The practice of fostering citizen participation in public finance-related decision making at local government level in North Macedonia and Slovakia has backslid during COVID-19. Since COVID-19 ...prompted a worldwide lockdown, governments were forced to introduce emergencies and/or develop “new” participation methods. The paper aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on citizens’ participation in financial decision-making using participatory budgeting among the local self-governments in North Macedonia and Slovakia and identify possible COVID-19-specific and general barriers to such participation, considering the particular context of the two countries.
The issues of legal regulation of local self-government in the Russian Federation have been the subjects of numerous studies and discussions for a long time, while their intensity and relevance not ...only does not decrease, but also increases from year to year. In many ways, this is due to the fact that over the 30-year period of modern Russian history, the legislation on local self-government and its law enforcement practice is characterized by an extreme degree of dynamism and uncertainty, which certainly affects the quality of organization and functioning of this level of public authority. The meeting of the Council for the Development of Local Self-Government under the President of the Russian Federation, held on April 20, 2023, once again showed the existence of issues and the need for the authorities to find the optimal model of regulatory regulation of municipal government and the extreme imperfection of the provisions of draft law No. 40361-8 “On the general principles of the organization of local self-government in a unified system of public power”, which undoubtedly causes the need for scientific understanding and development of relevant proposals. Based on the historical and legal analysis of the development of the provisions of federal legislation on local self-government, the established constitutional and legal judicial practice, the experience of direct professional activity in local self-government bodies, the Author concludes that the federal legislator over the past 30 years of the existence of local self-government in our state has not only failed to definitively determine the basic legal provisions of the foundations local self-government, constantly “ranking” them and changing them, but it also significantly modified the originally laid down constitutional and legal essence of local self-government as a form of direct participation of citizens in solving issues of the territory of their residence. In this regard, the Author of the study suggests several “fundamental” provisions that will allow us to return to the constitutional and legal format of local self-government, laid down in the early 1990s. It seems that taking into account and consolidating the proposed foundations in the formation of a promising legal regulation of local self-government within the framework of building a unified system of public authority in our state will not only eliminate obvious “excesses” in the current system of legal regulation, but also fully provide a basis for effective interaction of bodies of a unified system of public authority in the interests of the population of the relevant territory.
The authors of the paper aim to provide a comparative insight into the financial autonomy of local self-governments in four Central European countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech ...Republic. The topic is presented through the relevant provisions of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the only legally binding multilateral treaty in Europe addressing local self-governance. As all the four examined states are parties to the document, the authors used the outputs of its monitoring process to analyze the situation under all the relevant provisions of the Charter, paragraph by paragraph. Considering that certain provisions of the Charter enjoy a superior position compared to the others (core provisions), the authors formulated a hypothesis according to which, in the area of financial autonomy, these core provisions are the most problematic ones in terms of their successful implementation. Using analytical, statistical, and comparative methods, the authors concluded that the hypothesis was confirmed, as most shortcomings were identified in the fields covered by these provisions, meaning that besides the lack of sufficient resources, the lack of ability to influence the amount of these resources is also often present in the studied countries.
Today, environmental protection is a priority task for the governments of countries around the world due to the deepening of environmental problems and their impact on people's lives. Several ...problematic issues can and must be solved at the local level, which will make environmental policy more effective and take into account local needs. The study aimed to analyse the competence of local self-government bodies in terms of monitoring compliance with environmental legislation. A comparative analysis was used to study the issue of ensuring the protection of the environment and ecosystem by local self-government bodies through the prism of legal protection. During the research, several obstacles to the implementation of effective environmental protection measures at the local level were identified: the imperfection of the financing system, the lack of environmental awareness, the absence of effective administrative and procedural measures, and the imperfection of state control. In response to the identified problems, the positive experience of implementing the norms of the European Charter of Local Self-Government was investigated. It was established that the decentralization of local self-government had a positive effect on the protection of the ecosystem, as it brought local authorities closer to the public and provided local authorities with real powers to solve problems related to compliance with environmental legislation. In addition, to increase the effectiveness of mechanisms of state control over local self-government in the field of environmental protection, a system of principles of such control is proposed, consisting of publicity, systematicity, effectiveness, objectivity, impartiality, and universality. The proposed system will cover several key environmental problems and quickly and effectively solve them with the involvement of competent specialists and the public. The state of environmental protection at the local level is seen in further research and justification to determine practical recommendations for the implementation of decentralization of local self-government.
In this article I criticize, first, democratic inclusion principles that are indeterminate with regard to democratic boundaries and indifferent towards the structural features of polities. I suggest ...that a democratic stakeholder principle passes these critical tests and can be applied to democratic polities of different kinds. Second, I compare birthright-based and residence-based membership regimes at state and local levels and consider how they can accommodate international migrants. Third, I argue that these two regimes are not freestanding alternatives between which democratic polities have to choose, but are combined in a multilevel architecture of democratic citizenship, in which the inclusion and exclusion dynamics of birthright and residence mutually constrain each other and every individual is included as a citizen in both types of polities.
Economics of education George A. Efimov; Marina V. Markhgeym; Kseniya A. Mokrousova ...
Política e Gestão Educacional,
11/2022, Letnik:
26
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The economics of education is the investigation of economic matters connected to education, such as the requirement for education and the financing and provision of education. Hence, this work ...analyzes foreign experience in the constitutional regulation of the relations between local governments and the prosecutor's office on the example of the CIS countries regarding educational requirements. The author has isolated independent models and options regarding the constitutional provisions of interaction between local governments and the prosecutor's office. The conclusion is made about the impossibility of a positive or negative assessment of constitutional regulation degree in respect of the interaction between local self-government bodies and the prosecutor's office in the CIS member states for the reasons of a differentiated approach of states to the institution of local self-government.
Normative powers of Serbian local authorities Jerinić, Jelena; Milosavljević, Bogoljub
Pravni zapisi : časopis Pravnog fakulteta Univerziteta Union u Beogradu,
2019, Letnik:
10, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Authors analyse Serbian legislation in respect of regulatory autonomy of local governments, i.e. the authorisation of different local government bodies to pass ordinance and bylaws in realisation of ...local competences. The analysis is based on the provisions of the Serbian constitution and relevant legislation, as well as on the case law of the Serbian Constitutional Court, and interpretation of relevant principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. They conclude that local assemblies, as local representative bodies, are the only ones generally empowered to pass bylaws in the areas of own competence of local governments and that other bodies, namely the local executive council can do so only in existence explicit delegation in law - either the Law on Local Self-Government or other law. The authors have found only two such examples, while the case law of the Constitution show ample proof of bylaws passed by the local executive and administration without specific authorisation in the law. The most common are cases in which local assemblies entrusted other local government bodies in passing bylaws in issues in local competence, as well as cases in which executive bodies or the local administration attempted to fill in the gaps in the existing local regulations, by passing general acts, when the matter should have been regulated by the local assembly. In that view, the authors recommend even further clarification of the current norms of the Law on Local Self-Government and, in the future, possibly the Constitution.
Community organizing with government support, termed local self-governance (LSG), is a form of policy decentralization for community wellbeing through solutions tailored to local issues. One form of ...LSG is multifunctional autonomy, in which citizens can comprehensively manage their communities with government support. This study clarified the effect of multifunctional autonomy on healthy life expectancy by assessing related advantages and challenges in rural Japanese communities, using a mixed-methods approach. Disability-free life expectancy from 65 years (DFLE-65) was assessed to compare healthy life expectancies between two rural Japanese cities (with/without multifunctional autonomy). Comparisons revealed better DFLE-65 only among older men in a city with multifunctional autonomy. A cost-effectiveness analysis investigated the relationship between the budget and DFLE-65 change using questionnaire data. Cost-effectiveness analysis of multifunctional autonomy indicated 61,147 yen/DFLE-65. Thematic analysis revealed that multifunctional autonomy created new roles for older men, improving community relationships. However, sustainable multifunctional autonomy in LSG communities may be hindered by a generally aging society, generation gap, and lack of mutual understanding between rural communities and local governments. To ensure the sustainability of multifunctional autonomy, collaborations between local communities and governments and among various generations are critical.
Today, there are problems of increasing economic, social, and financial stability and environmental protection (security) in Ukraine, and they are extremely relevant and important. They necessitate ...the solution of complex tasks aimed at ensuring the sustainable development of communities by means of effective state policy. The article summarizes and develops an approach to the realization of the national interests of Ukraine in the context of the continuous development of communities. It has received international recognition and is thus a system of views on the movement of economies and communities as their consistent interaction with each other and with nature. Today, it is recognized as a valuable model of the future world civilization, which marks the latest state of social development and is recognized as post-industrial. The theory and practice of sustainable development is a reflection of the objective need for economic reorientation and all social development with urgent consideration of the preservation of natural and human opportunities for current and future generations. For Ukraine, especially in view of its integration policy, the introduction of the concept of sustainable development acquires not only scientific but also political relevance and is one of the significant aspects of improving the efficiency of municipal self-government and achieving the best results. Thus, among the criteria of sustainable development of regions, it is expedient to include the criteria of municipal self-government activities, which would contribute to the dynamic and sustainable development of municipal entities, but the basic and optimal level of implementation of ideas and national interests of sustainable development is the municipal level. Therefore, local authorities should ensure the sustainable development of communities, taking into account the principles of local self-government and creating conditions for the transfer of a minimum economic, ecological and social debt to future generations.
The article is devoted to the study of the problems of local self-government in Russia in the late XIX — early XX centuries. The article analyzes the views of the Russian monarchist L. A. Tikhomirov ...through the prism of the main conservative movements in Russia at that time.
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