Arnstein’s ladder – Integration and Implementation Insights

Mobilizing the Arnstein Gap for better planning

March 18, 2025

By Keiron Bailey.

What is the Arnstein Gap? How can the Arnstein Gap usefully inform future citizen or stakeholder engagement?

Arnstein’s Ladder and the Arnstein Gap

Let’s begin with a brief reminder of Arnstein’s Ladder, which is a description of eight levels of public participation in government decision making developed by Sherry Arnstein in 1969 and illustrated in the figure below. More detail is available in the i2Insights blog post Stakeholder engagement: Learning from Arnstein’s ladder and the IAP2 spectrum by Gabriele Bammer.

In 2006 my colleague Dr. Ted Grossardt and I introduced the Arnstein Gap (Bailey and Grossardt, 2006), which is the difference between the perceived and desired levels of public involvement according to Arnstein’s Ladder.

Children as research actors

August 8, 2023July 25, 2023

By Frédéric Darbellay and Zoe Moody

authors_frederic-darbellay_zoe-moody — 1. Frédéric Darbellay (biography)
2. Zoe Moody (biography)

From a transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge perspective, how can children’s capacity for reflection, analysis, curiosity, discovery and creativity be recognized? Why and how can the involvement of children in the research process be promoted by giving them a co-researcher status? Based on our experience of research on and with children, we present the main issues and potential of this type of research.

1. Research with Children

Recent developments in the fields of childhood studies and children’s rights studies highlight the benefits of carrying out research with and for children rather than about them.

Research with children is based on a horizontal model of knowledge production, that recognizes children as the real experts on what it is like to “be a child.”

Stakeholder engagement: Learning from Arnstein’s ladder and the IAP2 spectrum

December 1, 2025August 30, 2022

By Gabriele Bammer

gabriele-bammer_nov-2021 — Gabriele Bammer (biography)

What can researchers interested in stakeholder engagement learn from two classic frameworks on citizen involvement in government decision making – Arnstein’s ladder and the IAP2 (International Association for Public Participation) spectrum of public participation?

Arnstein’s ladder

Sherry Arnstein (1969) developed an eight-rung ladder, shown in the figure below, to illustrate that there are significant gradations of citizen participation in government decision making.

The two bottom rungs are manipulation and therapy. Manipulation refers to putting citizens on “rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards” (p. 218) to “educate” them or engineer their support. Therapy involves changing the citizen view of the problem.

A flexible framework for stakeholder engagement

September 11, 2024October 23, 2018

By Michelle Banfield

How can stakeholder engagement in research be effectively planned? What parameters need to be taken into account? How can flexibility be built in to accommodate different levels of researcher and stakeholder experience?

The framework presented here was developed for health services research, but is more broadly applicable. The framework has three separate dimensions.

The stakeholders to involve
The stages of the research at which they will be involved
The level of involvement for each stakeholder group at each stage.

Lessons from “real-world laboratories” about transdisciplinary projects, transformative research and participation

December 19, 2024March 22, 2018

By Antonietta Di Giulio and Rico Defila

authors_antonietta-di-giulio_rico-defila — 1. Antonietta Di Giulio (biography)
2. Rico Defila (biography)

In Germany there has recently been a heated debate about the need for, and the justification of, so-called “transformative research”. At the same time, German funders are increasingly supporting research in “real-world laboratories” and these explicitly aim to bring about social change. We lead an accompanying research project (“Begleitforschung” in German) in a real-world laboratory program of research in Baden-Württemberg (see Schäpke et al., (2015) for more information). This has led us to reflect upon the relationship between transdisciplinary research and transformative research, and how this impacts on how we think about participation in research. We share some preliminary ideas here.

Are more stakeholders better?

September 11, 2024November 21, 2017

By Eleanor Sterling

Participatory modeling, by definition, involves engaging “stakeholders” in decision making. But determining which stakeholders to involve, when, and how is a delicate balance. Early writings on stakeholder engagement methods represent engagement along a linear continuum from non-participatory to citizen-controlled decision making.

Non-participatory methods could include stakeholders passively receiving pre-set information, with no input to content or delivery (eg., public information campaigns). Fully collaborative partnerships (eg., participatory action research projects) involve co-creation of knowledge, co-identification of issues, and co-framing of and implementation of solutions.

Is co-creation more than participation?

September 5, 2024July 28, 2016

By Katrin Prager

Co-creation, and related terms like co-design, co-production, co-construction and co-innovation, are becoming increasingly popular. Upon closer scrutiny they share many characteristics with participatory processes. Is there a difference between the two – co-creation and participation – and if yes, what is it?

Let us first look at participation. Not all participatory processes are the same. They differ with regard to who is involved, who initiated the process and for what reason, the anticipated outcomes, the duration, the context in which it takes place, and who has control over the process and outcomes.