Recent years have seen a rapidly growing trend of outsourcing elements of public participation from public institutions to external citizen engagement consultants (CECs). This study examined this phenomenon using the theoretical framework of epistemic in/justice. It is based on a sequential deductive-inductive analysis of interviews with public administrators, private CECs, and citizens, all involved in participative initiatives in localities across Israel. While previous research on public participation has focused primarily on the dyadic relationship between governing institutions and selected beneficiaries of their services, the findings of the present study enable offering some observations about what happens when this dyad turns into a triad. A critical review of the findings suggests that while outsourcing public participation is often presented using discourses of progress and inclusion, in fact, it may preserve, or even deepen, epistemic injustices, especially for citizens belonging to vulnerable and marginalized communities.

中文翻译：

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将公众参与外包给外部顾问：对认知正义的观察

近年来，将公共参与的要素从公共机构外包给外部公民参与顾问 (CEC) 的趋势迅速增长。本研究使用认知不公正的理论框架来检验这一现象。它基于对公共行政人员、私人 CEC 和公民的访谈的顺序演绎-归纳分析，他们都参与了以色列各地的参与计划。虽然之前关于公众参与的研究主要集中在治理机构与其服务的选定受益人之间的二元关系，但本研究的结果能够提供一些关于当这种二元组变成三元组时会发生什么的观察。