Enacting legitimate concerns: constituting and managing stakeholder involvement

The project investigates how rationales for stakeholder involvement in planning and decision-making processes interplay with concrete technologies of engagement. When participatory procedures are deployed in processes of decision-making and planning, the meaning of who is concerned as well as what issues concern them are by default translated in ways that are seen as manageable. Methods and techniques for engaging the public or stakeholders have concrete effects through enabling the inclusion, articulation and amplification of some voices, issues and concerns, at the expense of others - thus enacting democracy in practice in different ways. The research is based on a qualitative case study design.