Thomas Beierle and Jerry Cayford, scholars at the environmental policy think tank Resources for the Future, think it does. To prove it, they undertake an innovative and methodologically sophisticated meta-analysis of 239 distinct cases involving public participation in environmental disputes. Their goals, as described early on, are to understand the factors that contribute to the success or failure of participatory processes, to assess the effectiveness of respective procedures for incorporating public input, and, finally, to judge the “social value” of participation. Although their analysis is directed at environmental disputes, the frequently corrosive nature of such conflicts make the authors' findings applicable to a broader array of public problems.

Beierle and Cayford first assess the case study literature to construct a conceptual framework with which to select, code, and analyze the cases. This useful framework is comprised of three broad components—context, process, and results—that in turn are broken down into a series of key attributes. The authors and their energetic research assistant then screened more than 1,800 case studies from over a 30-year period to arrive at the 239 that made up the data set, set up a coding regime to ensure requisite reliability, and then painstakingly coded the cases according to the factors derived from the framework. This endeavor alone merits attention, and graduate students in particular would do well to note the rigor and care that went into the study's methodology.

The authors next assessed the data in light of five generally expressed social goals of participation derived from the literature: the degree to which participation 1) introduced public values into the decisions, 2) improved the substantive quality of the decision, 3) resolved conflict, 4) built public trust in institutions, and 5) educated and informed the public. Of these, participation most clearly improved public understanding of environmental problems and attendant decisionmaking processes, but it did strikingly little to improve public trust in institutions. Participation incorporated at least some public values into decisions, helped to improve the substantive quality of decisions in many cases, and in some limited instances resolved conflicts among competing interests— although conflict avoidance may have been a more common outcome.

Moving beyond these broad goals, the authors found that contextual variables (e.g., types of issues, level of government involved) had relatively little impact in determining the success or failure of public participation— much less than expected. However, they suggested, more work on the role of context needs to be done. On the other hand, process variables (e.g., responsiveness of the lead agency, degree of public control) mattered a great deal. It seems that creating a process that incorporates meaningful public participation in fact begets meaningful public participation. More telling, the degree to which participation affects decision making, especially during the implementation phase of policymaking, depends on the regulatory program within which it takes place. Or, as the authors conclude, even participation done well “is not a substitute for the regulatory power, political will, and money required to get things done” (p. 62). Government matters.

Learning from the past is but one part of the authors’ overall purposes. They also want to improve decision making, and they use their analysis to suggest steps by which policymakers can determine the need for public participation in a dispute, identify the goals that such participation is supposed to attain, calculate who should participate and how, and, finally, evaluate success or failure. Above all, regulators need to stop thinking about public participation as a marginal addition to a largely technical process. It is, instead, at the core of a public process that may need technical input. Their plea for such a change in emphasis says volumes about the normative and practical impacts of effective participation, not to mention the apparent intransigence of the managerial mind-set more than three decades after the call went out for “maximum feasible participation” in policymaking.

On the stylistic side, the book flows well, and the authors wisely put most of the methodological discussions in separate appendices. The study is well constructed, and its methodology is transparent enough to be adapted by other scholars. An additional benefit is an excellent bibliography that promises to be the starting point for any number of doctoral dissertations.

This book is also an excellent teaching tool, and is particularly suited for graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses on environmental policy, public policy, decision making, and, even, democratic theory. It would make a nice companion study to Barry Rabe's excellent cross-national analysis Beyond NIMBY: Hazardous Waste Siting in Canada and the United States (1994). Instructors could also pair its meta-analysis with one or more of the case studies listed in an appendix.

In sum, Democracy in Practice is good social science about an important topic, presented in a highly readable manner. Scholars, whether young and not so, should take a look at this book to see how it can be done.