How can we examine/understand the participation dynamics in our Citizen Observatory?
Why is it relevant?
Examining and understanding the participation dynamics in your citizen observatory (CO) is important for several reasons. It allows CO participants or advisors to gain insight into the level of engagement, commitment, and involvement of (other) participants, which are crucial factors in the success and effectiveness of your CO. By understanding the dynamics of participation, you will be able to:
Identify strengths and weaknesses of the CO,
Explore potential gaps in stakeholder representation,
Develop strategies to enhance inclusion and active engagement.
Also, examining participation dynamics helps assess the impact of the observatory on decision-making processes, policy development, and environmental management.
By understanding how fellow participants interact, communicate, and contribute, CO leaders and advisors can evaluate the effectiveness of the observatory in empowering citizens and influencing environmental outcomes. Lastly, examining CO participation dynamics provides valuable knowledge for the continuous improvement and evolution of the CO, enabling the adoption and refinement of approaches, communication methods, and support systems to foster meaningful and sustained participation in environmental monitoring, planning, and management.
How can this be done?
To address the question of how participation dynamics in your CO can be examined, we draw on two complementary frameworks: the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and the framework for characterising social cohesion (Fonesca et al., 2019).
To broadly understand and conceptualise participation dynamics in citizen observatories, your CO can use the IAD framework (Ostrom, 2009). By applying the IAD framework, CO leaders and advisors can gain a deeper understanding of participation dynamics within the CO, identify both barriers and facilitators of participation, and develop strategies to foster more effective and inclusive citizen engagement in your CO’s activities.
In the case of CitiObs, this often concerns air quality but also cover other environmental issues like water quality and noise pollution. In the context of your CO, the IAD framework can help you identify the key actors, their roles, and the rules governing their interactions. It allows for an examination of the design principles and governance structures that shape participation, as well as the external factors such as social norms, power dynamics, and resource constraints that influence engagement. By applying the IAD framework, you can gain a deeper understanding of the participation dynamics within your CO, identify barriers and facilitators of participation, and develop strategies to foster effective and inclusive engagement of fellow participants in the observatory's activities (find out more about inclusive engagement in the Leave-No-One-Behind Toolkit (LNOB) Toolkit).
Deep Dive: IAD Framework
The framework focuses on analysing the institutional arrangements and collective action processes that influence the behaviour of individuals and groups within a specific context related to common pool natural resources. In other words, both the rules and the ways people interact in a given setting. It also considers other factors that shape how communities manage shared resources.
Another way to understand participation dynamics is through the concept of social cohesion. If the participation within your CO is weak, this framework offers a starting point to check in with the other factors that could be having a negative impact. Social cohesion or group cohesion refers to a strong sense of community and a known place for oneself within the group or the integration of the individual and the community (Friedkin, 2004). It is within that meeting point of the individual and the group, in this case your CO, that participation dynamics can be observed, understood, and strengthened.
In the case of COs, they can be understood as the institution made up of rules, processes, established principles, while the community is the group of individuals who make up the CO. In this framework we see that participation of the individual is a necessary factor to building social cohesion within the CO and it is also influenced by the other factors such as the relationships within the CO, the CO’s success, and conflict management. Participation dynamics are then the interactions of all these factors, enabling or hindering one another. In other words, for the CO to have strong social cohesion, it would also mean that there are positive and effective participation dynamics playing out.
To make use of the social cohesion framework by Fonseca et al., we encourage you to look at participation dynamics across three connected dimensions. First, consider the institutional side of the CO - the rules, processes, and decision-making structures that shape how people can take part. Next, pay attention to the community dimension - the quality of relationships, networks, and trust that hold the group together. Finally, reflect on the individual level - the motivations, perceptions, and sense of value that participants bring with them. By working through these three dimensions, you can begin to see whether participation is being strengthened or limited, and identify practical ways to build stronger social cohesion within your CO.
Deep Dive: Applying the IAD
To apply the IAD, Strandburg, Frischmann, and Madison (2017) developed a set of questions, known as the Knowledge Commons Framework and Representative Research, in order to apply the framework to Knowledge Commons. The Knowledge Commons refers to the collective resources and knowledge that are available to a community and are managed and shared by that community and as such is closely related to the core concept and characteristics of COs.
This framework is meant to be used by CO leaders, practitioners, and researchers who wish to better understand participation dynamics in their COs. By working through the questions, you can explore how rules, community members, resources, and governance processes interact to shape participation. For instance, imagine a CO where citizens pool environmental data: the framework would help you examine what resources are shared (data), how they are governed (rules and processes), and how participation is enabled or hindered (roles and motivations of members).
These following guiding questions can also be adapted to reflect on participation dynamics in COs, as follows:
Background context
What is the broader context (legal, cultural, social, political) of this particular CO?
What is the default status of the resources in this context (e.g., are they considered private, public, patented, copyrighted, open)?
Attributes - Resources
What resources are pooled and how are they created or obtained?
What are the characteristics of the resources? Are they rival or nonrival, (• Rival resources can be used up or depleted (e.g., water, funds). Nonrival resources can be shared without loss (e.g., data, knowledge)] tangible or intangible? Is there shared infrastructure?
What technologies and skills are needed to create, obtain, maintain, and use the resources?
Attributes – Community Members
Who are the community members and what are their roles?
What are the degree and nature of openness with respect to each type of CO member and the general public?
Attributes - Goals and Objectives
What are the goals and objectives of the CO and its members, including obstacles or dilemmas to be overcome?
What are the history and narrative of the CO?
Governance
What are the relevant action arenas ((the settings where decisions are made and interactions occur) and how do they relate to the goals of the CO and the relationships among various types of participants and with the general public
What are the governance mechanisms (e.g., membership rules, resource contribution or extraction standards and requirements, conflict resolution mechanisms, sanctions for rule violation)?
References
Fonseca, X., Lukosch, S., & Brazier, F. (2019). Social cohesion revisited: A new definition and how to characterize it. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 32(2), 231–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2018.1497480
Friedkin, N. E. (2004). Social cohesion. Annual Review of Sociology, 30(1), 409–425. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110625
Ostrom, E. (2009). The institutional analysis and development framework and the commons. Cornell Law Review, 95, 807–815.
Strandburg, K. J., Frischmann, B. M., & Madison, M. J. (2017). The knowledge commons framework. In K. J. Strandburg, B. M. Frischmann, & M. J. Madison (Eds.), Governing medical knowledge commons (pp. 9–18). Cambridge University Press.
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