Public participation is a collective term for a variety of procedures aimed at involving stakeholders and ordinary people in decisions that may affect them. It is playing an increasingly important role in many democratic societies. Consequently, it has provided the impetus for a number of scientific studies. Most studies of public participation view the subject from a macro-level perspective; they focus on the criteria against which successful public involvement processes should be measured, the institutional arrangements and legal framework needed to achieve such success, etc. By contrast, relatively few studies have adopted a micro-level approach to public participation. Such an approach would entail concentrating on its psychosocial dynamics – in other words, on the behaviour and experience of individual participants, the relationships that form between individuals, the manner in which these shape deliberation and decision-making, etc. The aim of this study was therefore to address the aforementioned imbalance. It took the form of an integrative literature review encompassing publications in the fields of psychology and public participation. Its objectives were (a) to develop a theory of the psychosocial dynamics of public participation; (b) on the basis of this theory, to identify ways in which the effectiveness of public involvement processes might be enhanced; and (c) to propose avenues for future research in the field. Systems theory was chosen as a meta-theoretical framework to guide the process of theory-building. Systems theory may be defined as the study of interrelationships between the properties of whole systems and the properties and organisation of their component elements. Hence, it provided a means of demonstrating how the micro-level aspects of a public participation process (such as the actions, motives and perceptions of individual participants) interact with macro-level variables (such as the cultural and socio-political milieu in which it is embedded) to shape its course and outcomes. On the basis of the study, five complementary models of public participation were constructed. The first three models depict the macro-level characteristics of public participation. These set the stage for the remaining two models, which encompass both its macro- and micro-level dynamics. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / No romance A defesa Lujin, de Vladimir Nabokov, publicado em russo em 1930, o texto procura levar o leitor a adotar processos mentais similares ao de um jogador de xadrez e de um esquizofrênico, características do personagem-título do romance. Delineiam-se as expectativas e circunstâncias de um ser de papel que se vê jogando um xadrez em que também é peça e traçam-se paralelos com as expectativas e circunstâncias do leitor perante esse texto literário. O prefácio de Nabokov à edição em inglês de 1964 é tomado como indício de um leitor e um autor implícitos que ele procura moldar. Para análise dos elementos textuais e níveis de abstração mental envolvidos, recorre-se à estética da recepção de Wolfgang Iser e a diversas ideias do psiquiatra e etnólogo Gregory Bateson, entre elas o conceito de duplo vínculo, com atenção às distinções entre mapa/território e play/game. Um duplo duplo vínculo é perpetrado na interação leitor-texto: 1) o leitor é convidado a sentir empatia pela situação do personagem Lujin e a considerá-lo lúcido e louco ao mesmo tempo; e 2) o leitor é colocado como uma instância pseudo-transcendental incapaz de comunicação com a instância inferior (Lujin), gerando uma angústia diretamente relacionável ao seu envolvimento com a ficção, replicando de certa forma a loucura de Lujin. A sinestesia do personagem Lujin é identificada como um dos elementos do texto capaz de recriar a experiência de jogar xadrez até para quem não aprecia o jogo. Analisa-se a conexão entre a esquizofrenia ficcional do personagem Lujin e a visão batesoniana do alcoolismo / In Vladimir Nabokovs novel, The Luzhin Defense, published in Russian in 1930, the text beckons the reader on to adopt mental processes similar to a chess players and a schizophrenic persons both traits of the novels title character. This character sees himself both as player and piece of an ongoing game of chess; his expectations and predicaments are traced in parallel to the readers own as he or she navigates the text. Nabokovs preface to the 1964 English edition is taken as an indication that he tries to shape both an implicit reader and an implicit author. In order to analyze the elements of the text and degrees of mental abstraction involved in this, we refer to Wolfgang Isers reader-response theory and also many of psychiatrist and ethnologist Gregory Batesons ideas, such as the double bind, with special regard to map vs. territory and play vs. game distinctions. A double double bind is built within the reader-text interplay as follows: 1) the reader is invited to feel empathy for Luzhins predicament and to regard him at once as sane and insane; and 2) the reader is posited as a pseudo-transcendental instance unable to communicate with his nether instance (Luzhin) in such a way that it brews a feeling of anxiety directly relatable to his or her engagement in the work of fiction, reproducing, in a way, Luzhins madness. Luzhins synesthesia is identified as one of the text elements with the ability to recreate the chess-playing experience even to readers who are not fond of the game. The connection between Luzhins fictional schizophrenia and Batesons views on alcoholism is analyzed

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / No romance A defesa Lujin, de Vladimir Nabokov, publicado em russo em 1930, o texto procura levar o leitor a adotar processos mentais similares ao de um jogador de xadrez e de um esquizofrênico, características do personagem-título do romance. Delineiam-se as expectativas e circunstâncias de um ser de papel que se vê jogando um xadrez em que também é peça e traçam-se paralelos com as expectativas e circunstâncias do leitor perante esse texto literário. O prefácio de Nabokov à edição em inglês de 1964 é tomado como indício de um leitor e um autor implícitos que ele procura moldar. Para análise dos elementos textuais e níveis de abstração mental envolvidos, recorre-se à estética da recepção de Wolfgang Iser e a diversas ideias do psiquiatra e etnólogo Gregory Bateson, entre elas o conceito de duplo vínculo, com atenção às distinções entre mapa/território e play/game. Um duplo duplo vínculo é perpetrado na interação leitor-texto: 1) o leitor é convidado a sentir empatia pela situação do personagem Lujin e a considerá-lo lúcido e louco ao mesmo tempo; e 2) o leitor é colocado como uma instância pseudo-transcendental incapaz de comunicação com a instância inferior (Lujin), gerando uma angústia diretamente relacionável ao seu envolvimento com a ficção, replicando de certa forma a loucura de Lujin. A sinestesia do personagem Lujin é identificada como um dos elementos do texto capaz de recriar a experiência de jogar xadrez até para quem não aprecia o jogo. Analisa-se a conexão entre a esquizofrenia ficcional do personagem Lujin e a visão batesoniana do alcoolismo / In Vladimir Nabokovs novel, The Luzhin Defense, published in Russian in 1930, the text beckons the reader on to adopt mental processes similar to a chess players and a schizophrenic persons both traits of the novels title character. This character sees himself both as player and piece of an ongoing game of chess; his expectations and predicaments are traced in parallel to the readers own as he or she navigates the text. Nabokovs preface to the 1964 English edition is taken as an indication that he tries to shape both an implicit reader and an implicit author. In order to analyze the elements of the text and degrees of mental abstraction involved in this, we refer to Wolfgang Isers reader-response theory and also many of psychiatrist and ethnologist Gregory Batesons ideas, such as the double bind, with special regard to map vs. territory and play vs. game distinctions. A double double bind is built within the reader-text interplay as follows: 1) the reader is invited to feel empathy for Luzhins predicament and to regard him at once as sane and insane; and 2) the reader is posited as a pseudo-transcendental instance unable to communicate with his nether instance (Luzhin) in such a way that it brews a feeling of anxiety directly relatable to his or her engagement in the work of fiction, reproducing, in a way, Luzhins madness. Luzhins synesthesia is identified as one of the text elements with the ability to recreate the chess-playing experience even to readers who are not fond of the game. The connection between Luzhins fictional schizophrenia and Batesons views on alcoholism is analyzed