Participation In Local Decision-making Research Articles

The European Charter of Local Self-Government as a tool for enhancing direct democracy: the case of western Balkans countries

Five of the six non-EU countries in the western Balkans region have signed the Council of Europe’s European Charter of Local Self-Government, the exception being the Republic of Kosovo which is not yet a formal member of the Council of Europe. Moreover, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia have signed and ratified the Additional Protocol, showing their willingness to enforce the effects of the Charter, while, in contrast, Bosnia and Herzegovina has neither signed nor ratified it and Albania has only signed it. Indeed, this Charter is a cornerstone of local governance whose aim is to enhance citizens’ participation in local decision-making. This article compares the domestic institutional framework regarding local government in the five countries and seeks to highlight whether the Charter has indeed enhanced citizens’ participation. In addition, it explores the practices occurring in some countries which have implemented the Charter before, ultimately, seeking to answer the question as to whether it has enhanced direct local democracy in the western Balkans.

Co-Creation and Enhanced Youth Participation in Local Decision-Making: The Perception of Public Sector Readiness

The reverted demographic pyramid makes youth a decreasing percentage of our increasingly ageing population, leaving youth groups with less power and chances to influence the future of public policies and services through established participation channels. There is a potential risk of losing the interests of broader, including less heard, youth groups in democratic decision-making and implementation. Research evidence shows that we need to broaden knowledge and accountability towards these groups by including them more in co-creation to secure their trust and meaningful policy impact. One major way to improve trust in the public sector is by enhancing the abilities of professionals, managers, politicians and NGOs to co-create public and individual values with youth groups for better services and solutions instead of acting and making decisions on their behalf. Also, cross-sector collaboration among institutional units or stakeholders from different sectors on a local scale is often required to enhance the value of services or local community decisions. This paper explores from a comparative perspective the local government’s readiness for enhanced democratic participation and co-creation of public services and public value with youth. Based on document studies, interviews and cross-sectoral learning dialogues between engaged researchers, public sector and NGO representatives conducted in three countries – Sweden, Finland, and Estonia – the paper illustrates the current perceptions of public professionals and managers regarding their approach to co-creation with youth and the public sector roles, readiness and perceived gaps. The paper distinguishes between the municipal ambitions of enhanced youth participation and co-creation.

Territorial Policy Agenda Revised

This paper contributes to the ongoing debates on the relationship between municipality size and non-electoral citizen participation at the local level. We use the data from Lithuania as a case of strongly consolidated local government structures. We discuss three main points. First, our focus is on the limited question of how municipality size affects the intensity of citizens’ non-electoral participation in local decision-making, taking into account citizens’ participatory capacities, contact with municipal authorities and local agents, and municipal performance evaluations. Second, we consider the specificity of the territorial rescaling policy agenda in Lithuania, which is characterised by the long-term direction of the territorial consolidation process. Third, representative population survey data serve as a reasonable platform for testing the hypothesis on the relationship between different citizen participatory practices and municipality size. We assumed that citizen perceptions of municipal problem-solving capacities, local government accessibility, and assessment of local government performance could vary in municipalities of different size. We also expected to find significant correlation between citizen assessment of municipal performance, local government accessibility (varying by local contact activity), and citizen perception of municipal problem-solving capacities by producing statistical clusters of citizen participatory capacity types. The limitations of quantitative statistical approaches constitute a barrier to explaining the subjective perceptions of local citizens hold about their non-electoral participatory behaviour. Our conclusions demonstrate that the perceived potential of non-electoral democratic participation capacities is relatively limited in both small and large Lithuanian municipalities. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that citizens in large municipalities are more likely to establish local contact activity and have better perceptions of municipal problem-solving capacities than those in small municipalities.

New Zealand's new alcohol laws: protocol for a mixed-methods evaluation.

BackgroundAlcohol consumption is a major cause of mortality and morbidity globally. In response to strong calls from the public for alcohol law reform, the New Zealand Government recently reduced the blood alcohol limit for driving and introduced the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act which aim to (1) improve community input into local decision-making on alcohol; (2) reduce the availability of alcohol; and (3) reduce hazardous drinking and alcohol-related harm. In this project we seek to evaluate the new laws in terms of these objectives.Design and methodsA policy evaluation framework is proposed to investigate the implementation and outcomes of the reforms. We will use quantitative and qualitative methods, employing a pre-post design. Participants include members of the public, local government staff, iwi (Māori tribal groups that function collectively to support their members) and community group representatives. Data will be collected via postal surveys, interviews and analysis of local government documents. Liquor licensing, police and hospital injury data will also be used. Community input into local government decision-making will be operationalised as: the number of objections per license application and the number of local governments adopting a local alcohol policy (LAP). Outcome measures will be the ‘restrictiveness’ of LAPs compared to previous policies, the number (per 1000 residents) and density (per square kilometre) of alcohol outlets throughout NZ, and the number of weekend late-night (i.e., post 10 pm) trading hours. For consumption and harm, outcomes will be the prevalence of hazardous drinking, harm from own and others’ drinking, community amenity effects, rates of assault, and rates of alcohol-involved traffic crashes. Multiple regression will be used to model how the outcomes vary by local government area from before to after the law changes take effect. These measures will be complemented by qualitative analysis of LAP development and public participation in local decision-making on alcohol.DiscussionThe project will evaluate how well the reforms meet their explicit public health objectives.

Public Participation in New Local Governance Spaces: The Case for Community Development in Local Strategic Partnerships

Research into public participation in local decision-making has increased over the past forty years, reflecting increased interest in the subject from academic, policy and practitioner perspectives. The same applies to community development, a values-based profession promoting a transformational agenda. During the New Labour government’s period in office (1997-2010), public participation featured centrally in several policies, reflecting their adherence to communitarian theory and Third Way politics. Additionally, the language of community development (promoting community empowerment and social justice) featured in these policies. Guidance for Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) – central to New Labour’s local government reforms – required them to facilitate public participation in decision-making, and used the language and values of community development. This paper reports on research into LSPs’ public participation practice. Applying a constructivist methodology, the research applied an evaluative framework reflecting the community development values in all 22 LSPs in the Yorkshire & Humber region. Data was collected through documentary review and interviews with LSP officials in each participating LSP. Case study research was conducted in one LSP, concentrating on two communities, generating deeper understanding of the process of facilitating public participation in different circumstances. Notions of power feature centrally in the analysis, and the research concludes that local authorities struggle to relinquish power to communities in any meaningful way, even within the context of government guidance requiring this process to be implemented. These findings are extrapolated to present a brief critique of the present UK government’s stated commitment to de-centralising power to communities in various policy areas

Progressive Cities and Critical Practice: Toward a Meeting of the Twain

Author(s): Pendall, Rolf | Abstract: Recent work in planning and political science has shown dura­ bility of liberal hopes for •progressive cities• (Clave! 1986, Clave! and Wiewel 1991, Deleon 1992, Goldsmith and Blakely 1992). In Chi­cago, New York, and San Francisco, long-dominant •pro-growth coali­tions• have fallen to alternative coalitions who tried to ensure that more resources reached or remained in hands of the community (Mollenkopf 1983 and 1993, Elkin 1987, Stone 1989, Deleon 1992, Clave! and Wiewel 1991). In practice, this diversion of resources tended to mean more power for resident-controlled neighborhood groups (Castells 1983), more resources for non-profit economic and housing development corporations (Mier and Moe 1991), more oppor­ tunities for public participation in local decision-making (Keating and Krumholz 1991 ), and constraints on large-scale real estate developers (Deleon 1992).

Poverty in America: How Public Health Practice Can Make a Difference

Health inequities linked to poverty remain entrenched in certain subgroups in the United States, despite public health efforts to the contrary. My experiences in working with the poor in Nepal and Pakistan informed my later approach to addressing health and poverty in the Appalachians of eastern Tennessee. Three aspects of this approach include enhancing community power through participation in local decisionmaking about health, educating students within the actual context of poverty, and increasing local opportunity by employing people from the communities of concern to serve as a means to reach those communities. Empowerment, education, and opportunity can serve as ways to ameliorate poverty and may serve to modulate the persistent underlying conditions that create and sustain poverty.

Makkala Panchayats: Institutionalization of Children's Participation in Local Decision-Making

This paper reports on an innovative initiative in Karnataka, India, now adopted by the state government for replication, to involve children in regular local public decision-making and governance. Started by an NGO and a union of child workers, it set up elected children's councils in several villages to address children's issues and successfully lobbied for action to improve children's social and physical environments, using education, empowerment and tactful political maneuvering. The conclusion considers lessons from the experience to date.

Children and regeneration: setting an agenda for community participation and integration

Unlike other marginalised groups children are often not in a position to enter into dialogue with adults about their community needs and environmental concerns. Despite the current emphasis on involving communities in the regeneration of their own neighbourhoods, young people are still seemingly invisible in decision‐making processes. This paper looks at recent attempts to increase public participation in local decision‐making, proposes a typology of community action that recognises the different ways in which children may be drawn into the process of neighbourhood renewal and offers a set of recommendations that, if taken up, provide an agenda that will strengthen the active social commitment of young people in general. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.