Stakeholders Participation Operational Is Well

¶ … stakeholders participation operational is well supported. However, the central idea presented have been presented in the introduction. The introduction remains fixated on the broad idea and the narrower focus is provided only later. It would do well to the stakeholder ownership issue in the introduction. This is a basic presentation technique that the major ideas need to be presented (even just briefly in the introduction, stated in the body and then repeated in the conclusion.

In the FACA essay, the author later explains why the central idea is important to the body of literature on the subject. The idea is linked to what is probably the central and most important social/political in American democracy. The only problem with the research is that it is not topical enough. The information is from 2004 and 2005. Certainly, studies must exist that have looked at this issue in the last five years. The significance of the problem is clear and persuasive. However, what could improve the essay would be to not just look at the efforts of the boards to promote the engagement of citizens in government to prevent the revolving door. For instance, in a 2008 Penn State Law School report, it pegged transparency as the biggest issue for FACA. This report sees transparency and representation as two sides of the same coin to enhance rule making quality and legitimacy in the FACA process. Public participation is made up of a variety of opportunities for citizen stakeholders,

businesses, nongovernmental organizations and other people outside of the federal government to comment upon and contribute to change by proposing new rules or about how to make FACA work under current regulations. Transparency and public participation both have the opportunity to promote legitimacy in the committee structure by strengthening connections between public and government agencies. Both of these can help improve the quality of the agency rule making process. Transparency is a factor that helps ensure informed and meaningful and public participation by ensuring informed and meaningful public participation from the lower echelons of stockholders that will inform agency rule makers in how to perform (Coglianese, Kilmartin & Mendelson, 2008, v).

The FACA essay might be made stronger by emphasizing and focusing upon the people involved in the corruption. After all, as we have noted above, FACA is a well established, forty-year-old process for keeping the business of committees open to the building and limiting the growth of advisory committees and their power. Therefore, the key is to make sure that information is distributed via the database FACA mandates. This is used by Congress to facilitate their oversight of related Executive Branch programs and committees. It needs to be kept searchable and in an available format to inform the public in general, members of the media and other stakeholders to get news of important developments stemming from advisory committee actions. Additionally (and probably most importantly), it is necessary to make sure that the lower echelons of political stakeholders (i.e., the voters) stay empowered especially during election years.

As mentioned above, the author uses scholarly sources. However, they are not sufficiently topical. By engaging in a review of more current literature (especially grassroots efforts), it would be possible to engage in longitudinal research of what has transpired since 2004 and 2005. The author should argue for new ways to facilitate direct citizen involvement, because this is necessary to make sure FACA works and stays responsive. For this reason, direct grassroots citizen involvement efforts (especially using social media and the Internet) need to be examined to see how they are dealing with the issue of FACA problems. For instance, the Penn State Law Study advocates more use of the Internet to increase the participation of the lower ranking public stakeholders (Coglianese, Kilmartin & Mendelson, 2008, vi).

The Revolving Door

This leads of course directly to the Revolving Door phenomenon." Obviously, FACA is not the only possible venue that is available to deal with the problem of the revolving door. As mentioned in Barlyn, several states have their own Revolving Door prohibitions on former officeholders or government employees, or in lobbying activity restrictions for those engaged now or recently in public office (Barlyn, 2011). Such measures at the state and federal level have not been effective. Again, as mentioned above, the only way that laws and executive orders get followed is to have public pressure relentlessly placed upon politicians from the public below them. This is where theory will have to be engaged in enabling the stakeholders to become more involved in the process.