Experimental Discursive Spaces: Policy Processes, Public Participation and the Greater London Authority

The paper seeks to engage with the interrelationships between the newly established Greater London Authority (GLA) as a form of devolved but diffuse city governance and new procedures for encouraging active public engagement in policy-making processes. The scope and conduct of new discursive spaces for engaging Londoners in the early stages of policy-making concerned with sustainable development are the focus of enquiry. The paper draws on published sources and a series of in-depth interviews conducted with officers, advisers and elected members of the GLA. Theories and practices of deliberative democracy provide the basis for assessing to what extent these experimental discursive spaces supported the pursuit of a collaborative approach to decision-making.