Citizen Participation and Administrative Rulemaking in the United States and Puerto Rico: Premises and New Paradigms

Both in the United States and Puerto Rico, the process of administrative rulemaking provide for citizen participation through the submission of written comments about proposed regulations. This paper addresses justifications for this type of mechanism from the standpoint of Administrative Law while at the same time it portraits it as an example of citizen participation in public decision-making.The dissatisfaction produced in the way this mechanism operates is also examined and its effectiveness is put into question. In the search for answers the paper recognizes the limits of Administrative Law and its process-oriented focus, and turns instead to recent research in citizen participation. It concludes with a discussionof these issues in the context of new developments in the U.S. where the possibilities of participation in rulemaking have expanded through an electronic platform on the internet.