engleski

New Developments in Local Democracy in Croatia and Its Neighbouring Countries

The paper focuses on the traditional and new forms of citizens’ participation at the local level. Special attention has been devoted to the forms of improving local democracy in Croatia during the post-socialist period. According to our systematisation, the traditional forms of citizens’ participation are referendum, citizens’ initiative, deliberative assemblies, sub-municipal governance and occasional consultative meetings. The main new instruments for improving the legitimacy of local politics are introduction of direct election of mayors and recall referendum, strengthening the role of local mayors, independent actors in local politics, and some others. The situation in Croatia is a bit specific, because of the historical and current particularities. Low level of decentralization and rather weak political legitimacy are the main obstacles for the development of strong local governments that are harmonized with the expectations from international and European documents. We have analysed five modes of fostering local democracy: minority representation, classic forms of direct democracy, direct election of mayors and recall procedure, youth councils, and independent local political actors. Our analysis is supported by data collected during several researches, with the newest conducted during the spring of 2014. We pay particular attention to sub-municipal governments, considering them as appropriate but, unfortunately, somewhat neglected form of strengthening local governance.

local level; citizens' participation; local democracy; sub-municipal governments

nije evidentirano