Attitudes towards Citizen Participation in the Local Decision-Making Process: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

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.

Sustainable Development of Urban Green Areas for Quality of Life Improvement—Argument for Increased Citizen Participation

“…Still, the disadvantages for citizen participation also need to be considered and they include: time consuming, costly, the difficulty of diffusing citizen goodwill, complacency, poor representation, lack of authority, the power of wrong decisions and persistent selfishness [12]. When it comes to practical experiments with citizens' participation, Godbey and Kraus [15] point out that citizens' involvement in the decision-making process has been rather shallow, a conclusion also confirmed in the southeastern European countries' case where there is insufficient cooperation among politicians, citizens and local administration to establish a legal framework for achieving higher levels of active participation in the policy-making process [14].…”

“…Moreover, engaging citizens at local level is more likely to generate better results as opposed to national level citizen' engagement, especially since the local level grants the opportunity to create higher levels of transparency [13]. Going even further, the area where progress is needed more is the budget-setting area since citizens' involvement should relate more to expenditures and priorities in how their taxes should be used [14]. This approach proves to be even more suitable since inhabitants' involvement in decisions that have a great impact on their own life can substantially improve their life [13] so their community outcome is a reflection of their own desires.…”

“…This approach proves to be even more suitable since inhabitants' involvement in decisions that have a great impact on their own life can substantially improve their life [13] so their community outcome is a reflection of their own desires. So, in the end, citizen participation influences the quality of service, strengthens the skills to use the service and ensures that the public needs are met [14]. Among other positive outcomes of citizens' participation, Van Eijk [13] mentions balancing diverse interests of different actors, achieving decisions' acceptance faster and developing more legitimate policies, along with creating a space for people to connect to each other.…”

Federalism Practice in Nepal: Does it Move in the Expected Course?

“…Evidence (Alibegović & Slijepčević, 2018;Hewitt, 2004) indicates that the autonomous regions have achieved many positive outcomes. First, it ensures citizen participation in governing systems that improve the delivery of services and citizens have easy access to services.…”

The impact of public information awareness and service towards public engagement

“…There are several forms of public participation, such as direct public meetings or hearings or indirectly represented by civil associations or citizen advisory board (Alibegović & Slijepčević, 2015). In addition, most of the time, the Indonesian government may involve experts, academics, researchers, or practitioners to compose a particular national policy or program and then calls for a public test.…”