Climbing Up or Down? An Overview of the Ten Years of Citizen Participation in Malaysian Public Sector Project
Keywords:
citizen participation, malaysia, ladder of participation, public-sector projectsAbstract
The Government of Malaysia has been promoting citizen participation since the enactment of the country’s Town and Planning Act 1976 (Act 172). The Shared Prosperity Vision 2030, which can be interpreted as the commitment of the Malaysian Government to accelerate the country’s sustainable growth, reaffirmed the Government’s intention to enhance citizen participation in Malaysia’s public affairs. But do average citizens really have the chance to engage in public-sector projects? This work intends to discover the extent to which the Malaysian public had the opportunity to participate in public sector projects. Based on Arnstein’s ladder of participation, the present work analyzes citizen participation in Malaysia for ten years. The findings signify that the general people’s opportunity to engage in Malaysia’s public-sector projects has eventually increased within the last ten years. Nevertheless, the levels of participation were still considerably low, suggesting tokenism as the highest level of participation that the Malaysian public can negotiate. Finally, the work highlights the importance of the Malaysian government to overcome the barriers to enable higher level of citizen participation in the country.
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