Insights and Applications - Participatory Democracy, Representative Democracy, and the Nature of Diffuse and Concentrated Interests: A Case Study of Public Involvement on a National Forest District

To evaluate whether public involvement on a national forest district fairly represents the public's values, this article proposes four hypothesis tests. First, it is hypothesized that public-involvement programs operate according to a participatory democracy logic, in which broad cross sections of the public participate in public involvement opportunities. A second hypothesis is tested that public involvement reflects a representative democracy process in which interest groups participate yet represent the underlying distribution of issue interests of the public at large. Because the findings indicate that interest groups do outcompete the public in participation, two additional perspectives are entertained. A political economic perspective is considered that posits that the incentive structure characterizing different interests defines participation. This perspective is contrasted with a perspective that argues that environmental "elites" prevail in participation and in the process misrepresent the public's values. Tests are made to adjudicate between alternative hypotheses. The findings and their implications for democratic public involvement and decision making are considered.