Citizens’ participation and open government: a case of mining concession in Liberia

Citizen participation and open government are usually considered cardinal aspects for achieving sustainable development as it is argued by many theorists that citizens’ partic-ipation and open government has positive effects on the quality of development outcome. This research examines the possibility of this claim for local participation in mining con-cession decision-making processes in Liberia. The research focuses on understanding how the local community’s involvement in development initiatives can enhance the ne-gotiation and design of mining concessions. The findings show that the role of local com-munities in mining concession decision-making in Liberia is limited. Nonetheless, I ar-gued that citizen participation and open government in several ways have positive effects on development processes as it leads to making people not only consider themselves re-sponsible but it also allows them to engage more and support the bringing of a plurality of voices on the table, it enhances collaboration, and it additionally brings about legiti-macy in decision-making. On the other hand, all relevant groups are not always repre-sented which is considered a negative effect. The researcher, therefore, argues that in order for development processes to be healthy, it is prudent to have the local community involved and have a direct say in all spheres of development decision-making.