The Affirmative Impact of
Citizen Participation
It is important at the outset to acknowledge the
substantial contribution of citizen groups and
public interest organizations to current administrative
theory and practice. The increased activity
and participation of these groups in political and
administrative affairs are designed, at least in part,
to cultivate the political consciousness of the
American public, stimulate widespread and effective
participation by citizens, and thus enhance
the responsiveness and legitimacy of political
institutions. Citizen groups have been remarkably
effective in creating public issues out of problems
which otherwise might never reach a level of
serious public debate or controversy. Matters once
considered private are now seen as properly the
subject of public discussion and decision. Citizen
advocates have sought to place basic personal and
moral issues and values at the center of political
discourse, introducing "quality of life" considerations
and a sense of individual dignity and
personal worth explicitly into public policy
equations. Perhaps more important, they have
insisted that society's failure to recognize and
address these issues is not simply private
misfortune, but public injustice calling for the
direct intervention of governmental authority.
Most of these groups seem to exhibit, in the words
of James Elden, " . .. a vision of politics that
transcends government as merely the mechanics of
allocating public resources among elite interests."3
Public interest organizations and citizen groups
have placed a premium on openness of political
and administrative proceedings and the free flow
of public information. Their unremitting pressure
has consistently forced agencies away from
restrictive information policies, aiding concerned
citizens in their efforts to scrutinize and evaluate
administrative action.4 This has enabled citizen
groups and their spokesmen to participate
meaningfully in public policy decisions at an early
stage, before policies are fixed and while effective
advocacy is still possible. On a broader scale, these
groups now constitute an effective check on the
exercise of administrative discretion, forcing
administrators to structure and confine their
discretion and making them more sensitive to the
implications of their non-actions, or decisions not
to act, as well as their affirmative uses of
discretionary power.5 In the long run this subtle
but unmistakable intrusion on the anticipated
reactions of politicans and bureaucratsm ay be one
of the most significant consequences of increased
citizen action. At a minimum it suggests that the
impact of these groups cannot be measured in
terms of their overt activities alone; the simple fact
of their existence has now become almost as
important as the programs, policies, and procedures
they are attempting to promote.