The Concept of Public Participation: Planning and Housing Resumption Decisions in Shanghai

This chapter examines public participation in government decision making in China. Despite superficial similarities to Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil’s vision of an emerging form of consultative transparency (where the public is able to access information from the government, organizations, and other sources, combines that information independently of government intervention, and plays an active role in influencing policy formation), the role of public consultation in China is arguably much more constrained. When we seek to understand the role of, and possibilities for, public participation and transparency in authoritarian regimes such as China, we simply cannot assume that public participation, transparency, and democratic legitimation exist in the same relationship to each other.