Is There a Place for Private Conversation in Public Dialogue? Comparing ...

4588 users shared this document! click

AJS Volume 113 Number 1 (July 2007): 4196 41 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0002-9602/2007/11301-0002$10.00 Is There a Place for Private Conversation in
Public Dialogue? Comparing Stakeholder
Assessments of Informal Communication in
Collaborative Regional Planning 1 Caroline W. Lee
Lafayette College This study contests the universalism of public engagement models
by comparing reports of informal communication in two state-cen-
tered participation processes for regional conservation planning.
Through interviews with stakeholders, the author nds that both
elites and nonelites deployed informal communication to amplify
and to defuse pressure for consensus. Much of the power of informal
communication derived from its relation to local knowledge and
place-based networking that was irrelevant in principle to formal
process activitiesand this was welcomed in one community and
resisted in another. These differences highlight the overlooked role
of regional-scale political cultures in light of the increasing formal-
ization of participatory best practices. The article suggests that the
study of democratic engagement can gain by exploring the contex-
tual implementation of abstract deliberative ideals such as inclusion,
publicity, and transparency. San Diegos history is littered with the skulls of bureaucratic
brain-picking sessions that invited people from the neighbor-
hoods to contribute, then discarded their ideas.Richard Louv
(2005) Do public participation projects improve the decision-making landscape
in local communities? Researchers of deliberative democracy and civic
engagement might nd this question ridiculous. Including stakeholders
in planning and increasing their access to local ofcials is generally un- 1 Grants from the American Political Development Program of the Miller Center of Public Affairs, the Social Science Research Councils Program on Philanthropy and
the Nonprot Sector, and the University of California, San Diego, Department of American Journal of Sociology 42 derstood to represent a signicant improvement over less transparent,
elite-dominated politicsand at the very least, a salutary exercise, what-
ever the current state of local political affairs. Indeed, participatory plan-
ning processes have become both big business and best practice, with a
wide range of competing models intended to include as many community
members as possible, to build consensus through thoughtful discussion,
and to generate public trust in local governance (Carpini, Cook, and
Jacobs 2004). 2 Given the expensive and time-consuming nature of these processes for participants and communities, however, the general as-
sumption of positive benets to be gained from proliferating participation
processes deserves further considerationespecially in light of the cyni-
cism and participatory fatigue suggested by San Diego Union-Tribune
columnist Richard Louv (above). This study questions whether formal
public participation processes, however oriented toward local interests,
are indeed a one-size-ts-all solution for improving communication and
deliberation in communities. Whereas most studies of participatory process implementation have focused on describing the relationship between increased inclusion of di-
verse viewpoints and more widespread community satisfaction with pro-
cess outcomes, this article compares reports of the role of informal com-
munication in two state-centered, regional-scale conservation planning
processes in the United States. Through intensive interviews, I investigate
how community members thought informal communication related to
procedural legitimacy and collaboration in their respective regions. In one
region, the process emphasized formal inclusion, transparent delibera-
tions, and group consensus on policy provisions, while the process in the
other emphasized more limited forms of participation, private solicitation
of resistant stakeholders, and community mobilization against develop-
ment. Informal communication was largely understood as a backstage
subversion of the former process, while the lack of transparency in the
latter process was actively advertised as an indication of elite actors and Sociology supported this research. The author wishes to thank the AJS reviewers, Sada
Aksartova, Brian Balogh, Dana Fisher, Archon Fung, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Mar-
tha Lampland, Edmund Russell, John Skrentny, Michael Schudson, and conference
and workshop participants for their helpful comments. Finally, many thanks to all the
interviewees who participated in this project. Direct correspondence to Caroline W.
Lee, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsyl-
vania, 18042. E-mail: leecw@lafayette.edu 2 These models can range from deliberative polling to collaborative planning to citizen juries, working groups, or advisory committees, and are proffered by a range of actors,
from foundations to private for-prot consultants. A useful index of demand for par-
ticipation training is the increase in training revenue of the International Association
for Public Participation (IAP2), which reported 185% growth from 2003 to 2005 (Twy-
ford 2004, p. 2; Kyriss 2005, p. 2). Public Dialogue 43 conservation interest groups good faith and public-spiritedness. Most
important for those interested in the social capital participants are pre-
sumed to gain through collaborative planning, stakeholders in both
regions ultimately claimed to value informal networking over additional
formal collaborations as a result of their experience. My ambitions are twofold: to challenge the idea that institutionalized participation is an exclusive means to community empowerment and to
explain why increasing formalization of participation may not improve
stakeholder assessments of the quality of decision making in local com-
munities. The article contributes to theoretical debates on how to enhance
civic engagement by foregrounding the relevance of informal communi-
cation to formal engagement processes implemented in very different con-
texts. Critics of participatory institutions in the developing world have
paid particular attention to the ways in which local political cultures and
histories of prior institutional interventions are ignored in the implemen-
tation of community participation processes (Bastian, Bastian, and Ni-
varan 1996; Cooke and Kothari 2001; Kothari and Minogue 2002). Social
theorists in the United States have recognized that informal communi-
cation can be strategically useful in a variety of contexts, but have tended
to make their own moral judgments on informal communication de-
pending on whether it involves oppositional social movement actors or
elites in entrenched urban regimes. As cases of place-based implementation involving both kinds of actors and blended forms of social action (Sampson et al. 2005), these illustrations
of how informal communication can become important in formal pro-
cesses are particularly useful for demonstrating the dynamic regional per-
spectives neglected in idealized models. For deliberative theory, these
stories highlight the ahistoricism in contemporary aspirations for partic-
ipatory governance as a perpetual phenomenon (Fung and Wright 2003).
The claim that participation in public deliberation is a universal demo-
cratic good must be contextualized as growing out of its own historical
moment; that is, one riven by the current anxiety over declining civic
engagement and supercial political discourse. THE DEMOCRATIC POTENTIAL OF PARTICIPATION IN FORMAL
DELIBERATION This formal route potentially harnesses the power and re-
sources of the state to deliberation and popular participation
thus making these practices more durable and widely acces-
sible. These experiments generally seek to transform the mech-
anisms of state power into permanently mobilized deliberative-
democratic, grassroots forms. (Fung and Wright 2003, p. 22) American Journal of Sociology 44 Many who study public dialogue claim that grassroots participatory pro-
jects are most effective when they are formally tied to state policy making.
Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright have developed a clearly articulated
model along these lines for what they describe as empowered participatory
governance, or EPG. 3 Fung and Wright understand EPG as a promising alternative to top-down governance by bureaucrats, strategic negotiation
among elites, or ideological struggles of traditional social movements or
parties. The three principles of EPG are practical orientation, bottom-up
participation, and deliberative solution generation (Fung and Wright
2003, pp. 1617). Fung and Wrights admittedly optimistic expectations
are that EPG processes will produce effective problem solving, equity,
and broad and deep participation (2003, pp. 2527). The fact that par-
ticipation is both a principle and a result in Fung and Wrights EPG
model rests on their assumption that the sustained quality of participation
in these processes is an independent desiderata of democratic politics
(2003, p. 27) in the vein of John Stuart Mill. To be effective, the authors claim that participation in EPG must be formally constituted within state institutions. Fung and Wright believe
that EPG may actually be more radical than traditional collective action
inasmuch as it requires citizens to involve themselves in the continuing
administrative mechanisms of the state: These transformations attempt to institutionalize the ongoing participation
of ordinary citizens, most often in their role as consumers of public goods,
in the direct determination of what those goods are and how they should
be best provided. This perpetual participation stands in contrast, for ex-
ample, to the relatively brief democratic moments in both outcome-oriented,
campaign-based social movements and electoral competitions in ordinary
politics in which leaders or elites mobilize popular participation for specic
outcomes. (Fung and Wright 2003, pp. 2223) While perpetual participation requires a substantial ongoing commit-
ment from ordinary citizens, Fung and Wright assert that reorganizing
participation in this way is worthwhile because participants can assume
the authority invested in their roles as empowered decision makers: They
need not spend the bulk of their energy ghting for power (or against it)
(2003, p. 24). Environmental decision making is an ideal policy area for comparing formal civic engagement methods. Enhanced citizen participation in com-
bination with a shift to greater devolution of environmental decision mak- 3 Despite this formulation, I have retained the language of empowered deliberative democracy (EDD) when referring to the larger school of theory because this termi-
nology is more common. Public Dialogue 45 ing to state and local governments has been heralded as a promising new
era of civic environmentalismand a needed antidote to federal reg-
ulatory approaches (John 1994; Sabel, Fung, and Karkkainen 2000). The
presumption of the positive results to be gained from participatory models
of state-centered deliberation is also reected in the sociological literature
on resource management and environmental decision making, which is
overwhelmingly concerned with enhancing public involvement and trust
in state-run processes (Gericke and Sullivan 1994; Gill 1996; Hunt and
Haider 2001; Josiah 2001; Landre and Knuth 1993; Lauber and Knuth
1999; Lawrence, Daniels, and Stankey 1997; Mascarenhas and Scarce
2004; Smith and McDonough 2001). Nevertheless, researchers of deliberative democracy and environmental decision making acknowledge that indigenous factors might constrain the
implementation of idealized models of participation, and so they direct
their attention to overcoming practical limitations to participation. De-
liberative theorists denote this problem as the Kaufman paradox: Al-
though participation in democracies helps people increase their capacities,
those who have not yet had the experience of participation will sometimes
not have sufcient capacity to bring off a successful democracy. What
they need is precisely what, because of their need, they cannot get (Mans-
bridge 2003, p. 177). Since formal participation requires knowledge of
meeting times and locations, familiarity with local issues, facility in talking
about them, personal investment in the community, and time and re-
sources to attend repeated meetings, much of this literature is oriented
toward overcoming capacity limitations in order to jump-start the recur-
sive benets of participation (Chaskin et al. 2001). Nevertheless, a shared
culture of political avoidance (Eliasoph 1998) frustrates many attempt-
ing to construct formal participatory efforts at the community level, par-
ticularly for the potentially exhausting perpetual participation that Fung
and Wright advocate. Irvin and Stansbury question whether participation
is worth the effort by describing their own involvement in a heroic effort
to attract participants for a watershed management initiative where only
one soul actually showed to the scheduled meeting. The authors conclude
that, despite the fact that it is difcult to imagine anything but positive
outcomes from citizens joining the policy process . . . community par-
ticipation may be costly and ineffective (Irvin and Stansbury 2004, p.
55). When formal deliberation does not work as predicted, deliberative
proponents blame its susceptibility to pathologies and abuses (Button
and Ryfe 2005, p. 29), presumably introduced at the community level. As
Karpowitz and Mansbridge describe in their account of a participatory
process that produced a backlash of anger and frustration, . . . the dream
of unity dies hard (2005, p. 247). Researchers typically respond to these limitations by attempting to re- American Journal of Sociology 46 ne procedures and correct technical aws of timing or approach (Walker
and Hurley 2004). More frequently, they describe successful small-scale
model processes on which to formulate best practices to serve as les-
sons and inspiration in other communities (Gastil and Levine 2005; see
also Halvorsen 2001; Lauber and Knuth 1998; Wondolleck and Yaffee
2000). In their focus on the upbeat, most researchers emphasize that de-
liberation has a self-reinforcing educative function: Deliberation may
have a number of positive outcomes, but it is more important to under-
stand deliberation as a powerful socialization experience that reminds
participants what it means to be a true citizen in a democratic society
(Button and Ryfe 2005, p. iv). The ip side of the Kaufman paradox is
that those who have participated in deliberative processes will become
less reluctant to participate in future processes and will get better at
collaborating with others by doing so. Despite acknowledging the chal-
lenges of formal participation, proponents of collaborative planning pro-
cesses continually emphasize that participation in state-centered delib-
eration is worthwhile for its own sakenot only a means to higher-quality
governance but also a civically invigorating end in itself. 4 Several critiques of formal participation claim that a focus on increasing inclusion by enhancing motivation and capacity obscures problems with
the premises on which formal participation is basedmost notably, the
idea that state-centered participation creates a space free of negotiations
for authority or power (Agrawal and Gibson 1999; Amy 1987; Gibson
and Koontz 1998; Singleton 2000; Walker and Hurley 2004). These critics
point out that both administrators and participants may use their in-
volvement for ends external to substantive process goals. The strongest
critique of institutionalized participation comes from the resource man-
agement literature on the developing world and builds on postcolonial
and feminist critiques of development theory (Cooke and Kothari 2001;
Kothari 2002; Kothari and Minogue 2002). These critics claim that par-
ticipation is frequently used as a means to local consent rather than a
transformative end for the community and is often irrelevant to locals
inured to coping with ckle foreign aid regimes (Bastian, Bastian, and
Nivaran 1996; Sivaramakrishnan and Agrawal 2003). Uma Kothari (2002,
p. 139) argues that participation is a new grand narrative of develop-
ment, deployed through fundamentally dishonest rhetoric that roman-
ticizes community power relations and essentializes local knowledge. Par-
ticipatory practice is preoccupied with formal models such that it exhibits
blindness to context, leading to mechanistic applications of participatory 4 Coglianese (2003, p. 73) points out that the elision of stakeholder satisfaction with decision-making quality has a number of problems, despite researchers frequent as-
sertion that decisions in which interests are satised are higher quality by denition. Public Dialogue 47 techniques (McGee 2002, p. 107). As critics of these critics note, many
of these complaints hit home, but the participation as tyranny camp
rarely offers alternatives or compares participatory outcomes with those
achieved by other means (McGee 2002, p. 108). Critics within the eld of deliberative democracy have also attempted to dampen unchecked enthusiasm for formal participation by elaborating
on the pressures its underlying value paradigm places on actors of varying
social positions. Chief among these complaints are the assumption of
transparency and rationality as preconditions for deliberation. Daniel
Naurin tests the idea that transparency has a purifying or civilizing effect
on political discourse by comparing the behavior of business lobbyists in
Europe in transparent and closed systems. Naurin points out that, ac-
cording to negotiation and corporatist theory, publicity may cause in-
efciency, politicization, and uffy rhetoric because the audience gets
in the way: If deliberation is about transforming preferences, and pub-
licity forces you to know what you want and stand by your position, then
public deliberation, it seems to me, is something of a contradiction in
terms (2002, pp. 1819). 5 The increased temptations to use passionate rhetoric (Naurin 2002, p. 18) when deliberations are made public can
actually inhibit the search for public-spirited common ground among
collaborators. In this vein, Walker and Hurley (2004) describe the case of
one California county in which a public collaborative planning process
provided unique opportunities for some participants to unseat political
rivals. The authors nd that, rather than focusing on procedural rene-
ment, practitioners must ask whether a collaborative approach might
actually create a more contentious management climate inimical to nding
mutually agreeable and effective solutions (Walker and Hurley 2004, p.
748). Iris Marion Young (2000), Jane Mansbridge (1980), and Lynn Sanders (1997) consider deliberation in terms of its repressive potential on self-
expression, such that the pressure on nonelite participants not to use
passionate rhetoric constitutes a mechanism of exclusion that disadvan-
tages those unable to frame their arguments according to prevailing norms
of rational deliberation. 6 For Young, formal deliberation risks margin- alizing those with substantive differences of opinion (Fung, Young, and
Mansbridge 2004, p. 49). 7 Mansbridge nds that even in small, local par- 5 Many deliberative democracy theorists implicitly recognize this problematic by in- sisting that deliberation take place in small groups. 6 Michael Schudson (1997) conrms that such norms exist but argues that they are, in fact, the condition for democratic self-government, not the conversation itself. 7 This source is a transcription of an interview led by Fung of Young and Mansbridge, so I identify the speakers separately. American Journal of Sociology 48 ticipatory institutions where common interests are most likely, the at-
tempt to apply the procedure of consensus in moments of genuine conict
as well as in unity reveal the diverse ends consensus can serve (1980, p.
268). Mansbridge and Young do not abandon hope for formal deliberation
but suggest that it is most useful in combination with other forms of
collective action and protest. Maarten Hajer (2005) explores the drama-
turgical elements in public deliberation further by studying the mixed
signals communicated in varied setting and staging contexts for partici-
patory planning in the Netherlands. According to Hajer, participation
changes face because of the settings in which it takes place (2005, p. 631),
so formal reforms undertaken in standard municipal forums may be per-
ceived by community members as yet another top-down administrative
mechanism. In spite of practitioners intentions, state-centered collabo-
rative planning was often locally understood in terms of the very practices
it aimed to criticize (Hajer 2005, p. 637). Evaluations of federal efforts to implement ambitious grassroots par- ticipatory programs in the United States emphasize unanticipated con-
sequences and unforeseen factors of institutional implementation and
practice that frustrate theorists and practitioners recurrent enthusiasm
for citizen participation in policy making. Philip Selznicks analysis of
grassroots participation in the Tennessee Valley Authority warns against
linking formal inclusion with the redistribution of power: Cooptation
which results in an actual sharing of power will tend to operate informally,
and correlatively, cooptation oriented toward legitimization or accessi-
bility will tend to be effected through formal devices (1949, p. 260).
Selznick is skeptical of formal participation precisely because power in
state-centered processes tends to be redistributed informally. Tracing a
more recent adoption of participation at the federal level, Wendy Espeland
(2000) describes the democratization of decision making within the Bureau
of Reclamation following the passage of the National Environmental Pol-
icy Act of 1969. More citizens were included in the process; nevertheless,
the deployment of participation within the institution privileged certain
voices and groups over others. The above researchers claim that formal organization and local political contexts affected the implementation of participation in different ways
for different stakeholder groups. The common theme underlying these
critiques revolves around the unique challenges of trying to implement a
formal model of citizen participation from above. Development theorists
Bastian and Luckham sum up these challenges of formal design: There is a kind of hubris in the idea that constitutional experts, political
scientists, donor agencies or even national decision makers can assure de-
mocracy or solve conicts by designing institutions. Indeed institutional Public Dialogue 49 design is an apparent oxymoron. Institutions in the sense that many political
thinkers use the term evolve, grow, become rooted or become institution-
alisedthe metaphors are organicand are not designed. And where at-
tempts are made to design them, history, accident and force and political
manipulation may turn them on their heads and produce perverse and
unforeseen outcomes. (Bastian and Luckham 2003, p. 304) Many factors can frustrate top-down design of participation. But place-
based contingencies are not unmeasurable or unknowableand it is also
possible that they may reinforce rather than destabilize institutions. Fung
acknowledges that far from being the result of masterful design, par-
ticipatory institutions arose haphazardly in his own case studies (2003,
p. 115). The preceding criticisms urge a measured approach when as-
sessing the democratic potential of formal participation in varying con-
texts, but they also suggest the variety of meanings and intentions that
can be ascribed to participants and administrators in formal participatory
institutions. Formal participatory institutions are not simply neutral ve-
hicles for soliciting local input. Inasmuch as they make claims to redis-
tribute policy-making power among publicly recognized conferees, the
institutions themselves can become controversial objects of local negoti-
ation and favorite subjects of community dialogue. INFORMAL COMMUNICATION AS AN ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: A
PRIVILEGED DOMAIN? Consensus on the efcacy of informal strategies for deliberation and co-
operation is substantial, but literature on informal communication and
networking as a companion to state-centered governance focuses almost
exclusively on the extent to which informal settings are functional solely
for elites. In fact, Stone sees informal arrangements as an inherent part
of urban governance: An urban regime may thus be dened as the in-
formal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function
together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions
(1989, p. 6). For Stone, informal communication and networking is es-
sential to cooperation: Because informal understandings and arrangements provide needed exi-
bility to cope with nonroutine matters, they facilitate cooperation to a degree
that formally dened relationships do not. People who know one another,
who have worked together in the past, who have shared in the achievement
of a task, and who perhaps have experienced the same crisis are especially
likely to develop tacit understandings. If they interact on a continuing basis,
they can learn to trust one another and to expect dependability from one
another. (Stone 1989, p. 4) American Journal of Sociology 50 Such sustained interest in cooperation is precisely that advocated by de-
liberative theorists, but informal regime activity is most often interpreted
as inevitably directed toward an inequitable distribution of resources at
the expense of broader public benet and democratic ends; elite cohe-
siveness is cemented in private, informal settings at public expense (Dom-
hoff 1974). By contrast, Francesca Polletta has pursued the most thoroughgoing contemporary analysis of the instrumental use of informal practices in
sustaining democracy through social movement organizations. Jo Free-
mans essay on the tyranny of structurelessness in the womens liber-
ation movement famously argues that authentically democratic partici-
pation can only be achieved through formal structure, since the alternative
is covert, informal structure: For everyone to have the opportunity to
be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities, the struc-
ture must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be
open and available to everyone, and this can happen only if they are
formalized (1972, pp. 15253). Nevertheless, like Stone, Polletta nds
that informal relationships are highly effective as an adaptive, voluntary
mechanism for stimulating engagement and cooperation among nonelite
social movement actors: Friends are unlikely to suspect each other of
cutting corners or cutting deals, and their affection for each other makes
the deliberative process tolerable, even pleasurable. . . . The informal
and voluntary character of the relationship also means that friends are
used to working out the rules as they go along, in ways that best meet
their individual and joint needs (Polletta 2002, p. 153). Informal practices
enhance participants sense of spontaneous, open-ended collaboration and
shared interests. Evidence from the environmental planning literature supports Pol- lettas claims that intimate, informal groups contribute to enthusiasm for
cooperation, despite the fact that living room meeting strategies face
substantial challenges of consolidating input and scaling up to the regional
level (Gericke and Sullivan 1994; Gill 1996). When resource management
theorists have examined collaborative regional partnerships like the South
Carolina Task Force I study in this article, they have been surprised at
their accomplishments but skeptical of their ultimate staying power. In a
case study of one such group, Katrina Korfmacher asks, What can co-
ordination in the context of ecosystem management accomplish without
independent funding, political commitment, broad citizen support, and
ofcial authority? Ecosystem management theory suggests that it can accomplish little without
these resources and structures. The Darby Partnership suggests something
else entirely: A loose organizational structure can contribute to voluntary Public Dialogue 51 efforts to improve ecosystem management that are not otherwise possible.
(Korfmacher 2000, p. 549) Nevertheless, while this watershed partnership demonstrates that loose
coordination is not pointless, Korfmacher asserts that a stronger insti-
tution may be needed (2000, p. 549). Many critics have noted that informality of the sort I explore in this study is inherently difcult to institutionalize or expand beyond a limited
group. Critics like Elisabeth Clemens argue that Pollettas account of
informal practices as effective in shaping social movement group origins
does not mitigate the fact that sometimes national or regional organi-
zations and large-scale mobilizations are precisely what are required to
secure results in a large representative democracy (Clemens 2004, p. 328).
Another challenge to the democratic potential of informal communication
and networking is suggested by Fishman (2004), who claims that, while
informal relationships are essential to political mobilization, they are nev-
ertheless rarely generated instrumentally and arise both within and out-
side of formal organizations. Despite the importance of intimate ties to
expanding public discourse, institutional design of informality is not a
solution to the problem: Public rhetorics that engage or disengage their
listeners often rest on microlevel patterns of social connection and con-
versation on the part of the leaders articulating those rhetorics. . . . in-
stitutions alone cannot guarantee the quality of democracys public sphere
of debate (Fishman 2004, p. 171). How can the potential advantages in
informal relationships and settings for dialogue be expanded beyond small
group dynamics to community-wide decision making? The analysis to
follow explores how informal practices, despiteand in some instances,
because oftheir inherent limitations and resistance to incorporation in
formal models, may become important to larger processes. INVESTIGATING INFORMAL COMMUNICATION IN FORMAL
DELIBERATION Informality and formality are by no means new areas of exploration for
sociology, and can be traced to Weberian theories of bureaucracy and
rationality. As a result, they impose especially loaded baggage on the
contemporary researcher. Arthur Stinchcombe denes a sociological un-
derstanding of informality in terms that are particularly useful for nar-
rowing and differentiating my own analysis of informal communication: Informality has a strong meaning in sociology, Habermasian philosophy,
and much of the humanities: a world of warm personal relations subverting American Journal of Sociology 52 formal purposes and rules, a world of feuding and uncontrolled power
struggles in the back room, a world of sexual harassment, or of the fraud
and force of white collar crime, union busting, and of conspiracies in re-
straint of trade. By the traditional sociological argument, informality is to
formality as machine politics, with its warm personal relations within ethnic
neighborhoods and corruption in appointments and contracts, is to good
government. (2001, p. 5) A few remarks are in order regarding my use of the concept of informality
in order to distinguish my approach from one that privileges a particular
moral viewpoint of formalization or informalization. 8 The approach I use in this article involves an exploration of reports of informal communication that took place during state-centered regional
planning processes. Rather than idealizing or condemning either formality
or informality, my research examines how informal communication within
formal processes can produce starkly different interpretations depending
on the perspective and social position of particular observers. Determi-
nations about the moral character and power inequalities represented by
such communications are critical to observers themselvesso researcher
generalizations about smoke-lled rooms versus the sunshine of public
meetings do not help us to understand how informal communication be-
comes politically important to formal processes in different contexts. What is informal communication and how does one measure it? It is Stinchcombes classical informality, or social life that is left out of the
governing formality, which I mean to explore in this article. Stinchcombe
describes this form of informality as follows: Sometimes that can be simple everyday life lived during time at work or
inuenced by the work setting, irrelevant (in principle) to the activities
governed by the formality. Often sociological interest in such informality
is to show that it is indeed not irrelevant after all, that friendships can be
the basis of a conspiracy to undermine governance by the formality. . . .
Sometimes it can be systematically subversive of the formal order, as in
informal secrecy about bribery, or a mobilizing conversation for a wildcat
strike that looks, from the outside, like friendly conversation . . . in any
case, the general point is that the formal system never pretended that it
was going to govern the activity in question. (Stinchcombe 2001, p. 8) Stakeholder recognition and assessment of informal practices within the
formal processes that I study is of interest specically because this type
of informality is irrelevant in principle to formally governed deliberative
activities. As Stinchcombe points out, sociologists study this activity with 8 While deliberative democracy theorists tend to favor formality in democratic insti- tutions, Stinchcombe points out that sociologists gut reaction may be to condemn
formalization as meaningless ritual or fraud (2001, p. 1). Public Dialogue 53 the understanding that it is indeed relevant to formality, but this sort of
informality is highly resistant to incorporation in formal participatory
models. Social hours can, of course, be incorporated as weekly rituals that
are part of meeting structure, but one cannot mandate after-hours phone
calls, the hot topic of local gossip, or the contingent nature of social
interconnections through churches, families, schools, and shops. Given the denition of informal communication above, it would be foolish to attempt to measure the relative amount of informality in each
communityinformal communication is more the surrounding bath of
social life in which formal processes take place than an apposite social
activity. This study instead compares stakeholders understandings of how
informal communication affected the formal planning process with their
views on process quality. A key difference from the examples cited above
as sociologically relevant is worth noting. Rather than focusing on the
destabilizing effects of informality on formal processes, I am instead fo-
cusing on the extent to which interviewees report that informal com-
munication was related to inclusion, deliberation, and community building
in formal processes. Informal communication may have been perceived
as subversive, or it may in fact have been perceived as reinforcing these
aspects of the formal process. While most of the theorists cited above
would predict that informal communication would destabilize formal pro-
cess and would most likely be deployed by elites, theorists like Naurin
and Polletta suggest the potential of informal communication for public-
spirited dialogue and for nonelite actors. First, I evaluate perceptions of formal inclusion (as represented by assessments of the public and private rationales for stakeholders engaging
in, opting out of, or being excluded from the formal collaborative group).
Next, I compare perceptions of deliberative consensus building within the
collaborative groups (assessments of the extent to which conservation
plans reect authentic preference change and open-ended, transparent
decision making). Both of these outcomes reect key aspirations of par-
ticipatory democratic process as a politics of fairness and reason (Fung
2003, p. 111). Natural resource management researchers describe these
aspects of stakeholder reception more mundanely as components of pro-
cedural legitimacy or process fairness (Gericke and Sullivan 1994; Hunt
and Haider 2001; Landre and Knuth 1993; Lauber and Knuth 1999;
Lawrence, Daniels, and Stankey 1997; Mascarenhas and Scarce 2004;
Smith and McDonough 2001). Both outcomes also relate to the key ar-
guments of deliberative criticsthat formal inclusion and transparency
do not insure a fair hearing and that pressure for consensus marginalizes
less powerful actors in collaborative relationships. Finally, I compare stakeholder assessments of the role of informal communication in the collective social capital built through the decision- American Journal of Sociology 54 making process, as exemplied by their perspectives on new networks
and participatory initiatives that grew from the two cooperative efforts
examined in this article. Here, I use the term social capital to describe
the properties of social networks that make collaborative action on con-
servation possible, such that networks of civic engagement, like the
groups studied here, can facilitate coordination and communication in
larger contexts than relations within the group (Sirianni and Friedland
2001, pp. 1314). My division of the analysis between perceptions of
inclusion and consensus building that occurred in the process (social cap-
ital related to shared understanding, trust, and reciprocity within the
group), versus perceptions of the elements of social capital that Innes and
Booher (1999) describe as second order effects and third order effects
(social capital related to new networks, initiatives, resources, and dis-
courses emerging from the group) can be likened to the distinction between
bonding versus bridging social capital (Gittel and Vidal 1998, p. 15). 9 Putnam points out that these are worth distinguishing from each other
for their relative emphasis on reinforcing internal or external ties, but
notes that they represent a spectrum of activity (2002, p. 22). In organizing
my analysis of stakeholder assessments, I analyze perceptions of these
internally oriented and externally oriented social process outcomes sep-
arately. For the sake of clarity, I use the term consensus building to refer
to the former, and reserve the terms social capital or community build-
ing for the latter. It is critical to note here that the stakeholder assessments I am studying are not an indicator of overall project success. Success is discussed and
measured by informants in a variety of ways, from acreage conserved to
federal funding received to lack of controversy or contention, and I will
certainly discuss these assessments in terms of their relationship (or non-
relationship) to stakeholder assessments of informal communication and
procedural legitimacy. However, this study is much more limited in scope:
it tests the ideals of formal participation in collaborative decision mak-
ingspecically inclusion, deliberative transparency, and social capital
against theorists own assumptions about the benets of formality for
perceptions of process fairness and legitimacy. If these goals are frustrated
in actual practice, it is certainly appropriate to reevaluate researchers
belief in increased community building and cooperation as an inevitable
product of participatory best practices. 9 Woolcock similarly highlights this distinction but refers to it as integration vs. linkage (1998, p. 168). Public Dialogue 55 COLLABORATIVE REGIONAL PLANNING BODIES AS
ILLUSTRATIVE CASES OF STATE-CENTERED DELIBERATIVE
DECISION MAKING Each of the cases studied represents a group that brought together public
and private entities over the last two decades in order to deliberate on
land conservation priorities within a particular region. In view of the
power and resources channeled through these groups and their indepen-
dence as regional entities, I call both regional decision-making bodies.
The chief factors considered here are differences in governance and in-
clusion in each case (see table 1). San Diegos Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) is orga- nized along the lines generally understood by theorists to represent the
principles of empowered participatory governance (Thomas 2001). 10 De- cision making over development and conservation plans affecting endan-
gered species in the selected region have been devolved to local stake-
holders who are members of a formally recognized MSCP Working Group
with binding decision-making authority. This group focuses primarily on
bringing together public ofcials, developers, and environmentalists.
These local stakeholders participate in a public deliberative process geared
toward capacity building among local interests and empowerment through
locally brokered consensus and compromise. The process is overseen by
public planners from the county and the city, although the federal gov-
ernment has nal oversight over the decisions. By contrast, the South
Carolina Lowcountrys ACE (Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers)
Basin Task Force uses a consensus-based style of decision making limited
to an elite group composed exclusively of federal and state agency ofcials,
established state and national conservation interest groups, and land-
owners of conserved properties. The ACE Task Force draws its leadership
from this pool of private landowners, who have ultimate decision-making
authority over the public ofcials who serve as its members. Most studies
of participation have focused on inclusion as an end resultand San
Diego is clearly superior in this regard, with 29 working group members
and over 200 participants listed in the MSCP report, as compared to the
meager eight task force members in the Lowcountry case. I am more
interested, however, in stakeholders own assessments of deliberative
quality and democratic potential in these very different collaborative re- 10 There is some disagreement among empowered participatory governance and em- powered deliberation theorists over whether habitat conservation planning efforts
(HCPs) as a class truly fulll the EPG model since everyday citizens are typically not
interested in direct participation (see Thomas [2001] for an analysis of HCP limitations).
Nevertheless, the San Diego MSCP is generally agreed to represent the sort of HCP
that most resembles a collaborative process involving multiple stakeholders (Kark-
kainen 2003, p. 212). American Journal of Sociology 56 TABLE 1 Comparison Of Regional Decision-making Bodies Regional Decision- making Body MSCP ACE BTF Governance Public, devolved to city and county administra-
tors, dominated by
new regional develop-
ers and environmental
groups Public-private, dominated by long-term national
and state level conser-
vation NGOs Leadership Chair: mayors deputy; vice-chair: developers
group representative Chair: private landowner Inclusion of inter- ested parties Citizen working group (invited), municipal
and scientic advisory
boards, public work-
shops and hearings Invited group of agency, third sector, and corpo-
rate decision makers
and landowners Note.MSCP is the Multiple Species Conservation Program, operating in San Diego, Calif., from 1989 to the present (working group: 199197). The ACE BTF, or ACE Basin
Task Force, is located in the South Carolina Lowcountry and has functioned from 1988 to
the present. gional planning processes, structured by federal and state resource agency
ofcials for similar purposes at approximately the same time (the late
1980s and early 1990s). Despite the differences in their governance style and participatory ap- proach, the two cases selected are actually quite similar in terms of the
scale and scope of their ambition to balance conservation and develop-
ment concerns in popular coastal regions. Each planning effort was ini-
tiated with prompting from federal ofcials and focuses on comprehen-
sive conservation, meaning that each has identied a multijurisdiction
target region containing approximately 200,000 acres of open space. Both
seek to conserve and link habitats within the larger region sufcient to
maintain viable populations for valued species. In the face of rapid coastal
growth and piecemeal conservation and mitigation efforts, both decision-
making bodies attempt to agree on overarching conservation priorities on
the basis of remaining undeveloped land and biological habitat data.
Practically, this means overlaying maps of potentially developable real
estate over maps of existing habitat areas and prioritizing the conservation
of undeveloped land according to its habitat importance. Both of these
models reject an earlier era of balancing conservation and development
through more piecemeal mitigations, in which development of one area
was compensated for by conservation of another, regardless of their rel- Public Dialogue 57 ative habitat value. 11 Whereas the working group experienced direct fed- eral oversight as a result of its use as an alternative to Endangered Species
Act enforcement, the task force is equally policy oriented inasmuch as its
formation resulted from federal wetland and waterfowl conservation leg-
islation, and state centered inasmuch as it is accountable to federal and
state agencies for the public conservation dollars it receives. 12 This accountability involves a commitment to the involvement of stak- eholders of varying kinds. Broadly dened, stakeholders include any com-
munity member, organization, or corporation potentially affected by plan-
ning activities, from private citizens, to environmental interest groups, to
business associations, to foundations and corporations. Concrete interests 11 Although both face a common deliberative problem of setting habitat conservation priorities in estuarine landscapes also targeted as priorities by developers, their method
of approach once priorities have been determined is different. In the San Diego working
group, priority lands are legally designated as off-limits for future development with
the consent of property owners and willing sellers. The task force attempts to persuade
existing landowners to conserve at least some part of priority properties through sale
or conservation easement donation to a public entity, a land trust, or a nonprot
conservation organization. Task force activities involve producing baseline data for
potential properties, organizing real estate nancing for the purchase, bringing together
buyers and sellers, ensuring the endowment of proper conservation management once
acquired, and lobbying for legislation and nancing supportive of these goals. Since
the task force plays a strategy and coordination role, all of these separate activities
are undertaken independently by interest group or agency members, and even by
organizations that are not ofcial membersleading to potential competition among
stakeholders for prime properties. In comparison, the MSCP sets aside targets for
conservation acreage within municipal subarea plans, and city and county planners
are allowed to issue federal take permits if developments accord with the priorities of
the MSCP plan. Meanwhile, county, state, and federal wildlife ofcials acquire priority
conservation areas from willing sellers in rough-step with acreage lost to development
(County of San Diego 2006). In this sense, task force activities are predominantly
oriented toward mobilizing private citizens to conserve as much acreage as possible
and applying for state and federal support for these efforts under the North American
Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), while the MSCP is predominantly oriented to
achieving a balance among endangered species and development interests within the
region and then transferring the resulting plans to federal, state, and local agencies
for implementation under multiple sources of federal, state, and local funding. 12 Private matching dollars used under NAWCA require the same accountability stan- dards as federal dollars (USFWS 2006), and are subject to audit, monitoring, and
programmatic evaluation. Such evaluation includes assessment of the extent to which
projects include public input, landowner consent, and substantive organizational co-
operation (USFWS 2006). From 1991 to 2005, the ACE Basin received $8 million of
NAWCA funding from the FWS for wetland acquisitions totaling 31,000 acres; this
was matched by $16 million from partners (Watson 2005). From 1999 to 2004, federal,
state, and foundation grant funding for acquisition, management, and monitoring of
MSCP lands in San Diego County totaled $21.1 million (19992004 MSCP Annual
Report data). Federal agencies had acquired 6,800 acres, state agencies had acquired
14,300 acres, and the county had acquired 4,100 acres for conservation under the
MSCP by 2004 (County of San Diego 2004). American Journal of Sociology 58 or stakes such as land use, ownership, investment, or management
within the region or adjacent to it typically produce much greater interest
in involvement, although resident and even nonresident groups may par-
ticipate as stakeholders more on the basis of ideological commitments
(scal responsibility or opposition to development in general, e.g.) than
on the basis of interest in the particulars under negotiation. Stakeholders
can be elites or insurgents, powerful consortiums or everyday citizens
as such, some stakeholders may view their engagement in terms of social
movement activism, while some may see their engagement as part of the
normal course of business. Stakeholders are not simply all those who end
up participating, however. Some interested parties may nevertheless be
excluded or may opt not to participate. Usually, participants who are
national-level decision makers, public employees, planners, and scientists
are not identied as stakeholders, except in cases where they represent,
for example, a regionally based entity like a federal reserve or refuge (a
refuge manager), or a private organization of scientists. Involving stakeholders in both of these cases meant inviting them to an ongoing series of discussions entailing substantive deliberation over
project goals and recurring consideration of relevant issues. These might
take place in a hearing room with a dais in a public building, as in the
MSCP Working Group, or in the dining room of a restored plantation
house turned refuge headquarters, as in the ACE Basin Task Force. Such
stakeholder processes are not public hearings, where the public has a
limited opportunity to comment on proposed plans, or individualized
consultations or outreach sessions between public ofcials and individual
stakeholders. In both of these cases, potentially adversarial or competitive
stakeholders met face to face on a repeated basis in the company of
assorted public ofcials. 13 The repeated basis may have ranged from two to three hour meetings during the working day once a month, as in Cal-
ifornia, to a half-day affair every quarter, as in South Carolina. State-
centered planning processes based on stakeholder collaboration are a la-
bor- and time-intensive form of political activity as compared to more
standard democratic formats such as council meetings or hearings. Because of their similarities in approaching comprehensive conserva- tion planning, both groups have substantive similarities in stakeholder
membership that make the comparison of differences more striking. Fed-
eral investments in these sites mean that Fish and Wildlife Service and 13 While the contentious climate in San Diego between environmentalists and devel- opers may be well known, the deeply felt convictions against environmental regulation
and federal government interference in property matters were potentially fertile sources
of friction between politically conservative landowners and public employees or con-
servation NGOs in South Carolina. Public Dialogue 59 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff are engaged in
addition to state and county ofcials from wildlife, coastal, parks and
recreation, planning, and heritage departments and agencies. The analysis
is based on comparison of the perspectives of a cohort of very similar
interviewees performing the same sorts of activities in both sites. These
individuals might be expected to have similar experiences by virtue of
their similar positions within parallel organizationsoccasionally as re-
gional or local chairs of the same national organization. Common inter-
viewees included land trust directors, heritage program directors, refuge
and reserve managers, state sh and game and parks and recreation of-
cials, conservation biologists, state coastal commission employees, water
quality groups, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): the Trust
for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Audubon,
Sierra Club, and native plant societies. Fifty-two organization represen-
tatives out of 69 community stakeholders and ofcials, or over 75% of
the sample, had organizational counterparts in the other case. A core group
of stakeholders from the same agencies and organizations appears in both
sites, as might be expected given the similarities in coastal resources and
the interests these generate on a regional level. The research described in this article is based on intensive interviews of one to two hours conducted over 13 months in four states and the
District of Columbia in 2001, 2003, and 2004. Wherever possible, I have
interviewed current and former members of the partnerships. In addition,
I have interviewed community stakeholders who were not participants
but were engaged in community decision making and conservation in
some capacity relating to the site at the local, regional, state, or national
level. In total, I conducted 76 interviews for the research, with 69 regional,
state, and local interviewees and an additional seven national-level de-
cision makers. All persons interviewed in the course of the research are
referred to with pseudonyms derived from a random name generator.
Identifying details of the watersheds and partnerships under question,
and of authors of publicly available documents cited in the analysis, have
been retained. This is both for appropriate attribution and crediting of
written sources, and because the geographical, biological, and social par-
ticularities of places and their unique histories are of special concern for
the analysis. Generic descriptions or pseudonyms of regional and local
organizations are used within the text, and some additional identifying
details have been disguised depending on context and sensitivity of the
information conveyed. When rst introduced, an organizational pseu-
donym is indicated by quotes. Stakeholders and decision makers were identied through ofcial mem- bership in the task force or working group, afliation with these entities,
and local conservation directories and networks, in addition to snowball American Journal of Sociology 60 sampling, which produced the same names. In both sites, interviews were
conducted until interview data yielded substantial repetition and little
new information. As such, the research for this article represents a wide-
ranging survey of how the partnerships were understood by involved and
uninvolved stakeholders in both communities. I also attended partnership
and NGO-related events and activities such as parties, public presenta-
tions, and stakeholder meetings during my residence in both sites. I con-
sulted organizational records, web sites, newsletters, annual reports, and
maps, and performed content analysis of two years of daily newspaper
coverage and letters to the editor on regional conservation issues in order
to complement information gained in the interviews. 14 Interviewees were challenged to reect on their role in collaborative regional planning. In-
terview questions addressed cooperative strategies and compromises
reached in planning and implementation in the partnership as well as
lessons learned and applied from previous partnership challenges.
Whereas academic sources and stakeholder studies supplemented the San
Diego case research, very little research is available for the Lowcountry
case. FORMAL INCLUSION IN THE WORKING GROUP AND THE TASK
FORCE While the San Diego MSCP solicited input from over 200 sources on the
habitat conservation plan, the 29-member MSCP Working Group and
the eight-member ACE Basin Task Force both recognized the value of a
formal decision-making body with stable membership. As the size of the
two bodies indicates, participants had differing opinions on the value of
including large numbers of stakeholders as formal players. For the task
force, a small group that excluded potential critics and groups with limited
capacity was critical to producing consensus quickly and efciently. For
the MSCP Working Group, including as many stakeholders of opposing
interests as possible was critical for procedural legitimacy. Participants 14 Document text was collected daily from newspaper web sites under the broadest possible understanding of conservation-related community issues (not through elec-
tronic keyword searches) and entered into an electronic database. I used hand coding
for interviews, organizational documents, and historical records, while keyword scan-
ning was used in the case of newspaper coverage and letters to the editor once this
data had been collected and entered into a full-text searchable and sortable database.
The newspaper and letters database contains over 2,000 text les collected from re-
gional and local newspapers from December 2003 through December 2005. Differences
in practices of electronic posting and letter publication for these newspapers mandates
caution when making conclusions about the quality of local reception represented by
the content of newspaper coverage. Public Dialogue 61 actively linked the quantity of formal participants to the quality of par-
ticipatory input they would be afforded within the process. The formal process in San Diego attracted more participants by design, in part because the decision to participate carried particular messages
about an organizations or individuals standing in the decision-making
community. Iris Greene, a project manager for one of the environmental
consultants, reports in hindsight on the six-year process: In 1991, that was just really a new notion. . . . But what came out of that
really was an incredible partnership of developers, environmental groups,
different federal, state, and local agencies, and not as many cities as probably
would have liked to have been involved. But it was a partnership that
realized that land use planning is going to be different from now on and
these are the partners that have to be involved. (Interview, January 2004) As Greene indicates, the newly minted partners realized that, regardless
of their feelings for other participants, the other stakeholders had to be
involved in order to give their decisions the greatest scope and legitimacy
possible. Many participants welcomed the chance to have a more formal
role than standard public comment venues allowed. Virginia Reade, the
executive director of a small chapter of a birding group, says that formality
was critical to making participation count in the MSCP: It has to be
formalized, otherwise, you have no leverage; the more formal a role, the
better off you are. . . . Its much better to get in the process earlier if
possible (interview, March 2004). The powerful attraction of contributing to policy making in the formal process actually led to the creation of two new groups whose represen-
tatives became reliable spokespersons in the local and national press for
the opportunities provided by habitat conservation planning. These two
entrepreneurial groups were the Habitat Conservation Coalition (HCC),
a landowners group of developers formed in 1989 that lobbied for the
creation of the MSCP in San Diego County and was represented on the
working group by two individuals, one of whom served as cochair. The
other group was Habitat Action Now (HAN), an environmental orga-
nization formed in 1991 specically to participate in habitat conservation
planning (HCP) processes in southern California. To the extent that HAN
was staffed by two professionals already deeply involved in planning (one
was a county planning commissioner) and that developers interests were
already represented on the working group by representatives of three
development corporations and their local association, there was a clear
benet for formal recognition as an independent interest group within the
MSCP. These payoffs came in the form of multiple awards for participants American Journal of Sociology 62 and recognition as leaders in the burgeoning eld of habitat conservation
planning in the region, ensuring such groups roles in future HCPs. 15 By comparison, in South Carolina, the task force explicitly rejected groups that could gain in prominence by participating in the process. Will
Reidel, a local lawyer, landowner, and the rst chair of the task force,
sums up this position: Ive sort of had the policy that you earn a spot
on the task force. Nobody can come to the table who cannot contribute.
Weve had an enormous number of people beg to be involved in it but
I just dont see where youre going to add anything (interview, August
2001). In order to accommodate the demand for involvement, the task
force welcomes otherwise excluded stakeholders to sit in on their meetings
as unofcial guests. Current chair Philip Rhodes describes this as an
effective tool for controlling demand for membership by those who are
seeking the reected light of the task force: A lot of people want to be associated with us; a lot of people are always
trying to jump on the train. The only way you can get to be on the ACE
Basin Task Force is be a player. Youve got to have doneyou have to
have afrmatively demonstrated your value by having done something.
Not thinking about doing something. So thats a really good way to tell
people that are coming up: Wed love to have you join as soon as you get
out there and make some good things happen, wed be glad to consider,
wed be happy to have you come to our meetings every so often as a guest,
and whatever, but to actually be listed, youve got to be materially assisting.
(Interview, October 2003) This guest attendance policy also defused demands for participation from
potentially disruptive stakeholders. Rhodes notes, Weve been really care-
ful not to allow people to enter the task force who dont share our vision
because it would be fatal. . . . Theyll get bored with it and go on their 15 In establishing his credentials as a leader and facilitator of regional conservation activities and his companys poster child status in regional conservation, one de-
veloper who served on the MSCP as a representative of HCC lists his awards in
testimony before the House Resources Committee: In 1998, I was awarded a Certicate
of Appreciation from Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt for our contributions to
the San Diego County MSCP. In 1999, I received a Certicate of Special Congressional
Recognition from Congressman Brian Bilbray again for our environmental contri-
butions. Also in 1999, I received a California State Senate Certicate of Recognition
from Senator David Kelley related to our receipt of a Peacemaker Award from the
San Diego Mediation Center (Committee on Resources 1999). The two founders of
HAN list similar organizational credentials (a regional leader in conservation and
growth management), and similar awards: the David Gaines Award from the Planning
and Conservation League, the American Planning Association California Chapter Out-
standing Distinguished Leadership: Layperson Award, State Planning Commissioner
of the Year, the San Diego Mediation Centers Peacemaker Award, and the national
Alexander Calder Prize for business-conservation partnerships from International Pa-
per and the Conservation Fund (HAN web site). Public Dialogue 63 way (interview, October 2003). The task forces caution in adding new
members prevented it from the greater discomfort of exiling former mem-
bers, according to Reidel: We started with a small group and we added,
rather than start with a large group and pare down (interview, August
2001). Philip Rhodes describes how publicly excluding people at the outset
might involve some disappointment but this is better than the alternative: You cant have too big of an inner circle. You cant have players that arent
playing. Youre better off to keep it small and bring them in as they start
to get it and start to participate than it is to go line them up all at once
and you know, all those relationships arent there. You know, I think that
would be a big mistake to bring too many people in at the front end. . . .
We dont worry about feelings. (Interview, October 2003) Having stakeholders knocking at the door is preferable to having dis-
satised or disenchanted former members for the tight-knit community
of conservation decision makers in South Carolina. Despite the appeal of formal inclusion in San Diego, many activist groups (mainly environmental and property rights groups) and national
environmental groups found the process threatening and chose not to
participate. For far-right and far-left activists, the MSCPs interest in
balancing growth and conservation was the wrong approach from the
start. For national groups, the fear of being formally associated with the
MSCP was not sufcient to counter the potential input they could gain
by participating. Jeffrey Ecker, the countys planning representative, de-
scribes this dilemma: Thats kind of the choice that a lot of the groups
have to make, you know, they can stay outside and be pure or they can
jump in and get a little bit of mud on them, you know? (interview,
January 2004). But national groups were also sensitive to being perceived
as intruding in San Diego politics. According to Ben Lowry of the Nature
Conservancy, backstage nancing work was more appropriate for his
group than a public role in deliberations: TNC kind of hangs out of it.
And rightfully so, TNC shouldnt do it. . . If I were to have my druthers,
Id rather have TNC go get the money and someone else take credit for
it because a lot of it should be local (interview, March 2004). Groups that opted out still played an indirect role in the MSCP delib- erations. Virginia Reade from the small birding group sees outsider groups
with no formal role as actually giving leverage to more moderate envi-
ronmental groups inside the process: On the pragmatism to the idealism
scale, its a common story, we need the people way out there throwing
stones to put pressure on (interview, March 2004). Rather than replacing
the adversarial model of interest group contention, decision making in
the MSCP process for Reade seems to reect others claims that consensus- American Journal of Sociology 64 based and conict-based tactics may actually be complementary in certain
contexts (Fung et al. 2004; Pellow 1999). Deliberative democracy theorist
Craig Thomas notes that litigious practices by environmental groups were
part of what brought groups to the habitat conservation planning table
in the rst place, so forum-shopping is an inherent part of the process
(2003, p. 163). In the more restricted body in the Lowcountry, much less was at stake, and many groups opted out not because they were interested in critiquing
from the outside, but because they saw the partnerships activities as
supplemental or incidental to their own goals. Anne Deane, the land use
director of Sea Island Defenders, the regional conservation activist or-
ganization, describes the task force as a partner with us in every sense,
despite the fact that her organization has no ofcial role: We do not
attend the focus meetings and Ive attended as a guest at a few, but they
cant really get into the nitty-gritty of who owns what and whos willing
to sell (interview, October 2003). Because the San Diego deliberations
were open to the public, concerns about procedural legitimacy favored
inclusion, regardless of organizational tenure or community standinga
factor that ironically prevented some categories of established organiza-
tions from participating. In the Lowcountry, organizational legitimacy was
paramount for formal inclusion, and damage to procedural legitimacy
from this exclusion was understood as the cost of keeping the inner circle
functioning smoothly. How did these trade-offs affect the internal delib-
erations of the formal groups, and the reception of their decisions in the
larger community? FORMAL DELIBERATION IN PUBLIC SETTINGS: PERFORMING
TRANSPARENCY IN THE WORKING GROUP Many participants in the MSCP reinforced the prevailing assumption of
researchers that formal participation in deliberation is a win-win for
everyone involved (Walker and Hurley 2004). Former mayor Susan Gold-
ing proudly announced Everybody wins! in a prole of the MSCP on
the Newshour with Jim Lehrer (Kaye 1997). Surprising afnities were
discovered that may never have surfaced had groups not been forced to
get to know each other and the nuances of their positions. Angela Bern-
stein, the conservation chair of a local native plants group, was surprised
to discover that, as a weed person, she could nd common ground with
the ranchers whom her group usually opposes (interview, January 2004).
Bobby Goode of HAN claimed that a lot of the working groups traction
on difcult issues could be attributed to turning points of mutual feeling:
At some point you realize that the mutual goal can serve several different Public Dialogue 65 objectives. It can serve their objectives, it can serve your objectives, and
the cliche

Comments