From complexity to policy: Exploring the motivations behind choices in the Participatory Value Evaluation of the National Environmental Program

Abstract

The major social issues currently faced by the Dutch government require the involvement of all stakeholders early in the policy-making process. A Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) is a public participation method in which citizens can advise the government on a specific decision-making problem. The PVE information is becoming increasingly complex these days. This complexity makes it more challenging to process and accurately present this information to policymakers. Therefore, ensuring that this complexity of citizens’ opinions is preserved and communicated to policy-makers is essential. The PVE yields two types of information; the selection of policy options in the choice task generates quantitative data, while the motivations underlying the choices provide qualitative data. It is common to estimate a quantitative Latent Class Cluster Analysis (LCCA) model to get an overview of the population perspectives emerging from the PVE, but this has never been done with qualitative data, while the written arguments reflect the ideas, concerns, and values of PVE participants. Therefore, to investigate this knowledge gap, the following research question has been formulated:

What is the added value for policy-making of including the qualitative arguments from a Participatory Value Evaluation alongside the quantitative data in the Latent Class Cluster Analysis?

The Participatory Value Evaluation of the National Environmental Program (NMP) has been used as the case for this research. The qualitative arguments were coded with Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) to include them in the LCCA.

It can be concluded that in the case of the NMP PVE, there was added value in including qualitative arguments in the LCCA. Not in the way of adjusting policies but to adjust governmental communication strategies accordingly. Additionally, because the complexity of citizens' opinions is preserved and communicated to policy-makers, this can lead to better policies that are more responsive to citizens' needs and concerns. Finally, citizens may feel more recognised and heard when the qualitative data is analysed comprehensively.\\

Next to this societal impact, this research also has an academic impact. It has never been tried to include the qualitative data of a PVE in an LCCA. This research has answered the curiosity of PVE researchers to analyse qualitative arguments more thoroughly. From a broader perspective, there was a lack of literature on a method to include qualitative data in an LCCA and an assessment of its added value. This study revealed that a qualitative LCCA model can serve as an additional validation step of the quantitative LCCA model.

The following recommendations are proposed to further optimise this new method: 1) Explore ways to standardise the QCA method, 2) Investigate the possibilities of automated QCA methods to save time, 3) Test the qualitative method on multiple cases and 4) Explore how governmental communication strategies can be tailored based on qualitative data to reach different subgroups effectively.