Public policies in a democratic society should be made within a legal structure. Within the legal scope, there are two extreme ends of legal authorizations: one made by the head of the institution – approval based on the professional judgment by the governing authority, and the other made by referendum in which each citizen has one vote in the final decision. However, there are several decision-making processes that fall between the two ends. Examples include representative system and approaches advocated by Environmental Protection Administration that involve citizen participation, including World Café meetings, consensus meetings, expert meetings, review meetings, or public hearings. The book compiles the works by Environmental Protection Administration of Ministry of Economic Affairs on promotion of policies and projects on environmental issues during the five-year period from 2008 to 2012. More specifically, the book provides 17 case studies with significance in citizen participations as reference for readers in understanding citizen actions in relevant issues.

Citizen participation;environment policies;and environment protection