The role and importance of civil initiatives in local governance

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Abstract

Local governance is closely related to democracy and provides a central position to the participation of citizens in decision-making, where the perspectives of different authors such as political scientist Robert Dahl emphasized that democracy must offer equal and proper opportunities for citizens’ participation in decision-making (Forrester & Sunar, 2011). The purpose of this paper is to create a fair overview of the real condition of citizens’ involvement in local government decision-making processes, by highlighting the necessity to adapt local government to the real needs of citizens, which facilitates their lives within the municipalities. The review of literature and development of qualitative research was the methodology applied within this study. During the development of this study, surveys were also conducted with citizens and other institutional stakeholders with a key role in local governance. The findings of this paper indicated that municipal bodies have made minimal efforts to inform citizens about their opportunities and raise awareness regarding the importance of activism in decision-making, as substantiated by the questionnaire outcomes. On this occasion, it was also observed that there is a low level of citizens’ inclination to participate in public gatherings aimed at influencing municipal governance activities.

Keywords: Public Consultation, Citizens, Municipalities, Governance, Decision Making, Democracy

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — I.B.; Methodology — I.B. and T.B.; Validation — I.B.; Formal Analysis — I.B. and T.B.; Writing — Original Draft — I.B.; Writing — Review & Editing — I.B.; Visualization — I.B. and T.B.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: K1, K4, K10, K40

Received: 12.09.2023
Accepted: 18.04.2024
Published online: 22.04.2024

How to cite this paper: Bajrami, I., & Bajrami, T. (2024). The role and importance of civil initiatives in local governance. Journal of Governance & Regulation, 13(2), 126–134. https://doi.org/10.22495/jgrv13i2art12