Illusion of influence? Public participation in the preparation of climate policies in Finland

Calls for acceptable climate policies render public participation central to climate policy planning. However, implementing participation remains challenging and often limited. To foster more effective and meaningful participation, it is essential to understand how participatory practices and efforts to develop them function in real-world policy processes. We develop this understanding by applying a systemic and relational approach that focuses on public participation as a collective and contextual phenomenon and integrate this with a normative 4D approach for evaluating participation through its capacity to advance dialogue, diversity, deliberation, and to allocate decision-making power. We empirically examine public participation in the preparation of Finland's national climate policies from the perspective of government officials. Our findings show the usefulness of examining participation systemically and including its evaluation. In the Finnish context, the role of decision-making power in the participatory collectives remains weak and requires further attention.