Making Public Participation Equitable Across Race and Employment Sectors

Executive Summary
Democracy depends on more than just voting. Citizens influence local and national governance in many ways: by contacting public officials, attending public meetings, engaging in committee and organizational work, or joining a protest. Public participation helps communities shape policies and services, hold institutions accountable, and strengthen democratic life, but it may not be equally accessible. Who participates, and how, matters.

A new study by SPA Professor Anna Amirkhanyan, with alumni Rui Wang (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics) and William Prince (Georgia Southern University), published in Public Performance & Management Review, finds persistent racial differences in how Americans participate in governance. Drawing on five waves of the nationally representative Current Population Survey Civic Engagement Supplement, they examine nine distinct forms of public participation among Black and White Americans, finding that participation mechanisms differ across racial groups and sectors of employment.
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The Problem
Public participation can improve public decisions by bringing in community knowledge, revealing unmet needs, helping services respond to residents, and building participants’ confidence, awareness, and sense of ownership. These benefits depend, however, on who can participate and whether their contributions carry influence. If participation is concentrated among residents with greater time, money, information, social connections, or familiarity with government, the process can reproduce existing inequalities rather than correct them.

Administrative burden research describes the learning, compliance, and psychological costs that can arise in interactions with government. Residents may need to find information about a meeting, travel to a government building, arrange childcare, comply with registration rules, or feel comfortable speaking in a formal setting. When these institutional practices interact with longstanding racial inequalities, they manifest as so-called racialized burdens.

Further, participation is not a singular activity. Contacting a government official, joining a civic organization, attending a neighborhood meeting, participating in a protest, and engaging through a religious organization or school involve different settings, resources, and relationships. Presently, we know little about how these different forms of participation are used across racial groups.

The Study
The authors analyzed 136,990 employed, non-Hispanic Black and White adults aged 18–80, using five CPS Civic Engagement Supplement waves: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013. The analysis covers nine reported participation strategies and compares workers in public, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors. As observational survey data, these findings identify relationships rather than claiming that race or employment sector alone caused particular participation choices.

Findings

By Race
Even before adjusting for individual characteristics, Black respondents were 9.8 percentage points less likely than White respondents to report any of the nine participation strategies. The unadjusted gap was larger for more formal participation (12.4 percentage points), compared with less formal participation (7.1). Substantively, White Americans are more likely to engage through more formal, institutional channels: contacting government officials, attending organizational meetings, and participating in civic and service organizations. Black Americans, on the other hand, are more likely to engage through neighborhood, school, and faith-based organizations and by joining marches, rallies, and protests. The latter forms of civic engagement, though important, may offer less direct access to government officials, resources, and agenda-setting and decision-making processes that shape public programs and services.

After accounting for age, education, income, work hours, and family responsibilities, the overall difference narrowed but remained statistically significant. Black respondents remained 2.8 percentage points less likely to use at least one engagement strategy and 5.5 points less likely to engage in more formal participation activities.

By Employment Sector
While public- and nonprofit-sector employees participate more than for-profit-sector employees overall, the racial participation difference is larger among government employees. Indeed, public employment is associated with greater participation for both Black and White employees, but the latter group is more likely to take advantage of its resources and opportunities, challenging the expectation that public and nonprofit employment automatically narrows racial gaps. Further, the gaps between sectors were smaller in states where Black representation in government was above the median. These findings suggest disparate access to civic resources and opportunities within government institutions.

Core Implications for Policy and Practice
Racial differences in public participation matter. A community may be civically active yet remain underrepresented in formal agenda setting and policy processes. When some groups face greater barriers to the forms of participation that most directly connect them to government decision-making and benefits, public participation can reinforce rather than reduce existing inequities.

Governments can do more than create opportunities for participation; they can evaluate opportunities to reduce their time, financial, social, and institutional burdens and design multiple pathways for different community groups to shape public policies and services.

Formal processes may sacrifice community knowledge
Agencies relying heavily on public meetings and direct contact with officials may hear mostly from those with the time, information, connections, and confidence to use those channels. If Black residents are more likely to engage through churches, schools, or neighborhood associations, government agencies that are disconnected from these venues may miss their input. Agencies can consider creating multiple credible pathways between community spaces and government decision-making.

Invitations do not remove barriers
A public meeting may be formally open but practically difficult to access. Meeting times, location, transportation, childcare, registration, identification requirements, limited notice, inaccessible language, and fear of disrespect or retaliation can affect who shows up and who speaks. In the study’s theoretical framework, participation is shaped not only by individual interest but also by the costs and climate of engagement.

Representation requires supportive conditions
Government and nonprofit employment may enhance civic knowledge, networks, and opportunities, but these resources may not benefit all employees equally. The study’s findings indicate that sector alone is not a reliable remedy for racial disparities. Agencies should evaluate and monitor workplace culture, access to informal networks, and employee perceptions of safe engagement.

Recommendations for Agencies: How to Improve Public Participation Across Race

Implementation Priorities

1. Map current participation routes. Identify formal and community-based opportunities, who runs them, and what barriers different resident groups report.
2. Co-design changes. Work with community partners and residents—especially those least represented in existing processes—to identify and implement feasible improvements.
3. Pilot accessible formats. Test changes such as varied meeting times, remote input, community-hosted discussions, and simplified procedures.
4. Close the feedback loop. Publicly document input received and its impact on decisions.
5. Review results and adjust. Compare reach, participation, and influence across demographic groups, then revise the process based on evidence.

Within agencies, leaders should make clear that inclusive participation is part of democratic administration and effective service delivery—not an optional outreach activity. Their staff may need time, training, resources, authority, and guidance to build relationships and follow through. The following sections break down these strategies.

Reduce participation costs.

• Offer varied meeting times, accessible locations, and remote or asynchronous options.
• Use plain-language invitations and visuals featuring inclusive settings; provide interpretation and accessible formats; and offer childcare or transportation support where feasible.
• Avoid excessive procedural requirements or language.
• Provide accessible educational materials on public policies and programs on which citizens might comment.

Provide multiple routes to contributing to decision-making.

• Combine public meetings and advisory bodies with community discussions, listening sessions, surveys, and written, phone, online, and in-person input.
• Digital tools should complement—not replace—community-based options. Co-design formats with affected residents.

Partner with trusted institutions.

• Work regularly with neighborhood, school, faith-based, and community organizations.
• Report what agencies hear and why some suggestions are not adopted.

Broaden access to advisory roles.

• Use open calls, transparent selection criteria, term limits, incentives, and proactive recruitment to reduce reliance on established networks.

Support inclusive workplaces.

• Train supervisors on equitable engagement, employee civic activity, and legal restrictions.
• Provide mentoring and review workplace norms that may make some employee groups fear retaliation or reputational harm.
• Enhance access to leadership and decision-making networks.

Evaluate influence, not just attendance.

• Measure and track who learns about opportunities, who participates and how, whose voices are absent, and whether input affects decisions.
• Examine differences by race/ethnicity, sector, geography, income, and other characteristics.
• Protect privacy, use findings to improve processes, and report results to communities.

Limitations and Future Work
While the study offers a useful baseline, participation channels, technology, political conditions, and employment environments have changed since 2013. Further, the analysis focuses on Black–White differences and excludes unemployed people, people over 80 years of age, and respondents reporting multiple races or ethnicities. The survey data does not allow us to fully identify the organizations or levels of government involved in each engagement activity. Results therefore should not be assumed to describe every community or participation pattern. Finally, agencies should use the findings as a reason to evaluate and monitor local citizen participation trends, not as a substitute for local evidence. Updated surveys, community-led assessments, and evaluations of specific engagement processes can show whether barriers persist and whether reforms work.

Conclusion
Equitable participation requires more than opening a meeting or diversifying a workforce. The study finds that Black and White Americans often engage through different channels, and that formal participation gaps persist after accounting for measured socioeconomic differences. Public and nonprofit employees participate more than for-profit employees, but employment in these sectors alone does not close racial gaps. The findings instead point to the need for inclusive processes, lower participation burdens, stronger community–government connections, and workplace conditions that make civic engagement feasible and safe.

For public agencies and nonprofit partners, the crucial test is not only whether residents were invited, but whether people with different resources and experiences could participate—and whether their contributions helped shape public decisions.