Democratising adaptation - The role and place of public participation in climate change adaptation policies in Ireland

Adapting to future socio-environmental changes induced by climate change represents one of the greatest challenges of our time. Climate change adaptation (CCA) policies are crucial, as these long-term strategies enable local communities to anticipate, prepare for, and build capacity to cope with potentially devastating extreme weather impacts. Despite significant challenges arising from long-term planning requirements and high uncertainties, adaptation policies also present a unique opportunity for public participation. The context-specific nature of local adaptation strategies and their cross-sectoral scope provides an avenue to rethink traditional decision-making processes, facilitating the active involvement of diverse actors in the formulation of these comprehensive, long-term roadmaps. Reconsidering and redefining our perceptions of democracy is equally essential for addressing future environmental changes and socio-economic uncertainties. Participatory decision-making processes can generate multiple benefits, from the formulation of locally responsive policies to the promotion of social learning and the strengthening of social capital. Beyond these functional outcomes, public participation embodies a democratic ideal: fair, inclusive, and egalitarian engagement. However, public participation rarely achieves its normative and democratic promises, despite being frequently cited as a pillar of climate policy. In practice, participation is institutionalised within complex governance arrangements, often reduced to consultative exercises on pre-formulated policies. Furthermore, the concept of participation is often vaguely defined in policy, rendering it discursively malleable and open to diverse interpretations (e.g., what constitutes participation and who should be engaged). This thesis situates itself within this context, aiming to provide new interpretive insights to better understand the role and place of public participation in contemporary decision-making processes. Drawing on Ireland’s experience in formulating and implementing national and local CCA policies, with a particular focus on the North-West region, the research adopts three complementary perspectives to examine public participation. The study deliberately spans from a post-structuralist critique of public participation to an exploration of individual motivations for engagement. The findings reveal profound challenges to public participation at both institutional and individual levels. Beyond structural and practical barriers, public participation discourse and practice is shaped by systematic governmental rationalities, which are reinforced through research. Building on this critique, the thesis goes beyond policy framing to critically examine the experiences of those implementing policy and the perspectives of local residents, highlighting practical-institutional barriers and individuals’ preferences for participation. By integrating both institutional “top-down” and individual “bottom-up” perspectives, the research delineates the constraining space for public participation and highlights two areas requiring particular vigilance in future research and practice on public participation in CCA policies.

Publisher

University of Galway

Rights

CC BY-NC-ND

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Collections

University of Galway Theses (PhD Theses)