From Participatory Policy Proposals to Local Policies: Explaining Diverse Trajectories

One of the aspects of participatory processes that has less often been the subject of systematic comparison is the fate of their outputs: their policy proposals. While some of these participatory processes have only a loose connection to the policy process, even amongst those that are more policy-oriented the general impression is that they have only limited impact on final policies of public authorities. One of the possibilities is that politicians and officials cherry-pick from amongst the proposals emerging from these participatory processes, but we know very little about the factors that affect whether these proposals are accepted, rejected or transformed. Understanding what happens with this selection of policy proposals is particularly crucial if we want to analyse the failure and sustenance of participatory processes. The goal of the paper is twofold. First, we offer a theoretical model that aims to explain both the types of policies and the types of participatory processes that are more likely to be affected positively or negatively by cherry-picking. Second, we sketch a proposal on how to operationalize this model using a dataset of policy proposals emerging from a range of participatory processes developed in three Spanish regions. The paper includes the analysis of the pilot cases used to test this operationalization model.