This research is part of the Values4Water project, which includes TU Delft, Waterschap de Dommel, Deltares, Royal HaskoningDHV and Synmind as consortium partners. Policymaking can involve as many perspectives as there are stakeholders. In case of complex societal policies, many interpretations of the problem are possible and often there is no optimal solution. Such problems have also been referred to as wicked problems. Stakeholders are increasingly participating in policymaking to ensure that all perspectives are considered. In a wicked problem, stakeholder perspectives can be so different that they are conflicting. So before a solution can be accepted, stakeholders need mutual understanding of each others’ perspectives. This thesis uses a dialogic action research approach to explore the role of values in facilitating mutual understanding by using deliberation, not necessarily to find consensus but to allow for the exploration of stakeholder perspectives. @en

Stakeholder participation is a requirement for environmental decision-making in the European Union. Despite this, numerous instances can be seen in water governance in which stakeholders feel undervalued and unheard, thereby creating unfavourable procedural outcomes, resistance and conflict. In this article, we propose that a process of early-stage deliberation constructed around the values of the stakeholders involved can reduce, and even prevent such conflicts. We suggest that if values that stakeholders perceive as relevant can be identified and discussed as part of the deliberation process then (1) stakeholder preferences can change, and (2) participants can develop a mutual understanding of each other’s values and perspectives. To explore these propositions, facilitated workshops were conducted at two Dutch water institutes, based around the topics of land subsidence and the pharmaceutical contamination of water systems. Participants deliberated on values that they considered relevant. The results suggest that mutual understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives increases as a result of value-based deliberation.

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To better understand the impact of deliberations during participatory policymaking events, we introduce and explore the concept of group proximity. An example of such events is citizens' summits, during which many parallel groups deliberate on solutions for a policy issue. At the summit that was studied, each group followed a value deliberation process with the aim to increase mutual understanding among participants. They were asked to rank the solutions in their order of preference before and after the deliberation. From these rankings, group proximity can be calculated with a rank correlation, enabling a precise comparison of participants' preferences in each deliberative group. High group proximity indicates very similar rankings in a deliberative group, while low group proximity demonstrates the opposite. Comparing group proximity of the before and after rankings shows if a group ranked convergent, unchanged or divergent. This measure allows for a quantitative analysis of early-stage public policymaking processes.

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The development of water infrastructure is a long and complex process that involves multiple stakeholders, multiple scales, various sub-systems and relations of dependence among stakeholders. Stakeholder participation is increasingly seen as an indispensable element of water policymaking. The failure to address stakeholders’ underlying values, however, may create or exacerbate conflicts. In this chapter, we address the difficulty of approaching stakeholder participation in terms of conflicting interests. We illustrate this with an urban flood prevention case, followed by a categorisation of the difficulties presented by such processes. Instead of pursuing an interest-oriented approach, we suggest taking a step back in order to discern the influence of differing conceptions of shared values on multi-stakeholder decision-making processes. The goal of this chapter is to achieve a better understanding of the difficulties entailed in interest-driven decision-making processes in water governance, and how it could be beneficial to pursue a value-sensitive approach in such situations.@en

Decision-making processes involving multiple stakeholders can be rather cumbersome, turbulent and lengthy. The stance of some stakeholders, upholding their individual interests, can slowdown or even block such processes. Recent research suggests that a focus on the values of the stakeholders could benefit those decision-making processes. However, the role of the values is not yet fully understood. To investigate the interaction between values, norms, and resulting actions in decision-making processes, we introduce a conceptual model to explore the relations between these concepts. The conceptual model presented in this paper is a first step towards a framework to model decision-making processes with the aim of understanding the role that values play in decision-making processes.@en

Decision-making processes in policy making with multiple-stakeholders can be complex because of the technically advanced systems that are decided upon, e.g. water management systems. But the complexity is often also caused by social dependencies and interests at stake. This can lead to processes in which stakeholders firmly defend their interests, resulting in behavior that is so defensive that it severely blocks the process. For this reason, policy makers are trying to find a di↵erent approach.@en