Abstract
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Central government but also local authority can set boundary conditions for local governments to create opportunities or hinders for citizen participation in local public life, decision-making and development. Being a voluntary member of the European Union obligates too, at least, to share the common values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Citizen participation in local matters is an important issue for the EU since the Council of Europe officially published Recommendation to member states on the participation of citizens in local public life. The aim was “to achieve greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and to foster their economic and social progress” (CM/Rec(2018)4, March 21, 2018).
This article is a literature review based on the empirical research on citizen participation in local public life, decision-making and development under the period of 2005 – 2020 and conducted in the EU member states. The purpose is to identify factors creating opportunities and hinders for public involvement and discuss its current materialization across the EU member states. The questions are: “What is known from the empirical studies conducted in the EU- member states about factors creating opportunities and hinders for citizen participation in local public life, decision-making, and development? What lessons can be learned about current materialization of citizen participation at local level in the EU member states? Theories on “direct democracy”, “deliberative democracy”, and “co-governance” support the selection of empirical studies, discussion of empirical results, and drawing conclusions.
From this study appears some worrying trends; the EU recommendations to increase citizen participation in local public life, decision-making and development play a limited role. In general, it is lacking a balance between representative- and participatory democracy in most EU member states. The older democracies create more opportunities for public involvement than the younger ones but it doesn’t mean that the elected representatives, administrative staff, and professional groups from the older democracies want to share decision-making with citizens as it was observed in the older EU democracies e.g., Denmark and Sweden. Local interpretation of citizen participation seems to be deceptive and depending on Constitution, different traditions of political systems and political culture, provision of laws within in the EU member countries. Citizens are too often excluded from decision-making on important issues that concern their everyday life. It happens that citizens mobilise themselves to influence local authority’s decision-making, when there is a conflict of interest, bad management of common local programs, as it was observed in the younger EU democracies e.g., the Czech Republic or Poland.
The only recommendation can be that the EU member states should still work with: (1) the improvement of political systems, (2) adaptation and cultural tradition to current challenges, (3) modification of national and local regulations, if the EU member states really share the common values and aim to make true the EU recommendations (CM/Rec(2018)4).
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