Decentralizing Public Engagement – Building Trust and Participation through Flattened Hierarchies

As an appetizer…

In today’s digital democracy, government unlocking the full potential of public engagement in deliberative practices requires a three-pronged approach: expanding participation scope, flattening hierarchies, and embracing scalable technology platforms. This decentralization strategy offers numerous benefits, from flattening hierarchical engagement processes including online to distributing and leveraging residents’ knowledge and participation for better decision-making. Eight propositions guide this transformative process, emphasizing the role of trust-building, strategic technology use, and the need for dedicated public engagement platforms, especially over conventional social networks. By meeting resident expectations and preferences, governments can secure public support, fostering two-way communication and closing the feedback loop. Decentralizing public engagement isn’t just a technological shift; it’s a cultural transformation toward more inclusive, transparent, and informed governance.

As the main course…

E-Government and Gov 2.0 refer to the government’s increased use of communication and information technologies to communicate about and deliver programs and services to constituents. In public engagement processes, the landscape is evolving rapidly in today’s digital age.

While transactional engagement between government and residents has embraced technology, there remains a gap in deploying effective tools for participatory or deliberative processes. This lag was painfully evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for greater adoption and more innovative solutions beyond traditional engagement practices.

The challenges faced in modernizing public engagement in deliberative processes relate to institutional culture and the technology landscape. Public officials must commit to expanding engagement opportunities, while GovTech companies should explore their platforms’ potential as advocates and facilitators for broader public participation. Addressing these challenges could unlock the full potential of technology and deliver substantial benefits to the government, the public, and democracy.

Decentralization or flattening of hierarchical structures for deliberative public engagement addresses these challenges and helps achieve the benefits. Decentralizing public engagement involves three critical components:

1. Expanding Participation Scope: Move beyond customary means to increase and distribute a community of users, or residents, engaged in decision-making processes.
2. Flattening Hierarchies: Collapse established hierarchical processes and establish new forums that increase resident motivation and foster participation and feedback.
3. Scalable Technology Platforms: Adopt and deploy across the entire organization to integrate traditional and digital public engagement processes for government deliberations.

Decentralization provides many benefits for both residents and public officials including:

• Opening more doors and dialog between the public and government on specific issues.
• Expanding accommodations beyond conventional engagement practices.
• Leveraging residents’ energy, enthusiasm, and expertise about their community with the public work of government.
• Organizing, facilitating, and reporting government deliberations that improve inclusive and informed decision-making.

At the “Rethinking Public Engagement Summit” sponsored by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), I presented eight propositions to support the concept of decentralizing public engagement:

Proposition #1: Building Trust: Public engagement serves as a direct pipeline for building trust in public institutions, with transparency and resident participation contributing significantly to establishing a positive reputation or brand.

Dr. Dannielle Blumenthal, the former director of digital engagement at The National Archives writes about how governments build strong brands. She states “The distinction between government branding and branding in the private sector is that government branding always comes down to trust, …you have to put money in the ‘trust bank’ first, establishing a positive and distinct reputation for trustworthiness and a particular set of values.”

Proposition #2: Technology and Cultural Transformations: Recognize the risks and benefits of increased participation in deliberative practices and develop strategies that minimize risks while maximizing the benefits of technology and cultural transformations.

In the digital age, local governments have gone from operating in a fishbowl to operating in an aquarium. More traffic, more eyes, more interest, and more opinions.

Eleven years ago the PEW Research Center and the Knight Foundation found only 3% of residents received information about their government from the government. The local news was the overwhelming source. Today, more local governments connect directly to their residents with their own information technology and social networks; even foregoing working through their local news media. This creates a new level of public information challenges that are covered elsewhere.

Proposition #3: Essential Technology Platforms: A scalable, enterprise technology platform is crucial to increase capacity, inclusion, and complement conventional practices.

Technology platforms enable ongoing and daily collaborations with residents and stakeholders beyond traditional forms of outreach. New digital avenues for G-C/C-G communication have been created including the ability to stream public meetings, send email, operate 311 call lines and apps, and enable social media.

However, governments have become overly reliant on using social media channels. It’s not uncommon to find scores of social media accounts on a local government website. Unfortunately, social media can be counterproductive to deliberative public engagement (see Proposition #7)

Proposition #4: The Wisdom of Crowds: The idea that large groups are collectively smarter than individual experts should be recognized, pursued, and facilitated using technology for better decision-making.

Managing large numbers of participants may be seen as unwieldy by those tasked with managing those processes. However, excluding people –directly or indirectly– who will be impacted by government decisions can create problems beyond poor decisions. It can create suspicion and mistrust among residents, and possibly lead to lawsuits.

Here is where public engagement platforms pay dividends. Not only can they organize and facilitate large numbers of participants, but through decentralized public engagement, they can be expanded to multiple areas to accommodate dispersed engagement in more areas of government deliberations.

Proposition #5: Quality vs. Quantity Challenge: Resolve the challenge through greater participant attribution and validation.

The power of public comment. In government deliberations, the need for structured and validated public input is critical. Identifying the origin (who and where) of constituent comments provides decision-makers with important information that can be crucial when making decisions on their behalf.

The public engagement technology platform used by deliberative bodies should offer multiple options or levels for attribution and validation surrounding resident participation. Depending on the need or requirement, the options should range from allowing anonymity (think public rally or assembly) to requiring full acknowledgment and certification (think public comment at a council meeting).

Proposition #6: Rethink Conventional Engagement: Transform traditional boards, commissions, and task forces into issue-focused online communities with their own “mini-publics.”

These traditional advisory panels are convened with small groups of residents. Typical local governments may have between 15-25 of these forums focused on a single program or policy. They are ripe for transformation in today’s digital government.

Using public engagement platforms, local governments can transform these outdated boards into issue-focused online communities. Members of the new structured forums include motivated residents, or “mini-publics” who have a keen interest in specific issues –safety, health, education, transportation, and land use planning– and will enthusiastically contribute their knowledge and ideas to improve policy-making.

Proposition #7: Avoiding Social Media Pitfalls: Social networks are ineffective for meaningful collaboration and pose potential threats to deliberative public engagement due to their lack of structure and control.

Social media can be counterproductive to deliberative public engagement. By their design, social media are anti-deliberative. They enable bad actors to disrupt and fractionalize public attention and collaboration. There is also the growing presence of bots appearing as residents on government social network accounts posting false information. That makes the government culpable for spreading mis- and disinformation.

Social networks cast a wide net that neither effectively reaches the intended audience nor provides pathways for meaningful input and feedback. Social media can provide channels for broadcasting information to the public. They are not recommended for collaboration or collecting public comment in deliberative processes. Instead, governments should be using dedicated public engagement platforms as issue-networks as alternatives to social networks (see Proposition #6).

Proposition #8: Meeting Resident Expectations: Secure and maintain public support by meeting resident engagement expectations and preferences, fostering two-way communication, and closing the feedback loop.

A fundamental trust issue for public engagement surrounds meeting people where they are, educating and motivating them with information to participate, and following up to inform them how their input impacts decisions. From national surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 by PublicInput, a provider of community engagement software, the general sentiment expressed by a majority of residents was that many were unaware of opportunities to participate. And when notified, those who did not participate claimed not receiving enough information from the government prevented them from offering an educated response.

The features and functionality of the technology along with supportive project management are crucial to maintaining positive relations by empowering residents and building trust. Public engagement platforms should handle most if not all of the administrative tasks to complete a full engagement life-cycle from notification to education, solicitation, reporting, concluding, and archiving with updates provided throughout.

In conclusion, decentralizing public engagement is not just a shift in using technology, but also a transformation involving the institutional culture of the organization. By embracing the three components—expanding participation scope, flattening hierarchies, and adopting scalable technology platforms—governments can educate and motivate community residents and tap into their knowledge and wisdom. Eight propositions offer a roadmap to navigate the collective challenges and help maximize the benefits of decentralized public engagement. Increasing interest and participation builds trust, and results in more resident inclusion and informed government decisions.