Theorising a participatory policy system

The deliberative systems approach has provided a powerful new framework for analysing the many ways that citizens now participate in politics and policy-making. Though it has been said that this approach can be applied across contexts (Parkinson & Mansbridge, 2012), it appears better suited to analysing the legislative arena than the policy sub-systems that exist within the democratic state, where a number of opportunities for participation could only very loosely be described as deliberative. As Mark Warren (2009) has argued, much policy-oriented participation takes place in public bureaucracies with only minimal links to the legislative process, and a policy system presents different democratic opportunities and challenges than a legislative system. By drawing on insights from the deliberative systems approach and combining these with a novel theory of participatory governance, this paper theorises a conception of a participatory policy system. Throughout the paper the example of the English National Health Service (NHS) is used an illustrative example of a complex policy system in which there are multiple avenues for participation at local and national level that take various forms from consumer complaints to a national citizens’ assembly. It is argued that there are four archetypal modes of participatory governance – participation as knowledge transfer, participation as collective decision-making, participation as choice and voice, and participation as arbitration and oversight – each of which differently contributes to realising four primary objectives of participatory system: accountability, effectiveness, responsiveness and autonomy.