Citizen Participation In Urban NIMBY Conflict Governance

With the rapid development of urbanization,in order to meet residents’ expectations for a beautiful city and improve the quality of urban development,the construction and operation of NIMBY facilities that can better meet the needs of residents,such as power stations,waste treatment plants and nursing homes,have been included in the policy agenda.However,the benefits of these facilities are enjoyed by the majority of people in the region,while the risks are borne by the few.At the same time,it has all kinds of unavoidable risks,which will cause obvious or hidden threats to the health,environment,life and property of the people living in it.Citizens are bound to actively seek to participate in policy agendas and raise NIMBY demands out of perceptions and concerns about facility risks,thereby safeguarding their political and environmental rights.However,the reality is that there are limited ways for citizens to participate,and NIMBY demands cannot be responded to in a timely and reasonable manner,which eventually leads to endless NIMBY conflicts.In the sense of political science,only when citizens are accustomed to defending their own interests can their interests be spared from being ignored,despised or excluded.In a modern country,every citizen has the equal right to express interests and equal participation in public decision-making.The size of a country’s governance,the complexity of public affairs and the agenda itself make it impossible for every citizen to directly participate in it.Therefore,only the combination of government elites and citizen representatives can provide the most effective solutions.NIMBY conflict is a comprehensive and complex social governance problem,which is related to the stability of political,economic and social order.Different subjects also have differentiated and diversified interest demands.Therefore,open NIMBY conflict governance is needed,citizen participation is the core issue of open NIMBY conflict governance.In the current NIMBY incidents in China,citizens’ participation in urban NIMBY conflict governance has the corresponding practical conditions and fundamental motivations:on the one hand,the continuous growth of social forces and the continuous expansion of the right to speak in public spaces provide realistic conditions for citizens to participate in NIMBY conflict governance;on the other hand,avoiding NIMBY facilities from causing damage to one’s own material and spiritual interests provides a fundamental impetus for citizens to participate in NIMBY conflict governance.Based on this,this paper focuses on the elements,value and effectiveness of citizen participation in urban NIMBY conflict governance.Among them,the elements are the foundation,including four basic contents:risk perception,joint decision-making,interest balance and closed-loop feedback;value is the core,including three values that help to enhance citizens’ legitimacy of the government’s formulation of NIMBY conflict governance plans,enhance the government’s credibility for subsequent involvement in NIMBY conflict governance,and improve citizens’ political ability to participate in NIMBY conflict governance;efficiency is the guarantee,including improving the government’s NIMBY governance capability,reducing the operating cost of enterprise NIMBY facilities,and promoting the supply of NIMBY facilities that conform to spatial justice.However,citizens also have some difficulties in participating in urban NIMBY conflict governance.Therefore,in order to solve the problem of NIMBY conflict more effectively,this paper proposes five optimization paths:the first is to correct the deformed structure between the subjects of NIMBY conflict governance,the second is to strengthen the legalization of the entire process of NIMBY governance,the third is to improve the public platform for NIMBY information,the fourth is to play the role of a bridge for social and environmental protection organizations in NIMBY conflict governance,and fifth is to cultivate the negotiation awareness and ability of those who have lost interests.