In the United States, forest governance practices have utilized a variety of public participation mechanisms to improve decision-making and instill public legitimacy. However, comments, one of the most frequent and accessible avenues for the public to provide input, has received little attention. Further, there has been no analysis of the ways that government actors utilize this form of public participation in their decision-making. I empirically examine responses to public comments across the United States Forest Service to understand how they handle and deal with public feedback on forestry projects. I employed two qualitative approaches that examine comment handling processes and agency justifications for responding to comments. Through this empirical work, I found that agency employees utilize a range of strategies to handle and respond to public concerns. I present data suggestive that most public comments received are outside of agency personnel decision-making capacity and thus, personnel respond to comments in ways that deny their worth and block those concerns from project agenda setting. Understanding how the United States Forest Service thinks about and deals with public input will help forest managers and public commenters better negotiate efficacy in projects and decisions that affect forestland areas.

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公众参与是公共包容吗？评论在美国林务局决策中的作用

在美国，森林治理实践利用各种公众参与机制来改进决策和灌输公共合法性。然而，评论是公众提供意见的最常见和最容易获得的途径之一，却很少受到关注。此外，也没有对政府行为者在其决策中利用这种公众参与形式的方式进行分析。我凭经验检查了美国林务局对公众意见的回应，以了解他们如何处理和处理对林业项目的公众反馈。我采用了两种定性方法来检查评论处理流程和机构回应评论的理由。通过这项实证工作，我发现机构员工利用一系列策略来处理和回应公众的关注。我提供的数据表明，收到的大多数公众意见都超出了机构人员的决策能力，因此，人员对意见的回应方式否认了他们的价值，并阻止了项目议程设置中的这些问题。了解美国林务局如何考虑和处理公众意见将有助于森林管理者和公众评论者更好地协商影响林地区域的项目和决策的有效性。