A very important pillar of democracy is the involvement of citizens in the political decision-making process. The change from "government" to "governance", which has been also noticed in the literature, implies a greater involvement of different stakeholders in the decision-making process and in the process of public policy implementation. Citizens' participation in the process of public services delivery may lead to better public services, which comply with the needs of citizens, better decisions, higher quality and more efficient collaboration in using public money for public services. This research empirically tests attitudes towards greater citizens' involvement in the decision-making process at the local level. We compare attitudes of local councillors in 16 countries divided according to the expanded Hesse-Sharpe (1991) typology. The analysis is based on the result of a survey conducted among local city councillors. We examine different mechanisms of citizen participation in the decision--making process from the comparative perspective. Our research showed voting to be the most preferable mechanism for public participation in all groups of countries, while citizens' juries are the least preferable mechanism for citizen participation. This research contributes to filling the research gap concerning the role and the importance of citizens' participation in the decision-making process in Europe.
This article investigates corruption pressures at the sub-national government level by employing a novel approach of empirically assessing the subjective opinions of local councillors about corruption risks they have been exposed to. Based on the large survey data collected in 14 European countries we provide evidence that individual perceptions of corruption risk experienced by local councillors are formed by their personal characteristics, where educational attainment stands as the most significant deterrent to corruption risk. The comparative assessment of non-transition and post-transition countries (PTCs) shows that respondents from PTCs exhibit higher levels of perceived corruption pressures on the local government level (PCL). In non-transition countries, councillors in the local government units with more fiscal power are more exposed to corruption. When government effectiveness is included, the effect of transition process and local fiscal decentralisation loses significance. Government effectiveness appears to be a strong tool to alleviate the corruption pressure at the local government level, in particular for younger councillors in PTCs The findings shed more light on the issues of corruption, which is a striking problem at the sub-national government level in the E.U. Policy implications and suggestions for future research are offered.
This article analyses the relationship between banking sector efficiency and economic growth using a panel data analysis of six South-eastern European countries during the period 1995–2005. The analysis is concentrated on the banking sector because other segments of the financial market are underdeveloped in our sample of countries. We measure the qualitative development in the banking sectors by using the margin between lending and deposit interest rates as well as the share of non-performing loans. By applying the panel data method in a growth-type equation setting, we confirm that improvements in banking sector efficiency, measured through the decreasing interest rate spread, exerted a positive influence on the growth rate of the countries in the region.
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