公众参与是从古希腊雅典的直接民主模式发展而来的。在我国，公众参与作为舶来品，最初只是在学术界流行。自党的十五届五中全会提出“扩大公民有序的政治参与”以来，参与式民主得到了党内认可，公众参与逐渐从党外学术话语向党内政治话语转化。在党的高度重视下，在法律学、政治学等领域学者的研究探讨中，在中国广大民众的积极参与下，公众参与从学术到实践均得到了发展。公众参与体现在立法参与、政府决策参与、行政行为参与等方面，本文将研究限定在政府决策中的公众参与。公众参与具有重大的意义，但是我国目前尚没有统一的公众参与法，有关公众参与的内容（比如听证、信息公开等）也零散地分布在各规范性法律文件或者政策中，不利于对公众参与政府决策提供保障。基于此，本文对公众参与进行了系统梳理，重点在于我国政府决策中公众参与的完善对策。本文共分为四个部分：第一部分，界定了公众参与的概念，描述了西方公众参与产生的理论背景，提出了政府决策中公众参与的三方面重大意义，并从政治背景和实践背景两方面概括了公众参与政府决策的中国现实背景。第二部分，通过列举实例，说明我国政府决策中公众参与存在着法律体系不健全、公众参与缺失或者流于形式等问题，并剖析了产生以上问题的原因：政府接受公众参与意识淡薄、公众权利观念薄弱、政府决策监督机制不健全。第三部分，考察了西方国家公众参与政府决策的制度，包括美国、英国、法国、德国、加拿大，并提取出了我国可以参照借鉴的经验。第四部分，提出了我国政府决策中公众参与制度的完善对策，首先健全以宪法为核心的公众参与的法律法规体系，具体领域的单行法、完善听证法律制度、信息公开法律制度等均在法律体系内；其次，完善公众参与的制度构建，包括加强宣传教育、选择适当参与途径、健全监督机制等方面。

Public participation developed from the direct democracy of Athens in ancient Greece. In our country, public participation as exotic was popular firstly in the academic field. The statement of expanding the citizens’ orderly political participation was raised in fifth plenary session of CPC central committee. Since then, participatory democracy has been recognized inside and outside of the party. In the study of law, political science and other fields, public participation have been developed from academic and practice.Public participation embodied in the Legislation and the decision-making of the government. This paper will focus on the decision-making of the government. Public participation is of great significance, but there is no unified law to regulate public participation. The content of public participation (such as hearing, disclosure of information etc.) are scattered in various law and policies, which is not conducive to the protection of public participation government decision-making. Based on this, the paper will study the public participation systematically, and focus on the countermeasures to improve public participation in China.This paper is divided into four parts:The first part, the concept of public participation is raised. The theoretical background of public participation in the west is described. The significance of the three aspects about the public participation in government decision-making is studied. The practical background and the realistic background are summarized.The second part, some problems are raised through some examples, such as unsound legal system, lack of public participation of formalization about participation. The reasons for these problems are also analyzed. Firstly, the government accepts public participation consciousness. Secondly, citizen has weak sense of public rights. Thirdly, the supervision mechanism about the government decision-making is not perfect.The third part, the public participation in government decision-making system in western countries is discussed, including The UK, France, Germany, America, Canada. On this basis, some experiences are extracted. The fourth part, the countermeasures to perfect the system of public participation in government decision-making in our country will be put forward. Firstly, the legal systems whose core is constitution must be improved, including special regulations, the legal system about hearing, the information disclosure legal system, etc. Secondly, the construction of public participation system must be perfected, including strengthening publicity and education, selecting the appropriate participation way, perfecting the supervision mechanism, etc.