| Abstract [eng] |
Applying the various citizens’ participation in decision making forms and influencing local government institutions I various decision making stages, when only identification peoples interest, and later when solutions are prepared and the stages of consideration or ultimately to the adoption and monitoring of their implementation here re various problems. The main aim for this project is to analyze citizen participation in decision making process – theoretical and practical opportunities in Pagėgiai municipality. Citizen participation in the decision making process gives the necessary information establishing priorities, solving problems, developing programs and making decisions. Citizen participation in the decision making process is essential for the local government, therefore the main attention is set on the local level, peoples’ involvement in decision making process in the context of local government. Citizen participation in the decision making process encourages dialog between citizens and the local government, and improves local governments transparency, and accountability, thus creating condition for effective governance. Citizens, while seeing their real contribution to the decision making process, and the positive benefits from these decisions to the local community, as well as personally – are interested and will continue to actively participate in the decision making process. The desire to change and improve daily lives is the main reason of getting involved in the decision making, so it has to be facilitated and given all the possibilities for achieving. The project is divided into three sections. In the first part - the scientific analysis of sources in order to review the participation of citizens in decision making process, the concept, the importance, the forms ad theories. The second part of the project is for legal documents for the citizens in the decisions making process, the regulations in Lithuania. This part of the project analyzes the legislation that is regulating the public participation. The third part describes a quantitative research and analysis for a qualitative research (structured interview). During the research on the participation of the citizens in decision making process in Pagėgiai municipality are obtained. The project ends with conclusions and recommendations. In the project these methods were used: analysis of scientific literature, analysis of legal documents, survey, interview, statistic analysis. With the help of analyzing legal documents of citizen participation in municipality decision making process of regulation was analyzed, a secondary statistical analysis revealed the scale, of how citizens are involved in municipality decision making. With the help of the survey method it was investigated what is the citizens approach to participation in decision making in Pagėgiai municipality, and structured interviews with Pagėgiai municipality council members were held, municipality authorities and experts, data was collected from local politicians and civil servants – for the approach of citizen in the decision making process. Even though technically the process is regulated, but there are two main factors that hinder the implementation. It is the passive approach of the citizens and information inefficiency. |
