دانلود رایگان مقاله نابرابری پس زمینه و مشارکت تفاضلی در ارزیابی مشورتی

Abstract

Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) methods have been proposed as a more democratic alternative to traditional contingent valuation methods (CVM) for natural- resource decision making. These deliberative methods are subject to criticisms. One issue of concern is that the socio-economic inequalities among members of the deliberative group may severely impede communication and consequently distort deliberative outcomes. To examine such possibility we applied the deliberative methodology in a case study of forest conservation in Colombia. We found that those individuals who assumed social (environmental) leadership positions tended to dominate group discussion. Nevertheless, the variations in the capacity to engage in group deliberation were better explained by participants' personal characteristics than external constraints or group pressure. Also, there was little evidence that leadership and domination in group deliberation significantly influenced participants' stated WTP. We conclude that DMV is vulnerable to the background inequalities among group members. The democratic potential of deliberative methods should be critically examined in terms of the capacity to communicate effectively and equally.

6. Conclusion

DMV promises to overcome the democratic limitation of conventional valuation methods by giving citizens the opportunity to participate in a deliberation. The shift from decision procedures based on the aggregation of preferences elicited in isolation to a deliberative one aims to make collective decisions more legitimate. A key criterion of democratic legitimacy, however, is the degree to which those affected by a decision have been included in deliberation. Inclusion is more than being present at a discussion; it demands that participants have the opportunity to influence the outcome. In the context of a forest protection policy in the Colombian Caribbean, our study found that participation in deliberation was uneven and related to people's social status. Most of the variations in the capacity to engage in group deliberation however, was related to participant's personal unobserved characteristics. Uneven participation, however, did not lead to the expressions of preferences driven by social conformity. Our findings point to the importance of paying more attention to what happens during deliberation. The promises, but also the limitations, of DMV rest upon its social interactive nature. Although DMV has a greater democratic potential than CBA, this cannot be taken for granted. The democratic potential of deliberative methods should be critically examined in terms of the capacity to communicate, and not merely the opportunity to participate.