Innovating public participation. The role of PPPs and institutions in Italy

Innovative approaches aimed at engaging citizens in public policy-making through informed discussion forums are spreading in many countries. These processes are often designed and managed by public participation professionals (PPPs). Designing such processes is both a delicate and a relevant activity as it affects not only the quality of the processes and their legitimacy, but also their capacity to actually exert an impact on decision making. The present chapter offers an overview of the public participation field in a national context—Italy—that is particularly interesting not only because PPPs have been increasing in numbers over the last decade, but also because two Italian regions (Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna) have institutionalized public participation through ad hoc laws to foster, fund and regulate the public participation field. The chapter addresses two main questions. The first concerns the black box of facilitation: which criteria, standards, approaches and methods do Italian PPPs use? The second addresses the factors that affect PPPs’ work: how do political, social and institutional factors affect PPPs’ work? The findings are based on semi-structured interviews conducted with PPPs who designed and managed participatory processes.