PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN REGULATORY DECISION-MAKING Cases from Regulations.gov

    Authors

    T. A. Bryer

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Public Perform. Manag. Rev.

    Keywords

    e-government; public participation; regulation; Public Administration

    Abstract

    Regulations.gov is an award-winning government Web site that has democratized the federal rulemaking process by making it easier for citizens to search, read, and comment on proposed rules. Comments citizens have submitted in relation to three proposals are analyzed. The issues in each case are classified as low salience/high complexity, high salience/high complexity, and high salience/low complexity, respectively. Qualitative analysis of the comments across cases finds that they tend to be emotional, illogical, and lacking in credibility. It is suggested that if the costs of better preparing citizens to be effective participants in the regulatory decision-making process are not acceptable, the democratization experiment might best be terminated.

    Journal Title

    Public Performance & Management Review

    Volume

    37

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    263

    Last Page

    279

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000327505900005

    ISSN

    1530-9576

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