Suchergebnisse

In this study, the author examines such an urgent topic as the participation of citizens in resolving issues of local importance. The existing scope and content of powers in the sphere of local self-government are analyzed. The place and significance of this right in the system of legal norms is determined. The article considers a list of sources that influence the formation and functioning of these powers, including the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the issue under study. In addition, the author summarizes the meaning of the main constitutional amendments in this area of legal relations. The author comes to the conclusion that it is necessary for the state to take appropriate measures in order to ensure the active participation of the population in resolving issues of local importance, as well as the effective implementation of the citizens' right to exercise local self-government.

Few studies of co-production in the form of co-governance focus on early involvement of citizens in the input stage of a policy process. What kinds of challenges and potentials does this form of co-production bring about when citizens, local councilors and public administrators collaborate to develop public policies? The empirical foundation for the article is a study of a Danish municipality, Albertslund, where six local councilors, six citizens and three public administrators participated in a formal committee with the purpose of developing a new municipal policy for citizen participation. The study concludes that citizens improve their democratic capabilities and trust in the political establishment in the municipality by participating in the committee. However, a condition for realizing the potentials is a willingness to collaborate in new and more interactive ways.

Few studies of co-production in the form of co-governance focus on early involvement of citizens in the input stage of a policy process. What kinds of challenges and potentials does this form of co-production bring about when citizens, local councilors and public administrators collaborate to develop public policies? The empirical foundation for the article is a study of a Danish municipality, Albertslund, where six local councilors, six citizens and three public administrators participated in a formal committee with the purpose of developing a new municipal policy for citizen participation. The study concludes that citizens improve their democratic capabilities and trust in the political establishment in the municipality by participating in the committee. However, a condition for realizing the potentials is a willingness to collaborate in new and more interactive ways.

In recent years, the European Commission has increasingly promoted citizens' participation and has linked it to participatory democracy. The article analyses whether recent apparently participatory citizens' projects qualify as participatory democracy in the normative theoretical sense. Being aware that the European Union's, and therefore the Commission's, understanding are much less demanding, it also asks to what degree the Commission's own objectives were met. For this purpose, both the normative concept based on secondary literature and the empirical concept based on an analysis of the pertinent EU and Commission documents and communications will be introduced as points of reference for the discussion of the citizens' projects. By analysing online documentation of the projects, the article will show that the projects neither meet normative standards nor the Commission's own objectives and that participatory democracy in the EU faces important practical constraints.

Until recent times, democratic constitutions were generally the product of a 'constituent assembly'. More recently, this mode of functioning of the constituent power has been challenged by new forms of its exercise on the basis of 'participatory democracy' schemes whereby ordinary citizens are encouraged to take part, within the 'public space', in the taking of public decisions. This kind of procedure, which first emerged mainly in the legislative and administrative sphere, is now increasingly frequent also in the creation of new constitutions, or in cases of amendments which bring major changes to the original text. Recent experiences show that there may be a close complementarity between the classic notion of 'constituent assembly' and a new concept of the 'participatory constituent process' which could accompany it.This paper takes advantage of the light cast by some recent cases in order to reflect on what effects are more likely to derive from constitutions which are written or amended in a participatory manner; that is, in terms of procedural construction, legitimacy, and outputs. The paper's main findings suggest that the idea and practice of participatory constituent processes can be seen as a way to give citizens a greater sense of 'ownership' of their constitutions, thus challenging the present situation in which that relation seems increasingly affected by the general perception of a legitimacy crisis in representative democracy. Similarly, such constituent processes seem to offer added value in terms of content elaboration and other outputs, although such conclusions are not always generalizable.