Title
Assessment of the notion of democracy among municipal councilors in Lithuania
File
Paper files are available only for conference participants, please sign in first.
Author(s)
Jurga Bucaite Vilke,
Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Aistė Lazauskienė,
Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Viktorija Baranauskiene, Ieva Dryzaite, Vytautas Magnus University, Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, Kaunas, Lithuania
Abstract
Without a doubt, the background of local representative democracy is the municipal council and elected councilors that have legitimated power for local decision-making. Nevertheless, the previous research has demonstrated, even council members do not unambiguously endorse a version of democratic engagement that is consistent with the representative democracy concept, highlighting the need for electoral legitimacy and the ability of elected representative bodies to make local decisions (Egner et al., 2013). Rather, mayors and council members adhere to somewhat different interpretations of democracy, consistent with the distinction between a broader understanding of participatory democracy as defined by Barber (1984). Focusing on this distinction between representative and participatory democracy, the paper discusses the following issues: what are the different versions of local democracy found among municipal council members in Lithuanian municipalities; how do the different conceptions of democracy correlate with specific role perceptions of the respondents. It also aims to examine how local politicians value political representation, the notion of democracy, and citizen empowerment, looking in the context of national self-government reforms in Lithuania. The empirical data derive from the research project "Changing role of local councilor in self-governance: leadership, institutions and communities" funded by the Lithuanian Council of Research which aims to analyze the phenomenon of local politics and local political leadership and examine how normative, institutional, and democratic leadership is changing. Referring to the survey data on the local councilors research (finalized in November-December, 2023) we make assumptions about the specific notion of local democracy in Lithuanian which reveals the institutional and normative ambiguity of democratic values and trust. It also uncovers the roles and functions of the council members as active local policy makers, their approach to democracy and citizen participation, and representation in horizontal and vertical power mechanisms.
