Supervisors info:
Δημήτρης Γκούσκος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Επικοινωνίας και ΜΜΕ, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Globally, the humanitarian crises and the social inequities have resulted in major changes on the resources management from the governments around the world . The redefinition of the governments’, civil society and the market role is of high importance in order the citizens’ trust to be enhanced. In this framework, the open government is examined along with the wide spectrum of its practices for a better democracy, as well as the principles that govern it.
More specifically, these principles include transparency, which refers to practices for the open access of the citizens to the governmental policies, accountability which consists of practices that are applied by the governments in order to reason their decisions, and participation, where the citizens are actively involved in the formation of the policies.
The Participatory Budgeting (PB) as an innovation of the open government, which refers to the citizens’ participation in the managing of the public resources, contributes to an enhanced transparency, accountability from the state actors and citizens’ participation. BP, which has its routes to Porto Alegre, Brazil, has spread worldwide, and its benefits can be used in both high and low income countries. In Greece, although there is not a legal framework specific for PB, many Municipalities have tried to apply PB practices in order to improve the relationship of the citizens with the local governments.
The aim of this research lies with the investigation of the PB practices in Municipalities of Attica region, the challenges that have arisen from the PB practices and suggested ways to overcome those challenges. In this research were used mixed methods. At first, there were conducted interviews with representatives of Municipalities, who provided with their insight on the PB practices in their Municipalities. Later, the results of the interviews were used for the formation of a quantitative tool, a questionnaire, which was distributed to citizens in order to investigate their opinions when it comes to the challenges and new solutions for the design and the implementation of the PB in the Municipalities.
Both the Municipality representatives and the citizens identify a significant number of challenges regarding the PB in the Municipalities, without always reaching census, fact that shows that the PB practices could improve the relationship of the local governments with the citizens. Finally, the citizens have identified many ways to improve these challenges which have to be taken under consideration from the state actors in order to design successful PB practices.
