Scoones, Ian

This article provides an overview of the commentaries received during the e-forum on Participatory Processes for Policy Change. Four areas are considered. Firstly, regarding issues of evidence, the debate raised important questions around the positivist versus more reflective views of knowledge in policy making. The second concerns issues of representation. Many actors emphasise the need for the poor to speak for themselves, but questions arise: who are the poor? And are their voices being heard?

This issue of PLA notes features a set of methodological and conceptual reflections and lessons on the use of Deliberative and Inclusionary Processes (DIPs) which grew out of a citizen jury and scenario workshop in southern India. The articles in this issue do not take the usual approach of PLA Notes of case studies and examples of methods in action, but present a set of conceptual and methodological reflections on the Indian experiment and its implications for citizen engagement in policy processes.

This brief article summarizes a review that explored Deliberative and Inclusionary Processes (DIPs) taking place in 35 Northern and Southern countries, all centred around environmental policy processes. It outlines some key conclusions drawn, such as the importance of linking participatory events to wider policy networks and policy change, the problems of framing the debate and thus the exclusion of certain actors and the inevitable power relations which occur meaning that communication between actors is never ideal. The article also highlights other potential problems concerning DIPs.