Participation … for what Purpose? Analysing the Depth and Quality of Public Participation in the Integrated Development Planning Process in Gauteng

This article emanates from a study that assessed the depth and quality of public participation in the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) process and its impact on decision-making by officials, commissioned by the Gauteng Provincial Department of Local Government.Footnote1 It begins with a detailed analysis of the (voluminous) literature regarding public participation in development projects, starting with Arnstein's famous ‘ladder’, and seeks to understand where participation in South Africa is located on that ladder—at the base, where it rubber-stamps official decisions, or towards the top, where emancipatory notions are at play and power shifts from the bureaucracy to the people. The paper talks to issues of elite capture at one end, and debates about deliberative democracy and ‘invited’ spaces at the other. The paper includes findings from fieldwork that gave rise to a series of practical recommendations as well as broader recommendations about what is needed if participation in South Africa is to move to a (considerably) higher plane than it has currently reached, which the authors believe to be necessary, and thereby form a key part of the post-apartheid project. It concludes by arguing that participation involves more than drawing people into existing political and/or development processes; it transforms those processes in ways that boost people's opportunities and capacities generally to claim their rights. It therefore becomes an aspect of a wider transformative and redistributive project. It is not enough to redesign or adjust processes beforehand in order to facilitate greater participation; they must be amenable to being reshaped by participation.