scholarly journals Citizen-oriented Local Governance: the Correlation between Subjective Well-being and Citizen Participation in the Salaspils Municipality (Latvia) Case

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
Inga Jēkabsone ◽  
Biruta Sloka

The aim of the paper is to present a possible citizen- oriented governance model and discuss the outcomes of empirical research, which are targeted to municipalities and are based on the approbation of a subjective well-being methodology. The main findings of the study show that citizen participation in decision-making processes is crucial in order to improve the well-being in the municipality. The empirical research of the Salaspils municipality and comparisons with several other municipalities in Latvia and other countries demonstrated that the citizen-oriented local governance model provides wide opportunities for improved dialogue between the municipality and society, which in turn promotes the development of a co-responsibility approach in resolving different issues within the municipality.

2021 ◽  
pp. 153568412199347
Author(s):  
José W. Meléndez ◽  
Maria Martinez-Cosio

Participatory planning has faced challenges engaging predominantly Spanish-speaking immigrants beyond the bottom rungs of Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation. Participating at any level of the ladder requires individual civic skills, or capacities, that are integral to participatory processes. However, the specific skills necessary for collective action are less certain, due in part to a lack of clear definitions and a lack of clarity about how these capacities work in practice. Drawing on two years of data from a participatory budgeting process in an immigrant community in Chicago, Illinois, the authors identify key civic capacities that Spanish-speaking immigrants activated while engaging in civic discourse, and they explore the role these capacities played in moving ideas toward collective decision making. The authors present an organizational schema that aligns the study’s findings of 17 unique civic capacities with capacities identified in the literature as helping participants engage more meaningfully in decision-making processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Lampoltshammer ◽  
Qinfeng Zhu ◽  
Peter Parycek

While E-participation promotes citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes, and often takes place through deliberation, citizens are expected to be cool-headed individuals equipped with reason and logic, insulating their actions from the impulse of emotion. However, research in neuroscience and cognitive science has found that emotion plays a vital part in cognitive processing and is instrumental in decision-making. This study thus fills this research gap by examining the effect of emotions in eliciting participation on a youth E-participation platform. Following affective intelligence theory and appraisal theory, the authors specifically examined three types of emotions; namely, anger, anxiety, and sadness. By applying methods in the field of text and statistical analysis, the authors found that anxiety, although the least common type of emotion expressed on the E-participation platform, was associated with an increased level of engagement. On the contrary, anger dominated issue discussion across topics, and sadness prevailed in the discourse on system-level economic issues.


2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
Sara Nikolić

Abstract Colourful zigzags, arcade game motifs, geometric figures, pseudo-frames of windows and even infantile drawings of flora and fauna – those are just some of the visible symptoms of the aesthetical and urbanistic chaotic condition also known as Polish pasteloza. One of the most common readings is that the excuse of thermal insulation is being (ab)used in order to radically erase the urbanistic, cultural and political heritage of Polish People’s Republic (PPR) from the city landscape. On the other hand, inhabitants of ‘pastelized’ housing estates claim to be satisfied not only with the insulation but also with their role in decision-making processes. A sense of alienation from one’s home seems to have gone away, together with the centralized state administration, and it is being replaced by citizen participation. The possibility of vindication of pasteloza’s ‘crimes against aesthetics’ will be deliberated in this paper – in order to pave a path for more complex understanding of this phenomenon that could offer a solution for achieving a compromise between aesthetics and civic participation in post-transition processes.


2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John O’Neill

AbstractThe paper addresses two questions central to recent environmental political thought: Can a reduction in consumption be rendered compatible with a maintenance or improvement of well-being? What are the conditions for a sense of citizenship that crosses different generations? The two questions have elicited two conflicting responses. The first has been answered in broadly Epicurean terms: in recent environmental thought appeal has been made to recent hedonic research which appears to show that improvements in subjective well-being can be decoupled from increased material consumption. The second has usually been answered in broadly Aristotelian terms: republicans have suggested that a public world and projects that are shared over generations are a condition of human well-being. These Epicurean and Aristotelian responses appear to look in opposite directions. They start from different accounts of well-being and appear to look in different places for human flourishing. This paper suggests that the broadly Aristotelian response is in fact owed to both problems. It shows that recent empirical research in the hedonic tradition can be rendered consistent with that Aristotelian response.


Author(s):  
Hanna Vakkala ◽  
Jaana Leinonen

This chapter discusses local governance renewals and the recent development of local democracy in Finland. Due to profound structural reforms, the role of municipalities is changing, which is challenging current local government processes, from management to citizen participation. Nordic local self-government is considered strong, despite of tightening state steering. Ruling reform politics and the increasing amount of service tasks do not fit the idea of active local governance with sufficient latitude for decision-making. To increase process efficiency, electronic services and governance have been developed nationally and locally, and solutions of eDemocracy have been launched to support participation. Developing participative, deliberative democracy during deep renewals creates opportunities but also requires investments, which create and increase variation between municipalities. From the point of view of local democracy, it becomes interesting how strong municipal self-governance and local governance renewals meet and how the role and status of municipalities are changing.


2022 ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
María Luisa Gracia-Pérez ◽  
Marta Gil-Lacruz ◽  
Arelys López-Concepción ◽  
Victor Bazán-Monasterio ◽  
Isabel Saz-Gil ◽  
...  

In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 major Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address current economic, social, and environmental challenges. Governments play a key role in achieving the SDGs through advocacy, awareness, and regulation. In this work, the authors focus on SDG 3, “Guarantee a Healthy Life and Promote Well-Being for All Ages.” Specifically, the articulation of citizen participation for health promotion in health schools is reviewed. They have been selected by choosing four schools and a Spanish entity that show how health education can facilitate the development of citizen participation in the field of health. The health schools and their corresponding training programs show the multiplicity of ways that citizens acquire access to the health field, ranging from information to decision-making in the system.


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