Scripting Deliberative Policy-Making: Dramaturgic Policy Analysis and Engagement Know-How

Abstract

Public engagers are officials tasked with facilitating collaborative performances in the theatres of deliberation that increasingly populate local governance. In Scotland, they work to involve citizens, communities and organizations in deliberative policy-making. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper shows how these policy workers deploy their own field of specialist knowledge during the scripting of participatory processes. The analysis eschews conventional notions of “scripted participation” as tokenistic or manipulative, thus seeking a more sophisticated understanding of the know-how that animates engagement practice. The findings reveal the micro-politics of official participation processes through the “behind-the-scenes” work of engagement practitioners.

Keywords:

• participation practitioners
• deliberative policy-making
• engagement know-how
• policy ethnography
• policy work

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the four anonymous JCPA reviewers who helped to improve the article, as well as Hal Colebatch for very useful editorial advice. I am particularly indebted to Richard Freeman and Andy Thompson for their mentorship during my doctoral research and beyond.

Notes

1. Terms borrowed from Goffman (1971).

2. This bracket represents 20 out of 32 Scottish local authorities.

3. The 2003 Act has been developed through various frameworks, see http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/community-planning (accessed 23 December 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oliver Escobar

Dr Oliver Escobar is a Fellow of the Academy of Government at the University of Edinburgh, and works as a researcher and practitioner in the fields of collaborative governance, participatory policy-making and deliberative democracy.