From participation to decision-making in energy infrastructure siting: A framework for operationalizing public influence with a case study of nuclear waste in Canada

The global deployment of new energy infrastructure is influenced by how institutions manage engagements with the public and potentially impacted communities. While existing scholarship often focuses on the extent of public participation, it can fail to account for how public input is translated into binding decision outcomes. This gap can lead to procedural “box-checking” and, ultimately, public backlash. We argue that this shortcoming stems from conflating public participation (the process of engagement) with public influence (the conditions and pathways for public input to shape decisions). This study introduces the Public Influence Pathways (PIP) Framework, which operationalizes public influence as a bridge that links public participation with institutional decision-making across four elements: entry points, influence approaches, mechanisms, and decision uptake. The case of Canada's siting process for a used nuclear fuel repository is employed to demonstrate the framework's diagnostic utility. Our findings show that limiting formal entry points can drive unresolved claims to alternate channels for public influence, and that connecting decision stages with participation can allow for learning and adaptation. Ultimately, the framework provides planners and scholars with traceability of public influence, as well as a means to account for structural flexibility, foster co-production, and assess socio-technical readiness for critical infrastructure siting.