills and to mobilise their support (DoE, 1994: xiv). These failures have been corroborated by similar evaluations, which found only a few instances where residents had any responsibility for, or control of, services in their area (Power, 1996; Stewart and Taylor, 1995; Hull, 2006). The design and implementation of interventions is costly so the identification of interim outcomes and finetuning as the intervention proceeds with stakeholders can lead to shared learning and more effective intervention. Community involvement can also ensure that both the process outcomes (good communication, increased self-efficacy) and the intended outcomes (improved health status; enhanced quality of life) are more likely to be achieved (Netto et al., 2010). Monno and Khakee start with a reflection on how community partici-
pation is currently evaluated. There tends to be reliance on the numbers who have been touched by the programme (the giving of information; the comments received) as a means to legitimise the plan. They compare approaches to empowering citizens in Italy and Sweden, taking case studies and drawing on participants’ perceptions of whether the initial promises have transformed their social exclusion, created trust or new knowledge through the collaborative process. Both case studies show the necessity of evaluative efforts that challenge the mental model underlying the ideal of proper participation in a deliberative democracy. They conclude that participation can be a performative, creative occasion for those involved, provided the system gives away some power. The authors offer an alternative conception of participatory planning:
of creating identities (for the participants) and of creating new knowledge and new practices in collaboration. The lessons for planning are that practitioners must clearly and honestly identify what is on offer when they engage with local communities. The first lesson is the need for clarity concerning the time, place and the outcomes for planners and other participants. Clear outcomes require an understanding of the range of benefits realised through
participatory events, which can range from knowledge-sharing to transformations in personal and political power. Second, while investing in evaluation can be resource intensive, if planned well, it can yield dividends. These include early identification of whether interventions are working, encouragement of reflective practice and contributions to evidenced policy.
