Citizen participation

Tracing back to classical principles of democracy, citizen participation is widely accepted and appreciated in community decision making, community development as well as the health and social sectors. Basically, citizen volunteering and involvement are considered to balance and control political decisions, and result in decisions more beneficial to citizens and increased public acceptance. Citizens always assess risks, threats and uncertainties on a subjective and individual basis. To a certain extent, gaps between felt and factual security are normal phenomena. Even if not supported by other, more technical ways of risk assessment, integrating citizens’ needs in urban planning will strengthen its addressing of security issues and contribution to enhancing urban resilience.

Security-related aspects

 * In security research, citizens have recently come to be regarded as the ultimate end-users of security solutions and technologies, and thus not as addressees of security measures, but as an essential group of stakeholders, that should be involved in related planning processes.
 * Citizen participation in planning of security measures allows for evaluation of culture related beliefs, attitudes and risk aspects, and for identification of group specific security needs.
 * Moreover, public and social perception of (in)security and risks is gaining increasing recognition in risk and security policies and decision making. Local community perception of risk situations and of security enhancing measures can be evaluated through citizen participation, and should be considered throughout the planning process.
 * Citizen participation methods are useful tools to address culture aspects, legal aspects and ethics aspects in security related urban planning.

==Types of citizen participation for use in security-related urban planning consultation processes ==

Links and further information

 * For research, education, training and consultancy in the field of public participation see the Centre for Citizen Participation (CCP) [last access: 2012-10-23].
 * For general information see International Association for Public Participation [last access: 2012-10-23].