This paper explores how experts involved in river management projects in Switzerland consider public participation. It reflects on the consequences that these considerations have on the potential for participation to become a political space. Public participation has become a standard practice in river management at the European level since the 1990s. In Switzerland, the federal government incentivises public participation in river‐work projects through guidelines and additional subsidies for projects planned in a participatory way, with the goal of avoiding costly conflicts. Based on an analysis of expert discourses, we examine how experts activate three different arguments to depoliticise participation: that participation should be implemented to ensure acceptance of the project; that the exclusion of some actors is justified based on assumptions about the type of knowledge required for participation; and that disagreement should not be expressed within participatory processes but through representative politics. We conclude that the consistent motivation of experts to depoliticise also indicates a potential for participation to become political, which is worth exploring with new perspectives for engaging the public.

中文翻译：

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当专家感到受到威胁时：参与性河流修复项目中的非政治化策略

本文探讨了参与瑞士河流管理项目的专家如何考虑公众参与。它反映了这些考虑因素对参与成为政治空间的潜力所产生的后果。自1990年代以来，公众参与已成为欧洲河流管理的标准做法。在瑞士，联邦政府通过指南和对参与计划的项目的额外补贴，鼓励公众参与河道工程，目的是避免代价高昂的冲突。在对专家话语进行分析的基础上，我们研究了专家如何激活三种不同的论点来使参与非政治化：应实施参与以确保项目被接受；根据关于参与所需知识类型的假设，排除某些行为者是合理的；这种分歧不应在参与性过程中表达，而应通过代议制政治表达。我们得出的结论是，专家们一贯的去政治化动机也表明了参与政治的潜力，这值得用新的视角来探索以吸引公众。