Who actually decides
when you say you consulted
Sherry Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation, made clickable. Eight rungs, from decisions a community controls outright down to consultations held after the decision. Open any rung for the Indian law, scheme or judgment that puts a real practice on it, with the source and year given.
Each rung also says what its placement leaves unsettled.
The ladder belongs to Sherry R. Arnstein, from “A Ladder of Citizen Participation”, Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4), July 1969. ImpactMojo added the Indian evidence. Full credits ↓
Eight things get called participation. Only three move any power.
Arnstein’s argument was that the word covers eight quite different arrangements, and gets used most often for the ones that transfer nothing. Her rungs sort them by one test: what could the citizen actually change?
Where the ladder is contested
A ladder implies you should climb it. Practitioners have argued since 1969 that some decisions warrant consultation and no more, and that handing a community full control can be a way for the state to shed a duty it should be discharging.
The ladder also has one axis. It measures how much power moved, never which citizens received it, so a village can climb a rung on the strength of the people who already ran it. The Wheel of Power & Powerlessness asks that second question.
And a scheme does not sit on one rung everywhere. The same programme lands differently by district. What is placed here is the design rather than the delivery.
Eight rungs, each with its evidence
Tap any rung. On a keyboard, tab to a rung and press Enter; the panel’s arrows move between rungs. Every rung has its own shareable link.
Whose ladder this is
A Ladder of Citizen Participation
Sherry R. Arnstein (1930–1997), writing as a health and planning administrator in the United States. The eight rungs, the three bands and the argument that most “participation” transfers no power are all hers.
Journal of the American Institute of Planners 35(4), pp. 216–224, July 1969
What ImpactMojo added
The interactive ladder, and the Indian evidence: the law, scheme or judgment that puts a real Indian practice on each rung, each with a named source and year, plus a note on what the placement does not settle.
ImpactMojo, 2026 · content CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · code MIT
Sources drawn on
Orissa Mining Corporation v. MoEF (2013) · Forest Rights Act (2006) · PESA (1996) · Constitution (73rd & 74th Amendment) Acts (1992) · Kerala People’s Plan Campaign (1996) · Joint Forest Management circular (1990) · Right to Education Act (2009) · EIA Notification (2006) and the 2020 draft · Right to Information Act (2005) · MGNREGA (2005) · Rights and Resources Initiative (2015).
Using this in a workshop
The ladder works better against a real programme than in the abstract. Ask the group to place their own project on a rung privately, then defend the placement to each other.
If you reproduce the ladder, credit Arnstein. If you reproduce this evidence, credit ImpactMojo and check the figures against their sources first.