Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level: The Case Study of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland (Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations) 3031436733, 9783031436734

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Contributors
List of Figures
List of Schemes
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Introduction
References
Chapter 2: Democratic Innovations
References
Chapter 3: Reforms and Political Participation
Political Participation
The Condition of Local Politics
Direct Election of the Mayor
Recall of Mayors
Discussion
References
Chapter 4: Democratic Innovations in Three Countries
Introduction
Mini-publics
Referendums and Citizen Initiative
Collaborative Governance
Digital Participation
Participation in Municipalities
Conclusions and Discussion
References
Chapter 5: Programme Local Agenda 21 and Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic Association: Testing the Causality Between HCCZ Membership and Implementation of Selected Democratic Innovation (GIS)
Introduction
Theoretical Starting Points
Local Agenda 21 and Association of Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic
Research Design and Methodology
Empirical Results
Testing the Causality Between HCCZ Membership and Implementation of GIS
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Political and Economic Characteristics of Municipalities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Role of Municipal Dynamics and Support Resources in the Implementation of Democratic Innovations
Introduction
Political and Economic Predictors of Democratic Innovations Implementation at the Local Level: A Brief Introduction of Existing Research and Theoretical Starting Points
Data and Methodology
Empirical Observations
Discussion and Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: Innovative and Interactive Political Communication at the Local Level? Experience from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia
Introduction
Specific Characteristics of Political Communication at the Local Level
Data and Empirical Results
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Participatory Budgeting in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland
References
Chapter 9: Participatory Budgets in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia: Experience from Three Towns
Introduction
Zlín, Czech Republic: Example of Top-Down Initiation with Service Role of a Civic Organization
Bratislava–Nové Mesto, Slovakia: Example of Grassroots-Pressured Initiation with Civic–Public Quasi-Cooperation
Rybnik, Poland: Example of Grassroots-Pressured Initiation with Top-Down Implementation
Discussion and Conclusions
References
Chapter 10: Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level The Case Study of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland Pavel Šaradín · Hana Hurtíková Michal Soukop · Markéta Zapletalová

Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations Series Editors

Michal Onderco Erasmus University Rotterdam Rotterdam, The Netherlands Monika Sus Center for International Security Hertie School Wroclaw, Poland

CEEPIR, the foundational book series of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA), is an interdisciplinary forum for scholarship that straddles traditional and novel approaches, advancing cutting-edge scholarship in global international relations. The series invites proposals in the spirit of epistemological and methodological pluralism and in a range of traditional and innovative formats: research monographs, edited collections, textbooks and Pivots which aim at succinct and timely scholarly interventions. The editorial focus is twofold: (1) The CEEISA book series retains its long-standing objective to sustain and showcase excellent research in and on Central and Eastern Europe. We are interested in innovative scholarly perspectives on contemporary social and political transformations in the region, in how knowledge is produced about such transformations, and in how Central and Eastern Europe interacts with the wider European and global contexts. We are interested in advancing the scholarly discussion between Central and Eastern Europe and the discipline more broadly. In cooperation with CEEISA, we maintain a subseries of works which received distinction of excellence by the Association (e.g. the best doctoral dissertation, the best paper at the CEEISA convention, the best thematic panel). (2) We seek in particular outstanding empirical work which advances conceptual and methodological innovation in International Relations theory, European Studies and International Political Sociology, particularly when related to Central and Eastern Europe. We welcome novel research techniques and approaches that explore diverse sites and engage diverse challenges of contemporary world politics. As a devoted team dedicated to excellence and timeliness in the editorial and peer review process, we rely on the support of Palgrave Macmillan, and liaise with the Journal of International Relations and Development to develop a platform for scholars who can reinvigorate existing research in global international relations. For a correct copy of the proposal form, please contact Isobel Cowper-­ Coles, Editor for International Studies, at [email protected]

Pavel Šaradín • Hana Hurtíková Michal Soukop • Markéta Zapletalová Agnieszka Zogata-Kusz • Ewa Ganowicz

Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level The Case Study of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland

Pavel Šaradín Department of Political Science & European Studies Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Michal Soukop Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Agnieszka Zogata-Kusz Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

Hana Hurtíková Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Markéta Zapletalová Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Ewa Ganowicz University of Opole, Poland Opole, Poland

ISSN 2947-7980     ISSN 2947-7999 (electronic) Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations ISBN 978-3-031-43673-4    ISBN 978-3-031-43674-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Emma Espejo / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant number 17-20569S). The book has been published with the financial support of the Fund for the Enrichment of Research Activities by the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Czech Science Foundation for the financial support to realize the research within the project named Democratic Innovations at the local level—Case study of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia (grant number 17-20569S). The conclusions of this research project became the basis for the preparation of this book. Thanks are also given to the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, which provided financial resources for the finalization of this manuscript (Fund for the Enrichment of Research Activities). Finally, the authors would like to thank their colleagues from the Department of Politics and European Studies (Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic) for inspiring and creative debates on democracy, especially on the possibilities of its improvement. This book is also dedicated to the memory of our colleague Jakub Dürr.

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Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Democratic Innovations 11 3 Reforms and Political Participation 25 4 Democratic Innovations in Three Countries 37 5 Programme  Local Agenda 21 and Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic Association: Testing the Causality Between HCCZ Membership and Implementation of Selected Democratic Innovation (GIS) 53 6 Political  and Economic Characteristics of Municipalities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: Role of Municipal Dynamics and Support Resources in the Implementation of Democratic Innovations 79 7 Innovative  and Interactive Political Communication at the Local Level? Experience from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia109

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8 Participatory  Budgeting in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland133 9 Participatory  Budgets in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia: Experience from Three Towns147 10 Conclusion169 Index175

List of Contributors

Dr. hab. Ewa Ganowicz, Ph.D.  Associate professor in Political science, Department of Regional Studies, Institute of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Opole, Poland Mgr. Hana Hurtíková, Ph.D.  Researcher at the Department of Political Science and European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic Mgr. Agnieszka Zogata-Kusz, Ph.D.  Senior Lecturer, Department of Christian Social Work, Faculty of Theology, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Doc. Mgr. Pavel Šaradín, Ph.D.  Associate professor in Political science, Department of Politics and European Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic Mgr.  Michal  Soukop, Ph.D.  Candidate, Department of Politics and European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Mgr.  Markéta  Zapletalová, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics and European Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

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List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2

Political participation in the selected countries. Source: European Social Survey (1–7) 27 The appropriateness of the individual tools in the municipal practice (% of municipalities according to mayors of Czech MEPs). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: N = 120; digits below 5% are not displayed 47 The appropriateness of the individual tools in the municipal practice (% of municipalities according to mayors of Slovak district cities). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: N = 41; digits below 5% are not displayed 49 Basic display of the causal mechanism towards GIS implementation and follow-up effects. Source: Own chart based on process-tracing methodology (Beach & Pedersen, 2019) 62 Overall linear regression model for outliers analysis (Czech MEPs). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: Dependent variable—Standardized democratic innovations index (CZE) 93 Overall linear regression model for outliers analysis (Slovak district towns). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: Dependent variable—Standardized democratic innovations index (SVK) 102 Methods to share information to citizens according to top representatives of the municipality (%). Souce: Own data; own calculation124 Methods of obtaining feedback from citizens according to top representatives of the municipality (%). Source: Own data; own calculation126

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List of Schemes

Scheme 5.1 Causal mechanism relating the membership in HCCZ to the implementation of GIS in municipal practice. Note: Minimal causal mechanism design based on Beach and Pedersen (2019) cased-based approach (process-­tracing method)69 Scheme 9.1 General causal mechanism for the participatory budget implementation process. Source: Own data from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland 149 Scheme 9.2 Causal mechanism of PB implementation process in the town of Zlín. Source: For empirical evidence see Table 9.1 154 Scheme 9.3 Causal mechanism of PB implementation process in the Bratislava–Nové Mesto. Source: For empirical evidence, see Table 9.2159 Scheme 9.4 Causal mechanism of PB implementation process in the town of Rybnik. Source: For empirical evidence, see Table 9.3163

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 6.6

Conditions for calling a citizen-initiated referendum 40 DIs utilization in Czech MEPs and Slovak and Polish district/regional cities 43 Factor analysis of democratic innovations in Czech MEPs 45 Factor analysis of democratic innovations in Slovak district cities 46 The appropriateness of citizen involvement in individual areas of municipal administration according to mayors of Czech MEPs 48 The appropriateness of citizen involvement in individual areas of municipal administration according to mayors of Slovak district cities 50 T-test of democratic innovations based on the HCCZ membership (CZ) 64 Correlation matrix of used democratic innovations (Czech MEPs)65 T-test of potential predictors for political and economic characteristics modelling (Czech MEPs) 90 T-test of potential predictors for political and economic characteristics modelling (Slovak district towns) 91 Linear regression models of political characteristics for democratic innovations (Czech MEPs) 92 Outliers identified for deep qualitative case-based assessment (CZE)94 Multiple linear regression models for political and economic characteristics (Slovakia) 94 Multiple linear regression models for political and economic characteristics (Slovakia), continued 95 xvii

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List of Tables

Table 6.7 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 8.1 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 9.3

Outliers identified for deep qualitative case-based assessment 102 Types of communication democratic innovations tools 117 Size of municipalities (population) across countries 119 Correlation matrix for types of used communication tools (Czech Republic) 120 Correlation matrix for types of communication tools (Slovakia) 122 Correlation matrix for types of used communication tools (Poland)123 Citizens’ awareness of public affairs according to top representatives of the municipality 124 Number of PB in three countries (2020) 138 Basic evidence for the PB implementation process in the town of Zlín, Czech Republic 155 Basic evidence for the PB implementation process in the Bratislava–Nové Mesto, Slovakia 160 Basic evidence for the PB implementation process in the town of Rybnik, Poland 164

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The decline of confidence in democracy has been recently observed all across Europe. The situation is seemingly even more difficult after three major crises: economic (after 2008), immigration (after 2015) (Krastev, 2017), and also pandemic (from 2020), with the deeply affected countries witnessing a relatively higher decline in citizen support for democracy as a political system (Cordero & Simón, 2016). As Penny (2018, p. 148) puts it, “(…) real democracy, at whatever scale, is predicated on people’s ability to shape and make meaningful decisions”. It has been, indeed, widely assumed that it is the democratic innovations (DIs) that might help to overcome the political apathy and diminished trust in democracy, thus improving the efficiency of governance. As it stands now, there is a vast literature on DIs (see, for instance, Fung & Wright, 2003; Schaap et  al., 2010; Smith, 2009; Geissel & Newton, 2012; Setälä & Smith, 2018; Smith, 2019; Elstub & Escobar, 2019), and in particular on various participatory forms. Current research in this field is quite extensive in this respect, aiming to investigate how a higher degree of efficiency, legitimacy, and accountability of governance can be achieved via citizens’ involvement (Allegretti & Herzberg, 2004; Cabannes, 2004; Michels, 2012; Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015). Indeed, strong support can be observed for new techniques and procedures, whether it be financial, educative, or legislative instruments, which leads to the greater © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Šaradín et al., Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level, Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_1

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participation of citizens across countries. This is an optimistic version of democratic innovations (DIs); we can encounter opposite views where their effect is questionable or even reduces the quality of democracy (Geissel, 2009). According to the extensive academic literature, four basic types of DIs can be distinguished at the local level: (1) co-governance (e.g. through participatory budget or planning), (2) direct democracy (e.g. referenda, legislative acts), (3) deliberation (e.g. civil juries, debates, Local Agenda 21), and (4) electoral reforms (Geissel, 2009, p. 53). There is, however, little agreement in academia on which governance processes should be classified as DI, alongside a lack of clarity and precision in the use of the term. “Indeed, democracy itself is widely regarded as an ‘essentially contested concept’ and ‘innovation’ is interpreted in several different ways across different countries and policy areas” (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p. 1). The vagueness of academic terminology and definitions particularly hampers the employment of comparative perspectives. To deal with such a major obstacle, we chose to build on the work of Stephen Elstub and Oliver Escobar (2017, 2019) who, using thoroughly reviewing relevant definitions, offer a new comprehensive typological framework. DI is therefore understood here as “processes or institutions that are new to a policy issue, policy role, or level of governance, and developed to reimagine and deepen the role of citizens in governance processes by increasing opportunities for participation, deliberation and influence” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 14). The authors identify four families of DIs. These are mini-­ publics, participatory budgeting, referenda and citizens‘ initiatives, and collaborative governance. These families of democratic innovations share common features and a high level of variability. They “represent overarching clusters that allow us to establish meaningful distinctions and similarities, within and across democratic innovations” and there is a growing number of “hybrid combinations of democratic innovations” (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p.  25) where digital participation can be considered an important contributor to the DI hybridization (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 25). DIs are mainly connected to local government politics. However, less attention has been paid in the literature to the issue of DI in selected cities, especially in Central and Eastern European countries. There are studies on Western European cities, but, for example, in the case of London, the existing literature focuses mainly on neighbourhood-level localism (Gordon & Travers, 2010; Holman & Thornley, 2015; Penny, 2018;

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Pycock, 2016, 2018) and elected mayors (Curtice et al., 2008; Sweeting, 2002, 2003; Worthy et al., 2019). Local politics, public policies, and participatory practices in Rome have recently attracted increased academic interest (d’Albergo & De Leo, 2018; Zampano, 2017), resulting in extending the previous research on specific cases of civic participation (Bassoli, 2012; Talpin, 2011). There are excellent studies on DIs in Dutch local governments (Binnema et  al., 2020), particularly in the city of Utrecht (Meijer et al., 2017), along with several specific outputs related to innovations such as participatory budgeting in Germany (Schneider & Busse, 2019; Weber et  al., 2015), deliberative techniques, specific tools like citizens’ assembly in Belgium (Niessen & Reuchamps, 2019), or participatory frustration in six Spanish cities (Fernández-Martínez et al., 2019). The issue of deliberative innovation has also been explored in the literature about Central and Eastern Europe, yet to a much lesser extent, as we have already indicated. This is probably because DIs are not as widespread in these countries as in Western Europe or elsewhere. There is a lack of more comprehensive studies addressing this issue. A certain exception is the set of articles appearing in the monograph Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Gherghina et al. (2021), the chapters of which were originally published as contributions to a special issue of Contemporary Politics (2018). The title of this publication does not correspond to the notion of democratic innovation as we generally understand it, and as we also work within this book. While the monograph includes contributions on deliberative processes or deliberative democracy, it also includes the case study ‘of the Hungarian national referendum’ or a chapter entitled ‘The role of partisan cues on voters’ mobilization in a referendum’. Nevertheless, this book does not provide a comprehensive study on democratic innovations. There are reviews and comparative studies on the Central European region, for example, dealing with the issue of participatory budgeting (Krenjova & Raudla, 2017; Džinić et al., 2016). In the Czech environment, we have isolated studies concerning, for instance, participatory budgeting (Tomášková & Buzková, 2020; Zapletalová et  al., 2020), similarly to Slovakia (Murray Svidroňová & Klimovský, 2022). The situation is relatively well mapped in Poland (Madej, 2019; Kębłowski, 2013; Sześciło, 2015). Sub-studies are devoted to, in particular, those instruments that are used in the three countries in question (mainly more in Chaps. 2 and 7). Our book aims to highlight selected problems of the implementation and functioning of democratic innovations in three selected countries—the

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Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. We concentrate on those innovations that have been used in these countries for a longer period and were examined empirically. At the same time, we take into consideration that the extent to which they have been introduced in these countries is different; therefore, we focus on case studies and, where possible, comparisons. We worked with several survey results and datasets. Regarding the Czech Republic, we used a dataset at the level of municipalities with extended powers (MEPs). Having interviewed municipal officials and manually tracked and checked the data, we obtained basic information on some of the democratic innovations used by all 205 municipalities. The dataset was then merged with other demographic, political, and socioeconomic data. The data were collected over several consecutive years in an attempt to capture the longitudinal nature of the implementation of democratic innovation tools; however, due to lower validity, these ‘over time’ data were not used in the end. In the case of Slovakia, we have also collected basic data on implementing various democratic innovations, this time around at the level of district towns. This dataset was then supplemented with more economic and political details. The collection is not entirely complete as it was not always possible to obtain (e.g. in the case of a few Slovak district towns) the necessary data manually from municipal officials or their validity could not be sufficiently verified. However, we can still speak of an almost complete dataset of 71 district towns collected on a one-off basis. The Polish case is the most complicated one. We constructed a dataset on the use of basic democratic innovations for 46 Polish district towns (powiat grodzki), representing slightly more than half of all such towns. These data were supplemented with opinion questions (similar to the Slovak case and, thanks to additional questioning, the Czech case) related to the nature of political communication in the municipality. Due to the incompleteness of the Polish dataset, we used it mainly as the basis for qualitative analyses as well as for some additional statistical analyses. Nevertheless, it should be noted that there are limitations due to this incompleteness. The original effort to create an international database of democratic innovations was not successful because the datasets for individual countries are not fully comparable and linkable. Therefore, the datasets are used separately for analytical purposes, and only outcome effects or descriptive characteristics, in terms of shares, are compared.

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The most recent survey data are from the year 2019. Where appropriate, older data were used, mainly from the year 2018, so that they could be compared with, for example, economic figures. In such cases, we do not expect a significant year-on-year change as the implementation of democratic innovation tools is usually a multi-year effort. All of the datasets mentioned above served as a necessary tool for selecting the cases for the particular case studies, usually on the basis of a process-­tracing technique. Based on the available materials and according to the authors’ experience, several towns were selected in each country, for which detailed qualitative data on the implementation of the chosen innovative tool were collected. The cases that were processed in this way are discussed in the relevant chapters of this book. The book is organized into eight chapters. Drawing on the range of the different theoretical approaches and diverse streams of the research on democratic innovations, the main purpose of the first chapter is to provide theoretical and conceptual background concerning the field of democracy and democratic innovations. Since the research on democratic innovations represents a rapidly growing academic field, constantly enriched by a wide array of national and local experiences. The chapter will offer terminological and definitional clarifications as a necessary framework for case-study-­ based chapters. The second chapter reflects the research on the participation in democratic innovations in the selected countries, within the local policy context, including changes in legislation, implementation of reforms, and main challenges faced by the local democracy. It also provides readers with insights into Czech, Polish, and Slovak leaders’ views and attitudes about democratic values at the local level. Chapter 3 focuses on the implementation of democratic innovations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, based on the dataset created by the research team. It then shows which innovations are currently being implemented in towns of the three countries, how successful they have been, and how their gradual implementation has proceeded. Descriptive statistics show other important policy trends as well. The implementation of democratic innovations in the municipal practice often receives targeted support from external actors. The aim of Chap. 4 is to introduce selected participative tools (democratic innovations) defined in the programme Local Agenda 21 and implemented in municipalities that are members of the association Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic (HCCR). Being a member of the association also involves the

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systematic promotion of the implementation of various participative tools; therefore, presumably, the utilization of these tools will be higher with the HCCR members than with non-member municipalities. This hypothesis will be empirically tested on the basis of unique data collected at the level of municipalities with extended powers in the Czech Republic between the years 2017 and 2018. Internal factors that are often omitted, despite having the potential to significantly influence the process of implementation of democratic innovations in the municipal practice, are the political and economic characteristics of the particular municipality. The aim of Chap. 5 is to test the relation between the political and economic aspects of a particular municipality and the extent of the use of democratic innovations in its territory. Using a case study of a local area in the Czech Republic and Slovakia from the election period 2014–2018, we have examined the unique data obtained from municipalities with extended powers (for the Czech Republic case) and district towns (for the Slovakia case) to observe the common features of municipalities in terms of using democratic innovations. Chapter 6 presents the implementation of selected democratic innovations in the context of political communication (i.e. innovative communication tools) in the local environments of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia. The aim is to identify the level of integration of selective innovative tools in Czech municipalities with extended powers, Polish regional towns, and Slovak district towns to share and exchange information with citizens. We will also focus on whether some key variables (e.g. the size of a municipality or its financial capital) influence the characteristics of the local political communication within the respective municipality. Chapter 7 is a descriptive study on participatory budgeting (PB) in the three selected countries. Regarding Central and Eastern Europe, Slovakia serves as an example of a country having experience of participative budgeting—Bratislava even became a third European capital city to implement PB in the entire territory. In Poland, participative budgeting was first introduced in the town of Sopot in 2011, and in 2012, Poland had the most cases of PB throughout Europe. In 2014, PB was implemented in approximately 80 towns, including the capital city Warsaw. The act introduced in January 2018 subsequently determined regulatory rules and set stricter conditions for local authorities, so that they respect the decisions taken by citizens within the PB process. The Czech Republic introduced PB in 2012. Since then, this practice has been tested in 38 towns,

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and in 2019, there was an increase by another 53 towns. In 2020, there were approximately 120 towns with PB in the Czech Republic. This chapter addresses the typologies of participative budgeting in the individual countries, their comparison, and success. Based on the data set and a questionnaire survey, it aims to show to what extent PB is part of other democratic innovations in the selected towns of the three investigated countries. The last chapter focuses on participatory budgeting and the process of its implementation in three municipalities—one town in Poland (Rybnik), one in the Czech Republic (Zlín), and a town district in the Capital of Slovakia Bratislava. From several towns across the studied countries, we have selected three whose policies enabled us to meet our research objectives. Here we also used the process-tracing method. This chapter represents an attempt to construct a universal causal mechanism that would reflect cross-country patterns, moving away from the case study technique that dominates similar research studies. This chapter shows that the process of DI implementation does not have to be overly complex and, given the certain scope conditions and local specificities, can have a cross-­country character.

References Allegretti, G., & Herzberg, C. (2004). Participatory budgets in Europe: Between efficiency and growing local democracy. Transnational Institute and the Centre for Democratic Policy-Making, TNI Briefing Series No 2004/5. www.tni.org/ reports/newpol/participatory.pdf Bassoli, M. (2012). Participatory budgeting in Italy: An analysis of (almost democratic) participatory governance arrangements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(6), 1183–1203. Binnema, H.  A., Michels, A.  M. B., t Hart, P., & van der Torre, E.  J. (2020). Democratic innovations in Dutch local government: Experimentation in search of strategy. The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 25(1), 1–21. Cabannes, Y. (2004). Participatory budgeting: Conceptual framework and analysis of its contribution to urban governance and the Millennium Development Goals. Environment and Urbanization, 14(2), 181–206. Cordero, G., & Simón, P. (2016). Economic crisis and support for democracy in Europe. West European Politics, 39(2), 305–325. Curtice, J., Seyd, B., & Thomson, K. (2008). Do mayoral elections work? Evidence from London. Political Studies, 56(3), 653–678.

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d’Albergo, E., & De Leo, D. (2018). Agende urbane a Roma: vincoli, risorse e impegni. In E. d’Albergo & D. De Leo (Eds.), Politiche urbane per Roma. Le sfide di una Capitale debole (pp. 1–14). Sapienza. Džinić, J., Murray Svidroňová, M., & Markowska-Bzducha, E. (2016). Participatory budgeting: A comparative study of Croatia, Poland, and Slovakia. NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, 9(1), 31–56. https:// doi.org/10.1515/nispa-­2016-­0002 Elstub, S., & Escobar, O. (2017). A typology of democratic innovations. In Paper for the political studies Association’s Annual Conference, 10th–12th April, Glasgow. Retrieved May 15, 2019, from https://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/ files/conference/papers/2017/A%20Typology%20of%20Democratic%20 Innovations%20-­%20Elstub%20and%20Escobar%202017.pdf Elstub, S., & Escobar, O. (2019). Defining and typologising democratic innovations. In S. Elstub & O. Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 11–31). Edward Elgar Publishing. Fernández-Martínez, J.  L., García-Espín, P., & Jiménez-Sánchez, M. (2019). Participatory frustration: The unintended cultural effect of local democratic innovations. Administration & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/00953 99719833628 Fung, A., & Wright, E. O. (2003). Deepening democracy: Institutional innovation in empowered participatory governance. Verso. Geissel, B. (2009). How to improve the quality of democracy? Experiences with participatory innovations at the local level in Germany. German Politics and Society, 27(4), 51–71. Geissel, B., & Newton, K. (2012). Evaluating democratic innovations. Routledge. Gherghina, S., Ekman, J., & Podolian, O. (2021). Democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge. Gordon, I., & Travers, T. (2010). London: Planning the ungovernable city. City, Culture and Society, 1(2), 49–55. Holman, N., & Thornley, A. (2015). Backlash in the London suburbs: The local-­ strategic tension in multilevel governance. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 33(3), 496–511. Kębłowski, W. (2013). Budżet partycypacyjny. Krótka instrukcja obsługi. Instytut Obywatelski. Krastev, I. (2017). After Europe. University of Pennsylvania. Krenjova, J., & Raudla, R. (2017). Policy diffusion at the local level: Participatory budgeting in Estonia. Urban Affairs Review, 54(2), 419–447. https://doi. org/10.1177/1078087416688961 Madej, M. (2019). Participatory budgeting in the major cities in Poland – Case study of 2018 editions. Politics in Central Europe, 15(2), 257–277. https:// doi.org/10.2478/pce-­2019-­0017

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Meijer, A., van der Veer, R., Faber, A., & Penning de Vries, J. (2017). Political innovation as ideal and strategy: The case of aleatoric democracy in the City of Utrecht. Public Magament Review, 19(1), 20–36. Michels, A. (2012). Citizen participation in  local policy making: Design and democracy. International Journal of Public Administration, 35(4), 285–292. Murray Svidroňová, M., & Klimovský, D. (2022). Participatory budgeting in Slovakia – recent development, present state and interesting cases. In M. De Vries, J. Nemec, & D. Špaček (Eds.), International trends in participatory budgeting. Palgrave Macmillan. Nabatchi, T., & Leighninger, M. (2015). Public participation for 21st century democracy. Jossey-Bass. Niessen, Ch., & Reuchamps, M. (2019, November 24). Designing a permanent deliberative citizens’ assembly: The Ostbelgien Modell in Belgium. Working Paper Series of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. https://pure.unamur.be/ws/files/43760057/Niessen_Reuchamps_2019_ Designing_a_permanent_deliberative_citizens_assembly.pdf Penny, J. (2018). The “cooperative” or “cop-out” council? Urban politics at a time of austerity localism in London. In T.  Enright & U.  Rossi (Eds.), The urban political: Ambivalent spaces of late neoliberalism (pp. 147–169). Palgrave Macmillan. Pycock, G. (2016). Localism as restorative politics; social capital and anti-politics in the London Borough of Burgundia. In PSA conference, March 21–23, (online). https://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/files/conference/papers/2016/ Localism%20%26%20restorative%20politics_3.pdf Pycock, G. (2018). Localism at the neighbourhood level: London borough governance and situated antipolitics. In PSA annual conference, March 26–28. Schaap, L., Geurtz, J. C. H. C., de Graaf, L. J., & Karsten, N. (2010). Innovations in sub-national government in Europe (Innovaciones en los gobiernos subnacionales europeos). Politica y Sociedad, 47(3), 145–163. Schneider, S.  H., & Busse, S. (2019). Participatory budgeting in Germany: A review of empirical findings. International Journal of Public Administration, 42(3), 259–273. Setälä, M., & Smith, G. (2018). Mini-publics and deliberative democracy. In A. Bächtiger, J. Dryzek, J. Mansbridge, & M. E. Warren (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of deliberative democracy. Oxford University Press. Smith, G. (2009). Democratic innovations: Designing institutions for citizen participation. Cambridge University Press. Smith, G. (2019). The lessons for democratic innovations. In T.  Henry (Ed.), Whose government is it? Policy Press. Sweeting, D. (2002). Leadership in urban governance: The mayor of London. Local Government Studies, 28(1), 3–20.

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Sweeting, D. (2003). How strong is the mayor of London? Policy and Politics, 31(4), 465–478. Sześciło, D. (2015, March 24, 2021). Participatory budgeting in Poland: Quasi-­ referendum instead of deliberation. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/283569130_Participator y_Budgeting_in_Poland_Quasi-­ Referendum_Instead_of_Deliberation Talpin, J. (2011). Schools of democracy: How ordinary citizens (sometimes) become competent in participatory budgeting institutions. ECPR Press. Tomášková, E., & Buzková, R. (2020). Participatory budgeting in Brno – inspiration for other cities? European Research Studies Journal, 0(4), 758–770. Weber, H. I., Vogt, S., Eberz-Weber, L.-M., Steinmetz, H., Wagner, S. A., Walther, F., & Kabst, R. (2015). Participatory budgeting: Findings from Germany. International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age, 2(2), 33–53. Worthy, B., Bennister, M., & Stafford, M. (2019). Rebels leading London: The mayoralties of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson compared. British Politics, 14(1), 23–43. Zampano, G. (2017). Il tramonto di Roma: l´eterna crisi della Capitale. In Politica in Italia. I fatti dell´anno e le interpretazioni. Edizione 2017 (pp.  167–187). Il Mulino. Zapletalová, M., Soukup, M., & Šaradín, P. (2020). Praxe participativních rozpočtů v Č eské republice. Pr ̌ípadová studie obce s rozšířenou působností Semily. Sociológia – Slovak. Sociological Review, 52(2), 180–200.

CHAPTER 2

Democratic Innovations

The following chapter focuses on definition-related and typological reflections of democratic innovations deemed to be the most interesting from our perspective. With regard to the fact that the research field dealing with the issues of improvement, rehabilitation, or refinement of the functioning of democracy has reached considerable extent to date (for an overview, see especially Elstub & Escobar, 2017, 2019), we focus on delimitation and analytical frameworks that we consider principal, most up-to-date, and topical for the clarification of conceptual-terminological background to the following chapters. The first part of the chapter presents an overview of key definitions and typologies of democratic innovations; the following part concentrates on several specific issues tackled by the research into democratic innovations. Democratic innovations are often considered a possible remedy when solving crisis and deficiencies of liberal democracy (e.g. Newton, 2012; Geissel & Joas, 2013). Expectations are rather high, which is generally connected with transformative effects like “improving the quality of democracy” (Geissel, 2013, p. 10) or “re-enchante politics” (Funes et al., 2014, p. 151). Strengthening citizen participation, which lies at the core of democratic innovations, should contribute to the empowerment of citizens and generally to “more just and equal political order” (Röcke, 2014, p.  8), as well as to socialization and educational effects or © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Šaradín et al., Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level, Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_2

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self-development (Geissel, 2012; Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p. 209). A fact that cannot be ignored is that there is a growing threat of erosion of the principles of liberal democracy, and the post-communist Central European countries, still perceived as EU newcomers, may be more impacted by this weakening than Western European democracies, which have a long-­ established tradition. The disruption of the connection between elites and “ordinary people” becomes a fertile ground for various new types of populism. In addition, the heritage of economic transformation left space for the emergence of oligarchy, which further undermines public trust in institutions and their legitimacy. Democratic innovations surely are not and cannot be a universal remedy for imperfect democracies; not all cases are stories of success, even though the attention of the academic sector is still asymmetrically drawn to successful cases (Spada and Ryan [2017, p. 772] point to this “failure neglect”). Moreover, many questions remain open; for instance, there is not sufficient information concerning their particular impacts and sustainability. There are many variables that play a role in the relations between the different types of actors in different contexts and at various levels (Crouzel, 2014). However, in many cases, democratic innovations still offer practical and viable procedures and solutions; provide instructions for political practice; may be replicated; are variable, adaptable, and able to hybridize (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, 2019); and can quickly spread, crossing scales and contexts (Wampler et al., 2018; Ganuza & Baiocchi, 2019; Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017). Their “remedial” potential may actually be great in many aspects. Nevertheless, this has yet to be confirmed. Research into democratic innovations is currently a vital sub-field of study. Investigation into the functioning of democracy and into its representative, participative, and deliberative aspects and various perspectives belongs to the fundaments of political science-oriented research. However, as mentioned by Elstub and Escobar (2019, p. 12), a greater number of texts working with the concept of democratic innovations only emerged in the first decade of the new millennium: “75 % of the relevant entries” were published after the year 2010. Despite the number of expert publications addressing DIs, it is obvious that the delimitation of DIs and their definition have not been established yet. The reason, as most authors agree, is especially the terminological openness, width, and abstraction of both the concept of democracy (as O’Flynn (2019, p.  32), drawing on Saward, expresses it aptly, “democracy will vary depending on whom you ask”) and the concept of innovation. Additionally, the expanding research captures

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various types of processes, practices, institutions, and actors from various perspectives and at various levels. Ken Newton (2012, p. 4) reacts to this terminological vagueness with a widely conceived definition of democratic innovation as “the successful implementation of a new idea that is intended to change the structures or processes of democratic government and politics in order to improve them”. The theoretical background does not simplify the complexity of the concept of DIs (O’Flynn, 2019; Goodin, 2008; Saward, 2003). In his seminal work, Graham Smith (2009, p.  9) points out certain problems related to the linkage of democratic theories with particular types of democratic innovations when assessing their potential. As he remarks, it is necessary to adopt various approaches to the democratic theory, which represents the core of the theoretical background (Smith, 2009, p.  9). Even though democratic theories lie at the centre of studies on democratic innovations, the area is still open to many other theoretical approaches. For instance, the great dynamics of digital innovations crossing the individual types of DIs creates room for interesting research into DIs from the perspective of theories of communication and media (Pomatto, 2019) or leadership (Hendriks & Lees-Marshment, 2018). In our opinion, the “ecumenical approach” proposed by Smith (2009, p. 12) is therefore still appealing. Research into democratic innovations puts different emphasis on processes, institutions, and actors, and it varies with regard to the scale, means, and particular outcomes (impact) that should be achieved. In addition, general classifications of democratic innovations vary, and different criteria may be used. A frequently used binary classification is the division into bottom-up and top-town DI. The bottom-up (societal) approach is connected to the role, activity, and spontaneity of citizens, while the role of the state, leaders, and institutions is dealt with by the top-down (institutional, via the state) conception; both dimensions necessarily coexist (Newton, 2012, pp. 6–9; Perczynski, 2003, p. 169). Identification of the driver (active citizens vs political representatives/institutional environment) is interesting and it also helps to determine the focus of the research, for example, with regard to the motivation of actors, as well as to the institutional, process, and political responses. Similarly, the demand side of democratic innovations represents a perspective oriented to citizens, while the supply side deals with the relation of elected representatives/political figures with democratic innovations (Thompson, 2019, p. 255).

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Graham Smith (2009, p. 1, 2) emphasizes the “direct citizens’ engagement” and the institutional aspect of participation. In his definition, democratic innovations are “institutions that have been specifically designed to increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision-making process”. At the same time, “[t]hey are democratic innovations in the sense that they represent a departure from the traditional institutional architecture that we normally attribute to advanced industrial democracies”. Brigitte Geissel (2009, p. 53) elucidates democratic innovations as “new practises (“procedures” in Geissel 2013, p. 10) consciously and purposefully introduced in order to improve the quality of democracy, independent of whether the innovation in question has already been tried out in another system”. Baiocchi and Ganuza identify democratic innovations as “new participatory devices [which] open a new political context with important effects on democratic performance”. (Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2017, chap. 1, para. 33) The most coherent and also most inclusive definition of DIs was presented almost one decade after Smith by Elstub and Escobar (2017, 2019). They included the existing conception and shifted the concept of DIs to a new level of precision and clarity. In their definition, democratic innovations are “processes or institutions that are new to a policy issue, policy role, or level of governance, and developed to reimagine and deepen the role of citizens in governance processes by increasing opportunities for participation, deliberation and influence”. With their definition, Elstub and Escobar (2019) were able to tackle several important issues. Firstly, whether DIs are processes or institutions—they may be both; secondly, the issue of context in which a particular element represents an innovation. They do not limit contextual innovativeness only to adopting DIs across (state) systems, as Geissel (2012, p. 163) puts it, “(a)n innovation can be new in one country, but well-established in another”, instead, they extend it even to the policy area, level of governance, and stage and function in the policy process. “The premise being that if a practice is new to these contexts it could still be classed as a democratic innovation, even if it had been implemented elsewhere within the same state.” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 15; Elstub, 2014). The new definition also emphasizes the line of deliberation and shifts the understanding of the role of citizens by including the importance of “reimagining” it. “The ‘reimagine’ (…) brings in contextual elements and establishes that a democratic innovation gives citizens roles that are new in that given policy context, and in doing so, it deepens citizenship by recasting the parameters of participation and

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influence. In this sense, democratic innovations seek to enhance democracy first and foremost by reimagining the role that citizens can play in governance processes” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 15). A delimitation and a definition bring us to the fundamental issue concerning the typology of DIs. In fact, delimitation of individual categories and their characterization have not received significant attention so far. From existing typologies, the most synoptic one is a typology created by Graham Smith (2009, p. 29), who worked with four basic types of democratic innovations: popular assemblies (including participatory budgeting), mini-publics, direct legislation, and e-democracy. The first two categories represent two different types of forums. While popular assemblies include forums that are “open to all citizens”, “mini-publics” are characterized with “sortition”, that is, the selection of participants employing “random sampling to bring together a diverse body of citizens to discuss matters of public concern.” This type includes citizen juries, consensus conferences, and deliberative polls. The third type—direct legislation— includes constitutional and popular referendums and initiatives. E-democracy, the fourth type defined by Smith, represents a wide range of mechanisms and practices connected to the utilization of ICT (information and communication technologies). Geissel (2009, p.  53, 2013, pp. 10–13) presents three wide categories of participatory innovations: (a) cooperative governance (when “political representatives share their decision-­making power with other political actors such as citizens, civil society, and business groups”); (b) deliberative procedures (which includes different types of deliberative procedures, from mere “information-­ exchange events with minimum discussion” to “extensive deliberation” and are generally consultative in their results); (c) direct democratic procedures (these “include casting votes on policies and rules or dismissing officials” like referenda, popular initiatives and petitions). Geissel also mentions e-democracy, covering “a variety of novel tools and channels of communication, information and participation”, but she does not include them in the typology itself. In relation to e-democracy, she also points out the great expectations related to its development that have been only partly fulfilled. “New technologies (…) do not necessarily improve democracy and sometimes even have opposing impacts” (Geissel, 2013, p. 13). So, while they may contribute to the improvement of communication, the effect in the strengthening of democracy is far from guaranteed. Elstub and Escobar (2017, 2019) built on their definition and presented a complex and comprehensive typological design intended for the

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characterization and assessment of democratic innovations. When designing the analytical typology, the authors took into account individual aspects that were present (or absent) with various intensity in various conceptions and explanations of democratic innovations. The outcome is a complex approach combining “quasi-contingent features,” referring to options for participation, and “contextual features,” related to the context in which a DI is implemented. Quasi-contingent features include participant selection methods (these work on an exclusive–inclusive scale) and the mode of their participation and decision-making (both differ in their level of intensity), and the extent of the power and influence which “relates to the influence the participants have on what public authorities do” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p.  21). Contextual conditions delimit the options provided by quasi-contingent features of a particular democratic innovation, including the level of governance, policy stage, and policy area (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, pp. 15–21). Based on the intersection of the defining features of democratic innovations constituting the “ineliminable core,” which is shared by all democratic innovations, that is, processes or institutions that seek to “reimagine and deepen the role of citizens in governance process,” and the analytical configuration of quasi-contingent features and contextual conditions, where “the contingent and contextual features provide myriad variations in design and implementation,” the authors define four “emblematic conceptual families of democratic innovations”: (1) mini-publics; (2) collaborative governance; (3) participatory budgeting; and (4). referenda and citizens’ initiatives. Like Geissel, the authors do not classify digital participation (described as “a wide range of communication channels and interactive platforms that are creating a new interface between government and civil society”) as a separate family of democratic innovations since an ineliminable core is absent (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, pp. 26–27). Two points should be accentuated: (1) these families of democratic innovations share common features as well as a high level of variability inside the “clusters”; (2) hybridization, frequently related in particular to digital innovations, is both a present feature and tendency. There is “a growing number of hybrid combinations of democratic innovations where process designers draw on complementary aspects between processes for the realisation of a broader set of democratic goods. (…) Hybrid democratic innovations are therefore purposeful assemblages of other democratic innovations” (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p.  25, 2019, p. 28).

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According to the framework, mini-publics are defined as “forums of citizens selected by sortition that undergo an intense deliberative process where participants engage in discursive expression,” with sortation and deliberation being two defining aspects (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p. 23). Elstub (2014) recognizes several types of mini-publics: citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, planning cells, deliberative opinion polls, and citizens’ assemblies. Participatory budgeting is a tool employed at the local level whereby citizens are invited to participate in decision-making processes about the allocation of public money (Elstub & Escobar, 2017, p. 23; Ganuza & Baiocchi, 2019; Wampler, 2007). The next family of DIs described under the heading of referenda and citizens’ initiatives represents widespread tools of direct democracy and is characterized by self-­ selection, voting, and aggregation as a mode of decision-making (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 27; Jäske & Setälä, 2019). The fourth family is collaborative governance, which entails a very wide spectrum of processes, “including public forums to collaborative partnerships and various participatory arrangements that seek to enable cooperation and coproduction between citizens, public authorities and stakeholders” (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, p. 27; Bussu, 2019; Ansell & Gash, 2008). Having provided an overview of basic present-day definitions of DIs and their typology, the following part must selectively mention some important issues tackled by the research into democratic innovations, in particular, the issue of the impact of democratic innovations and attitudes of political representatives. What is crucial for this research is the question how to assess democratic innovations. While many studies are case-­ oriented, evaluating in detail the aspects and impacts of particular cases of implementation of democratic innovations, other authors focus on the selection of common criteria. Graham Smith (2009) presents a synoptic analytical framework and evaluates DIs according to their contribution to the four “explicitly democratic goods” and two “institutional goods.” The “democratic goods,” according to Smith, include inclusiveness, popular control, considered judgement, and transparency; “institutional goods” are defined as efficiency and transferability. According to Smith (2009, p. 27), only democratic innovations that “can realise an attractive combination of these goods” may be deemed “legitimate and worthy of institutionalising within our political system.” A similar criteria-based approach has also been applied by Geissel (2012). In her analytical framework, she determines four criteria of evaluation: (a) “input legitimacy,” where she focuses on “inclusive equal participation,” and “perceived legitimacy”; (b)

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“democratic process” and its “deliberative quality”; (c) “effectiveness” in relation to “identification of collective goals” and “achievement of collective goals”; and (d) “civic education” observing whether the “improvement of knowledge” and “civic skills” have been achieved. The assessment of democratic innovations is closely related to their impact (Font et al., 2017; Spada & Ryan, 2017; Newton, 2012). Searching for answers related to the effects of democratic innovations on governance is complicated, particularly due to the absence of comparative studies, persisting analytical and methodological difficulties, and many other factors and variables including problematic measurability (and possibly also quantifiability). According to Newton (2012, p. 13), the absence of an effect or a weak effect of an innovation may result from various reasons: either it was implemented incorrectly (“the logic and methods underlying it may be faulty”) or the possible desired effects were “negated” by “actions of interested parties” like “governments, parties, bureaucrats, or opposing interest groups.” An interesting aspect mentioned by Newton is, as he calls it, the “placebo effect.” This effect is “caused not by the innovation itself but simply because the authorities have taken trouble to try to reach out to citizens and express an interest in their opinions. The warm and fuzzy feelings and the belief that things are getting better, even if they are not, may be what research measures, rather than any specific benefit flowing from the specific innovation.” Newton leads us to critical investigation into the implementation of democratic innovations. The role of authorities directs our attention towards the supply side, that is, to the under-researched perspective focused on the relation of political figures and democratic innovations (Hendriks & Lees-Marshment, 2018; Thompson, 2019; Hendriks, 2013). Nivek Thompson (2019, p. 255) points out the tension between the representative role of elected representatives in relation to democratic innovations and the role of citizens in them. “Regardless of whether one supports a limited or more expansive role for citizens between elections, the ad hoc nature of many democratic innovations suggests that elected representatives do not yet see the ongoing role for democratic innovations in representative democracy.” Thompson presents two types of motivations of elected representatives to engage in democratic innovations; however, in reality, the line between them can be significantly blurred. The first type is “normative motivations,” which Thompson relates to ideas and partisan ideologies constituting a politician’s background, or with an expression of his/her personal values and beliefs. The second type is “instrumental motivations where

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elected representatives use democratic innovations to achieve particular results or outcomes that they value” (Thompson, 2019, p.  256). The instrumental type of motivations includes the most desired aspects. Politicians’ intentions are related to, for example, the effort to build legitimacy and trust, be responsive to citizens’ activities, or share responsibility with citizens. The reality, however, may not be as picturesque as it may seem. Thompson points out the critical approach of Walker et al. (2015). They argue that political elites have adapted to the call for citizens’ participation and that participation is used as a “management tool” rather than a democratization method; “elite rule is reorganised to accommodate greater openness and participation without disrupting hierarchies and power relations” (Walker et al. in Thompson, 2019, p. 260). As Baiocchi and Ganuza (2017, chap. 1, para. 4–5) explain interestingly, in the “participative age” in which we live, “(e)nthusiasm for citizen participation abounds, even if its magnitude is difficult to quantify. (…) Whether citizen participation has actually (italics in original) displaced technocracy and elected politicians, a remarkable consensus has emerged around its desirability.” With a certain amount of cynicism, we may say that at present, even a local politician in the middle of nowhere knows that proclaiming and supporting citizen participation and engagement is desirable and appreciated. In many cases, however, the politicians entirely lack the actual interest, so it is merely attractive rhetoric designed for media and citizens-­ voters. The appropriation of content and effects of democratic innovations on the part of politicians results in “façade” participation (Spada & Ryan, 2017, p. 772) coupled with the effort to create seeming legitimacy and an alibi for one’s own political decisions. The result is “façade” democratic innovations that do not fulfil their purpose and are only labelled as such, since they enhance the politicians’ media image and bring the citizens a false sense of their own engagement. This type of purpose-designed actions thus also works with the placebo effect. Other interesting findings were reported in the research conducted by Carolyn M.  Hendriks and Jennifer Lees-Marshment (2018) that is focused on how political leaders (at the level of state ministers) view and value public input in their decision-­ making work. The research showed that most leaders regard public engagement as means to achieve “diverse views” “rather than as a process of sharing power with the public.” The authors cite one leader saying that a public input is about “listening but not about joining hands and moving together.” At the same time, leaders prefer an informal form of public input through “informal conversations with individual citizens that occur

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behind the scenes, after an event, in a meeting, or in everyday public settings such as a local market” rather than “structured engagement” (Hendriks & Lees-Marshment, 2018, p. 9, 13). It may be said that in Central Europe, academic literature also uses theoretical frameworks formulated above. At the practical level, it focuses on research into the implementation and functioning of the most frequently occurring democratic innovations, particularly participative budgeting and referenda. Gherghina et  al. (2018) follow Smith (2009), regarding DIs as “institutions that have been specifically designed to increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision-making process” (Gherghina et al., 2018, p. 2). Zapletalová et al. in their study on participative budgeting (2020, pp. 182–183) point out “changes in the behaviour and approach of individuals participating in the process, i.e., citizens, politicians, and officials; at the same time, it is expected that the support for processes of democratic making of politics will rise, and that the social trust and democratic legitimacy will be strengthened. (…) [P]rocesses of participative budgeting shall trigger the spill-over effect,” which may bring the improvement in the area of strengthening of the civil society, transparency, responsibility, and social outputs. A number of studies also presume that the implementation and establishment of DIs will lead to the improvement in the functioning of politics, to the inhibition of political apathy, and to an increase in participation, as well as to a revival of democracy as such (Smith, 2011; Ekman et  al., 2016; Krenjova & Raudla, 2017). The process of DIs implementation in Central and Eastern Europe lags behind that of Western Europe. The level of participation in countries that have been transformed into democracies only after the year 1989 is lower compared to the West, and the civil society in these countries is also less developed. All of the above mentioned has impacted even the intensity and quality of DIs. This is also the reason why there are fewer academic literary sources in the area and no specific typology of DIs that would reflect the particular context has been designed.

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Geissel, B., & Joas, M. (Eds.). (2013). Participatory democratic innovations in Europe. Improving the quality of democracy? Barbara Budrich Publishers. Gherghina, S., Ekman, J., & Podolian, O. (2018). Democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe: Expanding the research agenda. Contemporary Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569775.2018.1543752 Goodin, R. E. (2008). Innovating democracy. Democratic theory and practice after the deliberative turn. Oxford University Press. Hendriks, C. M. (2013, August 13). Elected representatives and democratic innovation: A study of responses to citizens’ juries embedded in the NSW Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee’, A research report prepared for The newDemocracy Foundation. https://newdemocracy.com.au/wp-­content/ uploads/2013/03/docs_activeprojects_Public-­A ccounts-­C ommittee-­ Research-­Report-­Aug2013.pdf Hendriks, C.  M., & Lees-Marshment, J. (2018). Political leaders and public engagement. Political Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718791370. Jäske, M., & Setälä, M. (2019). Referendums and citizens’ initiative. In S. Elstub & O.  Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 90–104). Edward Elgar Publishing. Krenjova, J., & Raudla, R. (2017). Policy diffusion at the local level: Participatory budgeting in Estonia. Urban Affairs Review, 54(2), 419–447. https://doi. org/10.1177/1078087416688961 Newton, K. (2012). Curing the democratic malaise with democratic innovations. In B. Geissel & K. Newton (Eds.), Evaluating democratic innovations curing the democratic malaise? (pp. 3–20). Routledge. O’Flynn, I. (2019). Democratic innovations and theories of democracy. In S. Elstub & O. Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 32–44). Edward Elgar Publishing. Perczynski, P. (2003). Active citizenship and associative democracy. In M. Saward (Ed.), Democratic innovation: Deliberation, representation and association (pp. 161–171). Taylor & Francis e-Library. Pomatto, G. (2019). Journalists: The role of the media in democratic innovation. In S.  Elstub & O.  Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 269–280). Edward Elgar Publishing. Röcke, A. (2014). Framing citizen participation. Participatory budgeting in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Palgrave Macmillan. Saward, M. (Ed.). (2003). Democratic innovation: Deliberation, representation and association. Taylor & Francis e-Library. Smith, G. (2009). Democratic innovations: Designing institutions for citizen participation. Cambridge University Press. Smith, M. L. (2011). Politika odvolání jako inovativní nástroj prosazování transparentnosti a občanské účasti ve slovenské a polské místní samosprávě. Sociológia, 43(4), 338–361.

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Spada, P., & Ryan, M. (2017). The failure to examine failures in democratic innovations. American Political Science Association. Political Science & Politics, 50(03), 772–778. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096517000579 Thompson, N. (2019). The role of elected representatives in democratic innovations. In S. Elstub & O. Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 255–268). Edward Elgar Publishing. Walker, E.  T., McQuarrie, M., Lee, C., & W. (2015). Rising participation and declining democracy. In C.  W. Lee, M.  McQuarrie, & E.  T. Walker (Eds.), Democratizing inequalities. Dilemmas of the new public participation (pp. 3–23). New York University Press. Wampler, B. (2007). A guide to participatory budgeting. In A.  Shah (Ed.), Participatory budgeting (pp. 21–54). The World Bank. Wampler, B., McNulty, S., & Touchton, M. (2018, January). Participatory budgeting: Spreading across the globe. Report. Zapletalová, M., Soukup, M., & Šaradín, P. (2020). Praxe participativních rozpočtů v Č eské republice. Prí̌ padová studie obce s rozšířenou působností Semily. Sociológia, 52(2), 180–200. https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia. 2020.52.2.8

CHAPTER 3

Reforms and Political Participation

Political Participation It has long been known that citizen participation in politics is the basic precondition for the functioning of democracy. However, political participation is not related only to electoral activities. On the contrary, its scope is much wider, involving conventional and non-conventional activities intended to influence political agenda and policies. Teorell et al. (2007, p. 336) mention “four crucial components” constituting the definition of political participation. “First, political participation entails action—observable behaviour undertaken by individuals. Second, those individuals are non-elites. We do not consider actions taken by political professionals, whether they be elected officials or paid lobbyists. Third, the action is directed by an intention to influence—to assert demands. This excludes from our definition activities such as discussing politics among relatives, friends, and peers, or simply being attentive to current affairs in the news media. To be counted as participation, something more is required—the willingness to affect decisions taken by someone else. Finally, this ‘someone else’ does not need to be government personnel, not even a state agent.” That is, someone outside the influential political sphere. It is therefore not necessary that a particular agent is influenced; “(w)hat is required is that the target of the act is any ‘political outcome’.” This wide © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Šaradín et al., Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level, Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_3

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and multilevel definition of political participation enables to include a wider range of activities, which helps to create a complex and more accurate view. This definition allows sufficient space for the analysis of political participation and can show the differences among individual countries, old and new democracies, etc. Based on several empirical studies, Kateřina Vráblíková summarizes the basic reasoning behind the question why post-communist countries manifest lower participation than long-established democracies. One reason is that the communist system “was not able to socialize its citizens towards voluntary participation taking place in a liberal and democratic environment.” Briefly, the Central and Eastern Europeans lacked “the experience with voluntary participation in politics” (Vráblíková, 2009, p. 868). The opinion regarding lower political participation in this territory is confirmed by later studies; some of them even point out the increasing divergence between old and new democracies (Kostelka, 2014). There are both comparative studies and national single-case studies (Plichtová, 2010; Gwiazda, 2015; Linek et al., 2017), all agreeing that these countries manifest low activity of citizens and weak civil society. The aim of the chapter is not, however, to show the main differences between old and new democracies, but to point out the degree of political participation in the selected countries. To illustrate the case more clearly, the figures for the selected three countries were complemented by figures for neighbouring countries—Austria and Hungary (Fig. 3.1). It is apparent that the degree of participation is greatest in an older democracy—Austria—followed by the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with Poland and Hungary having the lowest degree. Figure  3.1 “shows the proportions of more and less politically participative respondents in (selected  - PŠ) European countries” (Bozogáňová & Výrost, 2019).

The Condition of Local Politics The shift in regimes at the turn of 1989 and 1990, which took place in Central and Eastern Europe under the leadership of new democratic governments, involved reforms in  local politics. At that time, the establishment of democratic self-governance began in all the countries; municipalities were granted powers and an optimal design of electoral systems was sought. Within more than a quarter of a century of democratic development, all these countries underwent further reforms in public administration and shifts in powers, but also changes to election rules.

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80 70 60

5.9 11.3 24.7

40 30

65.7 52.3

49.3

46.8

20

31.6

10 0

5.5

9.2

50

Czech Republic

Poland Participative

Slovakia

Austria

Hungary

Non-participative

Fig. 3.1  Political participation in the selected countries. Source: European Social Survey (1–7)

During more than three decades, the individual countries have had to face rather crucial problems in the area of self-governance, which was always linked, in a certain way, to its efficiency in terms of the size of the municipality, as dealt with by, for example, Dahl and Tufte (1973) or later by Vetter and Kersting (2003) and Denters et  al. (2014). The questions about the quality of local democracy, efficiency, and the size of a municipality are cardinal and, in principle, we may say that they are the basis of the main direction of the research into local politics. The beginning of democratic transformation and re-establishment of local administration in Central European countries encouraged research into the shifts and development of local elites, leadership and management of new institutions, and the scope of public politics at the local level. The majority of studies focused on reforms of local administration following the shift from a centralized administration system (Péteri, 1991; Coulson, 1995, Andrusz et al., 1996; Horváth, 2000; Vetter & Kersting, 2003). Other works already reflected the development in local politics after the consolidation of democracy and local administration (Baldersheim et al., 2003; Soós et  al., 2002; Soós & Zentai, 2005; Lazin et  al., 2007; Swianiewicz, 2010) and focused on the impacts of involvement of Central European countries in the processes of globalization, European integration, and generally in the mainstream of western local democracy

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(Campbell & Coulson, 2008). Along with generalizing analyses, there were also case-based studies of selected cities (Kukliński, 2004; Horák, 2007) or metropolitan areas (Swianiewicz & Klimska, 2005). Haus et al. (2005) and Eckardt and Elander (2009) dealt with aspects of local politics regarding the orientation towards democratic city governance, and they pointed out the specific development of governance in Central European cities following the period of state socialism. After all, this label is used even in studies that are not primarily focused on political aspects but deal instead with city development, urbanization, privatization, etc. (Nedović-­ Budić et al., 2006; Stanilov, 2007). The first and very important work in the area of research into sociological aspects of local democracy (based on research into elected representatives) was the international research project Local Democracy and Innovation (Baldersheim et  al., 1996), which was followed, in the late 1990s, by Local Democracy and Innovation II: Mapping Institutional Performance (Baldersheim et  al., 2003). In the next stage, there were research projects across Europe, such as Political Leaders in European Cities (Bäck et  al., 2006) and Municipal Assemblies in European Local Governance, focused on mayors and members of representative bodies of European cities (Egner et  al., 2013). The research continued even in 2014–2016 with a project focused on city leaders called Political Leaders and Changing Local Democracy: The European Mayor (Heinelt et al., 2018). A positive aspect of these research projects and publications is that throughout the time they have shared an axis constituted by several social scientists, such as Hubert Heinelt, Henry Bäck, and Annick Magnier. This continuity has a big influence on the professional quality of these research projects. All of them involved even researchers from Central and Eastern Europe, including the three countries under our investigation. Ryšavý and Šaradín (2011) focused on the comparison of Czech and Polish representatives and their opinions and attitudes about selected political matters. They based their research on first research projects that were conducted in the international environment and concerned Czech and Polish town representatives from the period of the re-established local self-governance of the 1990s (for instance Local Democracy and Innovation 1991–1997). Since the analogical research projects were performed almost 20 years apart (the latter in 2008), it was possible to compare several indicators related to the characteristics of elected representatives. The comparison showed that at the beginning of the transformation, the characteristics of

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representatives differed in many indicators, while after 20 years, from the perspective of socio-demographic indicators, there was a significant convergence between these two national groups of local representatives. In view of this, it may be said that the existence of a democratic environment led in many respects to the homogenization of characteristics of Polish and Czech members of municipal assemblies. The differences from the early 1990s may be explained mostly by the different development of both countries within this decade, with respect to the social and economic situation in particular. It is also worth mentioning that in the transformation period, a similar convergence between the basic characteristics of representatives from Central and Western Europe occurred (the increasing proportion of women in the elected bodies, the average age of representatives, the proportion of individuals with university education, etc.). Post-communist countries have gradually faced problems that were and still are faced even by continually developing western democracies; these are related to the financing of local administration bodies and their autonomy; collaboration across municipalities; the size and number of residences; the relation of powers at the local, regional, and national levels; implementation of democratic innovations; electoral regulations, etc. This chapter, however, does not intend to capture all these changes, but as already stated above, it aims to focus particularly on describing the implemented reforms at the local level, especially the ones related to the engagement of citizens in the local political process in the three selected countries, and partly also on research projects and professional literature related to the topic. The concept of reform may be understood as the effort for improvement of the functioning of local governance, but they do not represent as deep and extensive a step as innovations (see Chap. 1). In this respect, it is true that while in one country a particular instrument may work well, in another, it may represent an actual reform or innovation.

Direct Election of the Mayor It was still in the period of Czechoslovakia (which became divided on 31 December 1992) that Slovakia decided to introduce direct election of mayors as part of preparations for the first municipal election (1990), while the Czech Republic preferred indirect election. Over time, there have been several proposals for the introduction of direct election in the Czech Republic, but none of them has been approved by the parliament.

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Poland was in a different situation, as there was more pressure on the enactment of direct election of mayors, and it was implemented in 2002. In Poland, the reasoning for the enactment of direct election of mayors included standard aspects, particularly a stronger relation of a voter to a directly elected head of the municipality, but there was also strong demand from the public: according to surveys, 70–80% of Poles wanted to elect their mayors. Apart from that, the debate-winning reason was that a mayor may be a local leader independent of nomination by a political party. It was expected that a mayor would stand above political parties and would determine the programme and vision of the particular territory. The crucial error was that the mayor’s power did not reflect in these ambitions; instead, the situation remained unchanged compared to the indirect election period. In addition, we may mention one more substantial reason explaining this reform—the direct election of mayors was expected to lead to greater electoral participation and greater control over elected politicians. The direct election strengthened the position of mayors and, at the same time, enabled their, at least, partial independence of political parties (Podgórska-Rykała, 2014). In the Czech Republic, some political parties make a long-term effort for a change to the electoral system, which seems unclear to many voters. The problem partially lies in the fact that the number of votes a voter can give depends on the size of the electoral district (if determined) or the assembly. For instance, if a particular assembly has 25 members, each voter can give up to 25 votes. Voters can vote for a party as such, or across individual lists of candidates. The individual votes are, however, first attributed to the party and only subsequently counted as preferences for individual candidates. If a candidate achieves 10% of votes above the average preference for the respective list of candidates, these preferences are taken into account and the particular candidate moves higher on the list. However, voters believe that they vote primarily for individual candidates, not political parties. Nevertheless, as explained above, this belief is mistaken. As already stated, the Czech Republic has been discussing for some time the introduction of direct election of mayors. The main reason is that proponents of direct election in the Czech Republic point out the possible increase in the participation and revitalization of the democratic process. A directly elected mayor would not be a result of coalition negotiations, as it happens in many towns/cities. The Ministry of the Interior elaborated two proposals (2007, 2010). These, however, lacked sufficient quality and contained mistakes; they were inspired especially by German and Slovak

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forms of direct election of mayors, but the implementation of such regulations in Czech local politics would probably not be suitable (Jüptner, 2012; Šaradín, 2010). Several political parties (previously Public Affairs; the Movement Mayors and Independents and the Czech Pirate Party), as well as a xenophobic-populist group Freedom and Direct Democracy, included or have included direct election of mayors in their electoral programmes. A proposal closest to approval was submitted when the movement Mayors was part of the Government (2010–2013), but it was eventually not approved due to the resignation of Petr Nečas’ Cabinet (2013). The situation has not changed ever since and the Czech Republic has preserved the indirect election of mayors, despite the permanent effort by populist parties in particular. It is especially those parties that consider it a tool through which politics may be shifted from elites towards people. This is also linked to the promise of the possibility of recalling local politicians by referendums, which is possible in many countries, among others in Slovakia and Poland.

Recall of Mayors Michael Smith compared the options for the recall of local politicians in Slovakia and Poland, and he pointed out that the recall process strengthens the democratic legitimacy: “Firstly, as it is legislatively enshrined, the recall is in itself a legitimate mechanism for the establishment of a political shift. (…) Secondly, the recall process can also help to re-establish the legitimacy of a particular public authority in the case of serious violation of moral conduct” (Smith, 2011, p. 359). What matters are the conditions of the recall process. As Smith explained (in 2002–2008), “the number of recall campaigns in Slovakia is much lower compared to Poland, but the efficiency of this tool is in fact higher” (Smith, 2011, p. 347). It depends particularly on the quorum of the voter turnout or, more precisely, on the particular requirements for the validity of the vote. In Slovakia, the requirements regarding the validity of the recall are fulfilled if the voter turnout is 50%, while in Poland the necessary turnout is 3/5 of voters listed in the electoral rolls. This is also the reason behind the higher efficiency of recall referendums in Slovakia, as presented by Smith (see above). The fulfilment of necessary requirements, however, does not necessarily result in a referendum being called. In Slovakia, some cases have been documented where despite the fulfilment of necessary requirements for calling and holding referendums, the mayors themselves prevented them,

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even though a referendum on the recall of the mayor was intended to take place in parallel to parliamentary elections. Such a situation occurred in the municipality of Šoporňa. Over the course of several months spent in the office, the mayor caused property damage and behaved arrogantly towards citizens. He forbade the officials from calling a referendum two times and threatened the citizens who signed the particular petition, so it never happened. Therefore, the requirements apparently also involve appropriate political culture.1 In the Czech Republic, the mayor recall process takes place regularly; however, it only happens at meetings of the assembly that elects the mayor. The reasons range from political issues to misconduct to failure to fulfil the duties to political ones (break-up of coalition). This happens if a mayor changes a political party. For instance, prior to the regional elections in 2020, the mayor of the town Jindr ̌ichův Hradec left the Social Democratic Party (Č SSD). The party then applied the recall process, but since it did not gain a majority, its representatives left the mayor’s office and were content to become members of the town council.

Discussion As we may see, and as documented by Horák in his work (2007), the Central and Eastern European towns/cities in the 1990s manifested weak governance results. This originated from several factors such as the establishment of an institutional environment, which led to a lack of coordination in the development and enforced, instead, simple and short-term goals and solutions at the expense of long-term visions for implementing particular policies. The institutional incoherence from the period that provided the greatest opportunity for enforcement of important reforms resulted in a weaker performance of administration and governance. In addition, for a long time, there was a strong emphasis on a technically oriented attitude towards politics and expert evaluations, which impeded direct participation of citizens in governance. Another significant factor was the fact that during the first decade, the transformation of governance was primarily focused on nationwide issues, alongside the establishment of the market economy, political pluralism, or the constitutional system.

1  https://samosprava.institute.sk/sites/default/files/publikacie/zomos_prirucka_referendum_2013.pdf

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Following this problematic first stage of re-establishment of self-­ governance and consolidation of representative governance, the civil society gradually became more mature even at the local level, which should support the establishment of a consistent participative political culture. Similarly to the national level, the local level also managed to create room for the establishment of the Opposition, allowing proposing alternative routes, as well as for the professionalization of administrative bodies and legislation. The majority of academic research projects agree that the degree of participation in post-communist countries is low, or lower compared to Western-European countries. These conclusions apply not only to the national but also to the local level. They are true with respect to the lower voter turnout in local elections, as well as to the incidental use (or misuse) of tools of direct democracy (e.g. local referendums) and the lower interest of citizens in governance. These phenomena are, however, not symptomatic only of new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (Bäck et al., 2006), they also occur, to a lesser extent, in long-established democracies.

References Andrusz, G., Harloe, M., & Szelényi, I. (1996). Cities after socialism: Urban and regional change and conflict in post-socialist societies. Bäck, H., Heinelt, H., & Magnier, A. (2006). The European mayor. Political leaders in the changing context of local democracy. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Baldersheim, H., Illner, M., Offerdal, A., Rosel, L., & Swianiewicz, P. (1996). Local democracy and the processes of transformation in East-Central Europe. Westview Press. Baldersheim, H., Illner, M., & Wollmann, H. (2003). Local democracy in Post-­ Communist Europe. Leske+Budrich. Bozogáňová, M., & Výrost, J. (2019). Social and psychological factors of political participation according to recent European Social Survey Data. Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics, 5(3), 116–130. https://doi. org/10.17356/ieejsp.v5i3.488 Campbell, A., & Coulson, A. (2008). Local government in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge. Coulson, A. (1995). From democratic centralism to local democracy. In A. Coulson (Ed.), Local government in Eastern Europe: Establishing democracy at the grassroots (pp. 1–19). Edward Elgar. Dahl, R. A., & Tufte, E. R. (1973). Size and democracy. Stanford University Press.

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Denters, S.  A. H., Goldsmith, M., Ladner, A., Mouritzen, P.  E., & Rose, L. E. (2014). Size and local democracy. Edward Elgar. Eckardt, F., & Elander, I. (2009). Urban governance in Europe. BWV. Egner, B., Sweeting, D., & Klok, P.-J. (2013). Local councillors in Europe. Springer. Gwiazda, A. (2015). Democracy in Poland: Representation, participation, competition and accountability since 1989. Routledge. Haus, M., H. Heinelt, & Stewart, M. (2005). Urban governance and democracy: Leadership and community involvement. Routledge. Heinelt, H., Magnier, A., Cabria, M., & Reynaert, H. (2018). Political leaders and changing local democracy: The European mayor. Palgrave Macmillan. Horák, M. (2007). Governing the post-communist city: Institutions and democratic development in Prague. Toronto University Press. Horváth, T. M. (2000). Decentralization: Experiments and reforms. Open Society Institute, Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative. Jüptner, P. (2012). Přímá volba starostů v evropské komparaci a české diskusi. Acta Politologica, 4(3), 232–245. Kostelka, F. (2014). The state of political participation in post-communist democracies: Low but surprisingly little biased citizen engagement. Europe-Asia Studies, 66(6), 945–968. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2014.905386 Kukliński, A. (2004). Globalizacja Warszawy  – strategiczny problem XXI wieku. Oficyna Wydawnicza Rewasz. Lazin, F. A., Evans, M., Hoffmann-Martinot, V., & Wollmann, H. (2007). Local government reforms in countries in transition. Lexington Books. Linek, L., Císar ̌, O., Petrúšek, I., & Vráblíková, K. (2017). Obc ̌anství a politická participace v Č eské republice. Sociologické nakladatelství (SLON). Nedović-Budić, Z., Tsenkova, S., & Marcuse, P. (2006). The urban mosaic of postsocialist Europe: Space, institutions and policy. Physica-Verlag. Péteri, G. (1991). Events and changes. The first steps of local transition in East-­ Central Europe. Local Democracy and Innovation Project Working Papers. L&D Foundation. Plichtová, J. (2010). Obc ̌ianstvo, participácia a deliberácia na Slovensku. Veda. Podgórska-Rykała, J. (2014). Bezpośrednie wybory wójta, burmistrza i prezydenta miasta, jako potencjalne źródło konfliktu na lokalnej scenie politycznej. ́ ̨sk, 2(2), 49–63. Vademecum Sla Ryšavý, D., & Šaradín, P. (2011). Zastupitelé c ̌eských me ̌st a obcí v evropské perspektive ̌. Sociologické nakladatelství (SLON). Šaradín, P. (2010). Direct elections of mayors in Czech republic? Data from research and political support. Contemporary European Studies, 6(2), 77–87. Smith, M. L. (2011). Politika odvolání jako inovativní nástroj prosazování transparentnosti a občanské účasti ve slovenské a polské místní samosprávě. Sociológia, 43(4), 338–361.

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Soós, G., Tóka, G., & Wright, G. (2002). The state of local democracy in Central Europe. Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute. Soós, G., & Zentai, V. (2005). Faces of local democracy: Comparative papers from Central and Eastern Europe. Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute. Stanilov, K. (2007). The post-socialist city. Springer. Swianiewicz, P. (2010). Territorial consolidation reforms in Europe. Open Society Insitute, Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative. Swianiewicz, P., & Klimska, K. (2005). Społeczne i polityczne zróżnicowanie aglomeracji w Polsce – waniliowe centrum, mozaika przedmieść. Prace i Studia Geograficzne, 35, 45–70. Teorell, J., Torcal, M., & Montero, J. R. (2007). Political participation: Mapping the terrain. In J. W. Van Deth, J. R. Montero, & A. Westholm (Eds.), Citizenship and involvement in European democracies. A comparative analysis (pp. 334–357). Routledge. Vetter, A., & Kersting, N. (2003). Reforming local government. Heading for efficiency and democracy. In N. Kersting & A. Vetter (Eds.), Reforming local government in Europe (pp. 333–349). Leske + Budrich. Vráblíková, K. (2009). Politická participace a její determinanty v postkomunistických zemích. Sociologický c ̌asopis, 45(5), 867–897. https://doi.org/10.1306 0/00380288.2009.45.5.01

CHAPTER 4

Democratic Innovations in Three Countries

Introduction When analysing and reflecting critically on expert literature in the three selected countries related to the implementation and functioning of democratic innovations (DIs), we may notice two things. Firstly, a majority of sources focus on participative budgeting, which documents its popularity and widespread utilization. Secondly, there has been no literature so far focusing on DIs in these three countries, or in the post-communist Europe as such. As an exception could serve the book entitled Democratic Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe edited by Gherghina et  al. (2021), whose chapters were originally published as contributions to a special issue of the journal Contemporary Politics (2018). The name does not correspond to the conception of DIs as generally understood and as perceived in this publication. While the book includes parts on the deliberative process or deliberative democracy, it also involves a case study “of the Hungarian national referendum” or a chapter called “The Role of Partisan Cues on Voters’ Mobilization in a Referendum.” However, the book does not provide comprehensive research into the area of democratic innovations. This chapter will not deal with participative budgeting; the topic has been covered in several other chapters as it deserves more space with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Šaradín et al., Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level, Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_4

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respect to its popularity. The previous chapter mentioned participation and selected reforms at the local level. Participation cannot be omitted even in this chapter, since it is part of many DI tools. One of previous research projects, particularly a comparative chapter by Vetter et al. (2018) Mayor’s Notions of Local Democracy, presented mayors’ perception of the support of participatory democracy across Europe. They found out that “the mean value in support for participatory democracy across all countries included in the analyses is 3.99.” The mayors were asked to express their opinion on a 5-point scale. “There seems, in short, to be no regional pattern in support for participatory democracy” (Vetter et  al., 2018, p. 178). In 2015–2016, the particular issue was reflected upon by mayors from 23 countries, with the greatest support being expressed by mayors in Albania (4.54) and the lowest in Sweden (3.29). Unfortunately, municipal representatives from Slovakia did not participate in the research, so we have data only from Czech (4.07) and Polish (4.00) mayors. The values from both countries show little difference from the presented average. Next, an overview of individual innovative tools mentioned in the present treatise will be presented.

Mini-publics Mini-publics are not an entirely new concept. They are similar to, for example, the so-called focus groups and other collective techniques from the area of qualitative research. The principle of mini-publics is randomized selection of citizens in order to discuss public matters in small groups with the aim to innovate the social environment. Some authors include in this method even bigger groups of randomly selected citizens; some of the best-known are Deliberative Poll©, AmericaSpeaks, or 21st Century Town Meeting. Small (10–20 participants), as well as big (100–500 participants) groups lead to “deliberation concerning general political issues among small groups of randomly selected citizens” (Lafont, 2014, p. 40). Elstub and Escobar (2017) state five key features of mini-publics, and they explain in their publication how “mini-publics work.” The legitimacy of decisions made by mini-publics with regard to the number of participants was researched in an experiment conducted by Jacobs (2019), who verified a hypothesis that “a public decision-making process that includes a mini-­ public with a large number of participants is perceived to be more legitimate than a public decision-making process that includes a mini-public with a small number of participants” (Jacobs, 2019, p. 10). The mini-publics process may be used as the main DI, or as a supplementary one, used ad hoc, or constantly, etc. The characteristic feature of

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texts dealing with this innovation is that there is absence of research in the environment of post-communist Europe. There may be various reasons: the above-mentioned mentioned lower participation, insufficient development of civil society, lower level of political culture, and greater passivity regarding implementation of these innovations. Another reason may be that the tool is demanding with regard to time, methodology, and finance. Many cities use various forms of qualitative surveys, we may say hybrid forms, as part of wider projects, for example, in land-use planning, where various techniques of quantitative and qualitative surveys are used. Citizen assemblies are used only in Poland (Gdańsk, Lublin). The size of the panel in Gdańsk is approximately 60 people and the vote is binding in case it is supported by 80% of members present.1

Referendums and Citizen Initiative Referendums are among the most widely used tools of citizen participation. At the same time, there has been an ongoing debate as to whether referendums and citizens’ initiatives shall be considered part of DIs. While we may doubt their “innovative” features, their nature certainly makes them part of DIs. A very important factor is the conditions under which they may take place. More benevolent rules result in greater success rate and more stringent determination of certain parameters results in lower success rate. This may be documented for instance on the example of the determined voter turnout. Pursuant to valid legislation, local referendums may take place in all three selected countries. In the Czech Republic, a local referendum is not embedded in the constitution; in Poland, it is foreseen in the constitution, but particular parameters and requisites are left to be defined in the respective act. In Slovakia, Article 67 (1) of the Constitution states that local governance is performed even via local referendums. In the Czech Republic, there is a special act on local referendums, while in Slovakia it is part of the act on municipal establishment (369/1990 Coll.). It is important to point out that in all the three countries, these referendums are binding. With regard to citizens’ initiative, this institution works in many countries and may take various forms. “(…) citizens’ initiatives can be understood as decision-promoting instruments. An important distinction in citizens’ ini-tiatives can be drawn between so-called full-scale initiatives and agenda initiatives. Full-scale initiatives lead automatically to a (non-­ binding or binding) popular vote, after having reached the pre-determined 1

 Panel Obywatelski, https://www.gdansk.pl/panel-obywatelski.

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threshold of statements of support. Agenda initiatives, on the other hand, are discussed and decided upon by the elected representatives.” These initiatives may also involve proposals from citizens on calling a referendum, “where a number of citizens can ask a legislative body to organise a popular vote on a specific issue, while the elected representatives have the authority to decide whether or not to hold a referendum” (Jäske & Setälä, 2019, p. 92). There are two ways that lead to a referendum: either it is a bottom-up process, that is, initiated by citizens, for example, with a petition, or it is called by an elected body, that is, the assembly. Table 4.1 shows how many signatures are needed for calling a referendum in individual countries. Obviously, all the three countries use this tool of citizen initiative, which may lead to holding a referendum. Authors analysing Czech local referendums in 2006–2016 (Burešová & Balík, 2019) state that 62% out of 240 referendums were incited by elected politicians, that is, the municipal assemblies. In the Czech Republic, the Act no. 128/2000 Coll., on Municipalities, enables the citizens to request a discussion of a certain matter with the assembly if it concerns an issue within the scope of the local governance. In such cases, it is sufficient for a proposal to be signed by at least 0.5% of the municipality’s citizens. In his older publication, Smith showed that “even though there have been fewer referendums in the Czech Republic compared to Hungary and Poland, the available data suggests that Czech cases generally manifest a higher success rate than Hungarian and Polish ones” (2006, p. 420). Table 4.1  Conditions for calling a citizen-initiated referendum Country

Conditions

Czech Republic

Based on size of municipality  3000 inhabitants < 30% of eligible voters  20,000 inhabitants < 20% of eligible voters  200,000 inhabitants < 10% of eligible voters  200,000 inhabitants > 6% of eligible voters 10% of eligible voters; signatures within 60 days 30% of eligible voters

Poland Slovakia Source: Based on national laws

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Collaborative Governance As to this innovation, we can make use of the definition provided by Ansell and Gash (2008, p. 543): “A governing arrangement where one or more public agencies directly engage non-states stakeholders in a collective decision-­making process that is formal, consensus-oriented, and deliberative and that aims to make or implement public policy or manage public programs or assets.” This way is used especially in decision-making where the need for a collective decision is considered to be crucial. For instance, it was used by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation when designing the National Housing Strategy on which all territorial systems took part and which is intended to be in accordance with all existing regional plans. The collaborative governance was constituted by round-table discussions, focus groups, surveys, and online questionnaires. There are numerous other examples of employment of this innovation at the website participedia.net. We could focus on various formerly used forms of collaborative governance, as done by, for example, Emerson et al. (2012); however, the concepts that are crucial for us are the ones reacting to the decrease in participation and transformation of politics to the extent that greater engagement of reforms and the public within the process of governance is necessary. Spread of the deliberative method resulted in the strengthening of collaborative governance in many countries, especially those with a long tradition of democratic governance. To date, we have not seen any well-­ developed national-level concepts of this innovation in the selected three countries. The closest to such concepts has been the preparation and discussion of the national strategic document called Strategic Framework Czech Republic 2030. In the course of its design, the institutions that were approached first were governmental advisory bodies and non-profit organizations. The basic theses were analysed and underwent administrative check. The process involved participative techniques and round-table discussions of 50–60 people in the World Café format (Strategický rámec 2030, 2017).

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Digital Participation As already stated, digital participation is one of the fastest-developing DIs.2 This is naturally related to the development of technologies as such, but recently it has been related also to the situation caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, which accelerated digitization, transfer of various activities, including shopping in the online environment, and distance forms of communication and education. Digitization itself is not, however, sufficient support for participation—establishing a website and publishing information on social networks does not necessarily lead to more plausible political activities. Digital participation is not a supplement, but a specific and key area of participation in politics. Many local representatives try experimenting with various forms of DIs; a particularly accessible one is digital participation. It offers many benefits for the submitter, but receiving feedback is equally important. This is also related to an important question regarding the extent to which this form enables equal opportunity for participation on decision-making. The Internet literacy (and in many cases also the accessibility of the Internet) is limited, especially with elderly citizens it is rather underdeveloped. Nevertheless, we may observe that the utilization of tools that may be considered forms of digital participation is on the rise. In the Czech Republic, participative voting system and D21 method are used by several cities and Prague boroughs; Polish cities also use various digital participation platforms, especially ones for voting. Another very popular tool is emotional maps; they are frequently used, for example, for the mapping of safety perception (Pánek, 2018). This topic is addressed in greater detail in relation to GIS applications.

Participation in Municipalities Within our research, we have attempted to create a more complex image of the status quo in the implementation of DI tools in three countries of Central Europe compared to information provided by isolated case-based studies of individual tools. This chapter presents a general overview of descriptive statistics; selected issues are analysed in the following chapters. 2  As noted in Chap. 2, digital participation within the Elstub´s and Escobar´s typology does not constitute a separate family of DIs but contributes significantly to hybridization within other families and, as the authors note, should therefore not be seen as inferior to the families of DIs (Elstub & Escobar, 2019, pp. 25, 27).

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Table 4.2  DIs utilization in Czech MEPs and Slovak and Polish district/ regional cities

HCCZ membership Social networks Clickable budget Transparent account Online MA meetings Participative planning Geoinformation systems Participative budgeting Open data

Czech MEPs

Slovak district cities

Polish district cities

N

%

N

%

N

%

53 171 140 19 77 102 105 30 12

25.85 83.41 68.29 9.27 37.56 49.76 51.22 14.63 5.85

– 63 33 3 39 42 22 33 65

– 88.73 46.48 4.23 54.93 59.15 30.99 46.48 91.55

– 40 37 1 37 36 8 – –

– 100 92.5 2.5 92.5 90 20 – –

Source: Own data Note: Sum of municipalities is 205 (CZ); 71 (SVK); 40 (PL)

With respect to the number of cases in the datasets collected in individual countries, the presented data is related especially to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, complemented with Polish data where possible. Table 4.2 illustrates the degree of utilization of some of the observed tools in Czech municipalities with extended powers (MEPs), Slovak district cities, and Polish regional cities, as reported by top representatives of the respective municipalities.3 In a percentage representation, taking into account that the result may be influenced by varying sizes of the cities in the individual countries, Polish cities use the observed DI tools more often, compared to Slovak or Czech ones. There are apparent differences in the use of clickable budgets. While more than nine out of ten Polish cities use this tool, it is only seven out of ten in the Czech Republic and five out of ten in Slovakia. This fact is probably related to the compulsory implementation of the participative budgeting tool in Poland, which is frequently used in combination with clickable budgets; they may be even technically linked to each other. By contrast, the Czech Republic has succeeded in using geoinformation systems to a greater extent, most commonly in the form 3  The data was manually checked with coders using random selection for a verification of the validity of data compared to open sources.

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of emotional maps. There are also other platforms that enable collection of information from citizens, with the data being subsequently processed by municipalities and presented back to citizens, ranging from digitalization of cadastral maps to platforms for reporting faults in municipal facilities or problematic places with regard to homelessness, pollution, criminality, etc. This may be, however, significantly conditioned by specific criteria; in the Czech Republic, it is the membership of municipalities in Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic Association (HCCZ), which methodologically and practically supports the implementation of GIS tools. From the perspective of the extent of the utilization, open data prevail in Slovak cities, which is enhanced by the pressure from the Government of the Slovak Republic, insisting on data availability. Surprisingly, all the countries fall behind in the utilization of transparent accounts. It is obvious that the implementation of DI tools does not need to be an ad hoc activity within a particular municipality; instead, it occurs either in synergy with the implementation of other similar tools or on the basis of pressure from citizens (bottom-up-based implementation) or from the central national level by adoption of incentives or legislation (top-down-based implementation). Based on the collected data, it is possible to categorize municipalities according to the type of the used DI tools, particularly in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where a sufficient number of cases are available. The previously published research (see Hurtíková & Soukop, 2019) presented a factor analysis of Czech MEPs, classifying the individual municipalities into categories according to the employment of the 11 observed DI tools in combination with the municipality’s membership in the HCCZ. The factor analysis enabled us to identify three relatively distinctive types of municipalities. The first type is participative municipalities that use rather traditional tools of participative democracy, such as municipal surveys, participative planning, participative budgeting, or round-table discussions. These tools commonly require active participation of citizens in the whole process, possibly even personal attendance at meetings of the respective work groups. The strongest correlation is manifested especially for the tool of participative planning, which normally requires personal attendance of participants. In contrast, the smallest correlation, even though still a strong one, was the one with the utilization of participative budgeting, which does not necessarily require personal attendance. The second type is the so-called e-municipalities that make much greater use of tools related to the electronic form of communication and

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the use of Internet or digital platforms in general. The strongest correlation is manifested for the use of geoinformation systems, together with a municipality’s membership in the HCCZ, which represents a potential synergic relation that will be discussed in greater detail in a separate chapter. The last type of municipalities is the so-called transparent municipalities that use, to a greater extent, exclusive tools providing information to the general public about the activities done by the municipality without active involvement of citizens in the decision-making process. In the Czech Republic, this applies particularly to voluntary publication of contracts beyond the scope of statutory requirements, often connected to clickable budgets and a transparent municipal account (Table 4.3). A similar approach was adopted by Slovak district cities, where a slightly different set of DIs is used (data on online contracts beyond the statutory requirements and the HCCZ membership, or their alternatives, have not been collected in this case due to a different context). Again, we may see three main types of municipalities based on the extent of the utilization of the individual types of tools. The interpretation of this dataset is not, however, as obvious as with the Czech MEPs. The first type identified is an informative–participative municipality, that is, a municipality using some Table 4.3  Factor analysis of democratic innovations in Czech MEPs Democratic innovation

Factors (types of municipalities) Participative e-municipalities Transparent

Healthy Cities membership Social networks Geoinformation systems (GIS) Open data Municipal surveys Participative planning Participative budgeting Round-table discussions Clickable budget Online contracts beyond the statutory requirements Transparent account Online municipal assembly meetings

0.135 0.035 0.053 0.209 0.691 0.746 0.463 0.631 −0.07 0.066

0.540 0.475 0.768 0.356 0.197 −0.15 0.242 0.123 0.386 0.147

0.016 0.08 0.003 0.209 0.025 0.155 −0.165 0.115 0.574 0.704

0.05 0.136

−0.205 0.342

0.668 0.389

Source: Own data collection; own calculation Note: PCA extraction method; Varimax rotation; three fixed components; bold parts highlight significant coefficients for each factor

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tools for the provision of information to citizens, complemented with more frequent employment of the participative budgeting tool. The second type is an informative–transparent municipality, which uses certain tools for providing information complemented with some transparent tools. The last type of municipality is labelled as an informative municipality, where only selected tools for the provision of information to citizens are used (Table 4.4). The research also involved asking mayors of the municipalities about the appropriateness of the deployment of the selected tools at the local level of the country, according to their own experience with local politics in the particular municipality, and the appropriateness of engagement of citizens in individual areas controlled by the local governance. With regard to the number of cases and available data, we present the results for the Czech MEPs and Slovak district cities. Results from Poland are not presented due to a small number of cases. The table below presents percentage proportions of answers provided by mayors of Czech MEPs. In order to understand the table more comprehensively, it is recommended to observe the appropriateness of the specific tool at the local level, that is, the darkest area and the area to the right of it. The majority of Czech mayors stated that the tools not regarded as particularly appropriate are local referendums, direct election of municipality mayors, and recall Table 4.4  Factor analysis of democratic innovations in Slovak district cities Factors (types of municipalities)

Municipal surveys Round tables Social networks Transparent account Clickable budget Open data Online municipal assembly Geoinformation systems Participative planning

Informative– participative

Informative– transparent

Informative

0.425 −0.016 −0.006 0.617 0.516 −0.034 0.685

0.148 0.344 0.786 0.140 0.445 0.670 −0.124

0.511 0.573 0.149 −0.198 0.102 −0.017 0.098

−0.042 0.641

−0.107 −0.096

0.776 0.079

Source: Own data; Own calculation Note: PCA extraction method; Varimax rotation; three fixed components; bold parts highlight significant coefficients for each factor

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through a referendum. On the other hand, the mayors welcome utilization of various types of participative techniques in general, municipal surveys, petitions, and public assemblies. From several answers provided by mayors in the open-end option “other,” we may infer that the prevalent effort of mayors is to engage citizens, to a certain extent, in decision-­ making at the local level, but the final authority should be the elected municipal representatives. The reported appropriateness of the utilization of individual types of tools completely corresponds to this statement. While the involvement of citizens through various participative techniques is appropriate from the point of view of municipal representatives, the deployment of tools from the category of direct democracy is not perceived as appropriate; they often mention, for example, the lack of citizens’ liability for the final decisions that the elected representatives make (Fig. 4.1). When approaching the issue from the perspective of responses provided by municipality mayors in relation to the appropriateness of citizen involvement in one of the areas, the greatest proportion of mayors (approximately 1/3 of municipalities) who answered these questions believe that it is appropriate to engage citizens in the creation of municipal territorial Municipal surveys

12.50

Public assembly

8.33

57.50 21.67

Participatory techniques

52.50

20.00

Petitions

10.00

Dismissal of the mayor by referendum

22.50

Direct election of the mayor

20.83

Local referendum

10%

16.67

51.67

23.33

33.33

48.33 45.83 17.50

46.67

20%

30%

40%

7.50 20.83

38.33

20.00

0%

28.33

10.00 19.17

29.17

50%

60%

70%

Very innapropriate

Innapropriate

Neither appropriate nor inappropriate

Appropriate

80%

90% 100%

Very appropriate

Fig. 4.1  The appropriateness of the individual tools in the municipal practice (% of municipalities according to mayors of Czech MEPs). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: N = 120; digits below 5% are not displayed

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P. ŠARADÍN ET AL.

and strategic plans. About one fifth of all mayors are in favour of citizen engagement especially in environmental issues and public spaces within the municipality, to a lesser extent also in dealing with traffic and planning municipal budget. In all of the above listed areas, it is possible to engage citizens in the decision-making process through a DI tool, whether it be a round-table discussion, a public meeting, participative planning, or participative budgeting. What the mayors do not perceive as appropriate is the engagement of citizens in decision-making related to education in the municipality and management of municipal property (Table 4.5). Overviews for Slovak district cities analogous to those for the Czech Republic are presented below. Applying the same approach as the Czech example (the darkest part of the graph, with values to the right of this part showing the appropriateness of the use of a tool at the local level), it is obvious that Slovak mayors adopt a different attitude towards the use of tools of direct and participative democracy compared to mayors of Czech MEPs. Despite the fact that tools of direct democracy are more widely used in Slovakia, the mayors consider these particular tools much more appropriate. However, with the exception of direct election of mayors, the tools prevalently regarded as appropriate are participative techniques (Fig. 4.2). From the perspective of the appropriateness of citizen engagement in individual areas of municipal governance, the responses are similar to those provided by Czech MEP mayors. The options perceived by Slovak Table 4.5  The appropriateness of citizen involvement in individual areas of municipal administration according to mayors of Czech MEPs Area of citizens’ involvement

N

%

Creating a municipality budget Creation of spatial plan of the municipality or strategic plans for the development of the municipality Environmental issues, public spaces Issues of education in the municipality Traffic in the municipality Management of municipality property No area for citizens’ involvement All areas of citizens’ involvement Total

17 39

14.2 32.5

Source: Own data

23 19.2 2 1.7 20 16.7 8 6.7 6 5.0 5 4.2 120 100.0

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Municipal surveys

7.32

Public assembly

68.29 14.63

Participatory techniques Petitions

24.39

56.10

17.07

26.83

46.34

36.59

21.43

Dismissal of the mayor by referendum

61.90

31.71

Direct election of the mayor

9.52

46.34

43.90

Local referendum 10%

20%

14.63 53.66

29.27

0%

53.66

30%

49

40%

50%

60%

9.76

70%

80%

Very innapropriate

Innapropriate

Neither appropriate nor inappropriate

Appropriate

90% 100%

Very appropriate

Fig. 4.2  The appropriateness of the individual tools in the municipal practice (% of municipalities according to mayors of Slovak district cities). Source: Own data; own calculation. Note: N = 41; digits below 5% are not displayed

mayors as most appropriate for citizen engagement are environmental issues and public spaces, creation of municipal territorial and strategic plans, management of traffic in the municipality and creation of municipal budget. Further, similarly to the Czech Republic, the areas viewed as least appropriate are management of municipal property and education (Table 4.6).

Conclusions and Discussion Our findings show that Polish cities use the observed DI tools more frequently than Slovak and Czech. More detailed information related to these findings is provided in Chap. 7 dealing with participative budgeting. The fact that nine out of ten Polish municipalities use clickable budget is conditioned also by its link to participative budgeting. The Czech Republic has succeeded in applying geoinformation systems to a greater extent, most frequently in the form of emotional maps, along with other platforms. The reason behind their use might be the

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Table 4.6  The appropriateness of citizen involvement in individual areas of municipal administration according to mayors of Slovak district cities Area of citizens’ involvement

N

Creating a municipality budget Creation of spatial plan of the municipality or strategic plans for the development of the municipality Environmental issues, public spaces Issues of education in the municipality Traffic in the municipality Management of municipality property No area for citizens’ involvement

17 41.5 24 58.5 27 11 20 10 2

%

65.9 26.8 48.8 24.4 4.9

Source: Own data Note: N = 41; percentages are not cumulative, they indicate the proportion of appropriateness for each category separately

membership of a particular municipality in Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic Association, which promotes these tools. In contrast, Slovak municipalities continue to use open data as a result of the impact of the governmental measures. We were also interested in the areas that the mayors perceived as suitable for their citizens to participate in. One third of the mayors proposed engagement of citizens in the creation of municipal territorial and strategic plans, with one fifth suggesting issues related to the environment and public spaces. Compared to their Czech counterparts, Slovak mayors support greater utilization of tools of direct and participative democracy, perhaps due to the experience of direct election.

References Ansell, C., & Gash, A. (2008). Collaborative governance in theory and practice. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(4), 543–571. Burešová, B., & Balík, S. (2019). Kdo jsou iniciátoři místních referend v Č R? Acta Politologica, 11(2), 18–38. Elstub, S., & Escobar, O. (2017). A typology of democratic innovations. Paper for the political studies Association’s Annual Conference, 10th–12th April, Glasgow. Retrieved May 15, 2019, from https://www.psa.ac.uk/sites/default/ files/conference/papers/2017/A%20Typology%20of%20Democratic%20 Innovations%20-­%20Elstub%20and%20Escobar%202017.pdf

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Elstub, S., & Escobar, O. (2019). Defining and typologising democratic innovations. In S. Elstub & O. Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 11–31). Edward Elgar Publishing. Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., & Balogh, S. (2012). An integrative framework for collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 1–29. Gherghina, S., Ekman, J., & Podolian, O. (2021). Democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge. Hurtíková, H., & Soukop, M. (2019). Participative and deliberative democracy on the local level: How the political characteristics of municipalities in the Czech Republic relate to the use of selected democratic innovation within their territory? Lex Localis – Journal of Local Self-Government, 17(2), 369–393. Jacobs, D. (2019). Deliberative mini-publics and perceived legitimacy: The effect of size and participant type. Paper presented at ECPR General Conference 2019, Wroclaw. Jäske, M., & Setälä, M. (2019). Referendums and citizens’ initiative. In S. Elstub & O.  Escobar (Eds.), Handbook of democratic innovations and governance (pp. 90–104). Edward Elgar Publishing. Lafont, C. (2014). Deliberation, participation, and democratic legitimacy: Should deliberative mini-publics shape public policy? Journal of Political Philosophy, 23(1), 40–63. Pánek, J. (2018). Emotional maps: Participatory crowdsourcing of citizens’ perceptions of their urban environment. Cartographic Perspectives, 90(2), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.14714/CP90.1419 Smith, M. L. (2006). Cesty k efektivní prí̌ mé demokracii: česká místní referenda v regionálním srovnání. Politologický c ̌asopis/Czech Journal of Political Science, 8(4), 399–422. Strategický rámec 2030. (2017). https://www.vlada.cz/assets/ppov/udrzitelny-­ rozvoj/CR-­2030/Strategicky_ramec_Ceska_republika_2030-­compressed-­ _1_.pdf Vetter, A., Heinelt, H., & Rose, E. L. (2018). Mayors’ notion of local democracy. In H. Heinelt, A. Magnier, M. Cabria, & M. & Reynaert, H. (Eds.), Political leaders and changing local democracy (pp. 173–208). Springer.

CHAPTER 5

Programme Local Agenda 21 and Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic Association: Testing the Causality Between HCCZ Membership and Implementation of Selected Democratic Innovation (GIS)

Introduction Democratic innovations (DIs) are instruments or procedures of participative and deliberative democracy which are designed to improve the functioning of politics at various levels. As mentioned in Chap. 2, DIs could enhance participation in political decision-making and policymaking, alongside supporting the development of civic competences and further increasing interest in politics.1 The most suitable area for the introduction of such innovations is the local level—the smaller the democratic unit, the higher the potential for the participation of the citizens in decision-­making (Dahl, 1998, p. 110). The relationship between the local political representatives and the citizens at this level is closer; therefore, events taking place within the municipality directly affect the quality of life of the citizens, who, in turn, can easily impact them (Geissel, 2009a, p. 52).

1  For more detailed information regarding the definition and typology of democratic innovation, see Chap. 2.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 P. Šaradín et al., Challenging Citizens: Democratic Innovations at the Local Level, Central and Eastern European Perspectives on International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43674-1_5

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Implementation of DIs in the municipal practice often receives targeted support from external actors. The aim of the Chapter is to introduce selected participative tools (democratic innovations) defined in the programme Local Agenda 21 and implemented in municipalities that are members of the association Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic (HCCZ). Systematic promotion of the implementation of certain participative tools is part of the membership in the association. It has been particularly presented, but not discussed in more detail in our previous research (see Hurtíková & Soukop, 2019), that the use of these tools will be higher with members of the HCCZ than with other municipalities. This hypothesis will be again empirically tested as part of this chapter and discussed qualitatively in more detail on the basis of unique data collected at the level of municipalities with extended powers (MEPs) in the Czech Republic between 2017 and 2018. The aim of the chapter is to present in greater detail an issue of the implementation of DI tools that emerged while processing data from previously published research (see Hurtíková & Soukop, 2019). We took particular interest in the relation between the membership of a municipality in the HCCZ and the implementation of DI in the form of deploying geoinformation systems in its territory, investigating. What causal mechanism occurs between the membership of a municipality with extended powers and the adoption of democratic innovations (particularly the utilization of geoinformation systems) as a standard tool for collection and presentation of data in the municipality practice? We propose a procedure for testing the causal process between the membership of a municipality in the association supporting implementation of particular participative and deliberative tools in municipalities (Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic) and implementation of a selected participative tool—geoinformation system. The research question is tested within the framework of a study addressing the membership of MEPs in the HCCZ. It is an association of 130 local authorities that endorse the Local Agenda 21 (LA21) programme (HCCZ, 2020). The main idea of the programme is the principle of sustainable development. The HCCZ association helps its members to accomplish this principle (among other things) through the implementation of tools of participative democracy with the aim of engaging more citizens in the decision-making in their municipality. For this reason, we presume that the implementation of participative and deliberative methods (democratic innovations) will be more systematically supported by the

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members of the HCCZ, in comparison with municipalities that are not members of the network. Because of the supposed equifinality of the research, we adopt Beach and Pedersen’s method called process-tracing (Beach & Pedersen, 2013, 2019), which enables to observe the causal mechanism between the presumed cause and the presumed outcome on a sample of one municipality, with possible subsequent generalization to all typical cases sharing key characteristics with the tested sample. Current research into participative democracy and deliberative methods that support participation of citizens in political decision-making is extensive. It aims at determining how to increase the quality, efficiency, and legitimacy of governance by engaging citizens (Pateman, 1970; Barber, 1984; Teorell et  al., 2007; Geissel, 2009a; Smith, 2009; Cini, 2011; Geissel & Newton, 2012; Della Porta, 2013; Font et  al., 2014; etc.). Systematic research into democratic innovations has begun only recently (for more information, see Chap. 2). However, it is impeded by the fact that their effect is best observed in the long run and can only be reliably captured by in-depth qualitative research or experiments because of their multi-causal nature (Newton, 2012, p. 6, 13).2 The majority of available quantitative studies observing participative and deliberative tools at the local level either test the effect on the improvement in the quality of democracy, following the implementation of particular tools, (measured with various types of indexes, such as V-Dem) or are case-based studies observing particular countries or cities, along with the implemented tools and their impacts (see references throughout chapters). This fact creates space for observing an equally important process of the implementation of participative and deliberative democracy tools—a topic addressed in this chapter. There are a number of empirical studies in the area of research into the programme Local Agenda 21; they test the ability of local authorities to accomplish the principle of sustainable development at the regional level. The majority of them are case-based studies, which documents the specificity of this process in various European regions: for instance, in Spain (Echebarria et  al., 2004; Barrutia et  al., 2007), Portugal (Carter et  al., 2000), Norway (Bjørnæs & Norland, 2002), Sweden (Eckerberg, 2001; Adolfsson, 2002), Great Britain (Church & Young, 2001), Germany (Kern et al., 2004; Geissel, 2009b), Austria (Narodoslawsky, 2001), Italy (Sancassinani, 2005). However, due to different political environments, 2

 For more information, see Chap. 2.

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culture, and regional uniqueness, the findings presented by these studies cannot be fully applied to Czech local environments. A theoretical explanation of Local Agenda 21 in the Czech Republic is provided in several professional treatises (for instance, Krajšek, 1998; Kašpar & Marek, 2005; Hrabalová et al., 2006; Kašpar & Petrová, 2018, etc.). The impact of the programme LA21 in the Czech Republic is studied in, for example, a publication by Viktor Kveton and his colleagues (Kveton et al., 2014). The success rate of the implementation of the LA21 programme is tested by comparing indicators of sustainable development in municipalities that have adopted the programme and that have not. The study is primarily oriented to testing the environmental impacts. The aspect of the tools of citizen participation is not included. A similar case is a study conducted by Oldřich Hájek and Pavel Bednár ̌ (Hájek & Bednár ̌, 2011), which addresses the importance of the Czech culture in the process of the implementation of LA21. The association Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic is dealt with only in a small number of professional publications (e.g. Dušek, 2012). This issue is generally insufficiently mapped, and so is the topic of the implementation of participative tools on the basis of introducing the action plan LA21 at the local level.

Theoretical Starting Points Participative democracy consists in the assumption that the public directly participates in creating political outputs. It is based on active and permanent participation of citizens in making decisions regarding issues that influence the quality of their life (Cini, 2011). An ideal participative democracy is a society with active citizens, who are well informed and independent in their decision-making (Barber, 1984; Fung & Wright, 2001). It is important, however, to mention that there are authors who question the benefit of deeper engagement of citizens in political decision-­ making (Schumpeter, 1976; Popkin, 1994; Miessen, 2011). They point out that citizens lack sufficient information and experience to be fully competent for making decisions on political issues (Schumpeter, 1976, p. 262). In deliberative democracy, constituting one of the four families (see Chap. 2), participation of citizens is represented by their involvement in joint discussions, with all participants being fully equal. The debate is an institutional tool for achieving democratic results in the form of a joint

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collective political decision (Miller, 1992, p. 55). Providing citizens with an opportunity to participate and express views in equal discussions can increase the quality of democratic opinions. This argument is the fundamental principle behind, for example, democratic innovations in the form of deliberative elections (Fishkin, 2012, p. 72), participative planning and budgeting involving citizens, or holding round-table discussions (Geissel, 2009a, p. 53). Suitable conditions in this respect are created on the local level where civil experience is of a different nature compared to the national level (Č mejrek et al., 2010, p. 8). This setting is well known to citizens who have relevant information, which provides space to enhance competence in democratic citizenship. Creating suitable conditions for the actual equality of citizens (voter awareness, active citizenship education, etc.) involves engaging public in political decision-making, along with increasing their participation in the administration of local community affairs, which leads to raising the quality of life in the municipality in general. On the local level, participative tools can therefore suitably balance the aforementioned limitations of modern representative democracy, prevent the abuse of power, and contribute to more legitimate decisions and increase in confidence in politics. Methods for the introduction of the participative and deliberative principle in the process of political decision-making (governance) can be referred to as democratic innovations (Geissel, 2009a, p. 52). They represent new ways and tools for deepening the direct involvement of citizens in public policy administration in order to improve the quality of the democratic process (Smith, 2009, p.  1).3 The actual effects of the selected democratic innovation that will make the decision-making process more democratic are hard to specify. It is often difficult to unambiguously prove that a participative tool has made the system more effective immediately after implementing. This is caused by the fact that the introduction of democratic innovations is a comprehensive process. It is quite problematic to depict the direct effects of the introduced democratic innovations. Some will become evident after a long period of time, while others can only be reliably elucidated by in-depth qualitative research or experiments due to their multi-causal nature (Newton, 2012, p.  6, 13). Democratic innovations may be useful on their own, despite the fact that they have 3

 For more detailed information, see Chap. 2.

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currently no direct measurable impact on democratic decision-making. In the long run, they can improve the political knowledge of citizens and their interest in making decisions about issues that directly affect them.

Local Agenda 21 and Association of Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic The Local Agenda 21 programme is based on a UN international document entitled Agenda 21, adopted in 1992.4 The idea behind the document is promoting the sustainable development principle, addressing local problems, and improving the efficiency of public administration through a consultative process and dialogue. Agenda 21 deals with the principles of sustainable development on a global scale and turns to regional and local administrations with an appeal for developing their own strategies for sustainable development, the so-called Local Agendas 21. Local authorities are considered key subjects in the implementation of the principle of sustainable development as they are closest to the civil society and therefore can engage it the best way through joint decision-making (Barrutia et al., 2007, p. 34). At the same time, the participation of citizens in political decisions may positively influence the implementation of the principle of sustainable development in the municipality (Geissel, 2009b, p. 404). Local Agenda 21 is based on a more general (global) conception of Agenda 21 and sets in greater detail the principles of a sustainable community at the regional level. Its aim is to increase the quality of life in the particular place through increasing the quality of public administration, strategic planning (management), engagement of the public, and the utilization of all existing findings regarding sustainable development in the individual areas (Hrabalová et al., 2006, p. 18). Local Agenda 21 emphasizes partnership with local organizations, cooperation with citizens, and their actual participation in public life (Kašpar & Petrová, 2018). The cooperation is aimed at developing and fulfilling the municipality’s sustainable development strategy and policy to enhance the quality of life of its citizens. Local Agenda 21 is a programme (action plan) for implementing principles of sustainable development at the local level through tools of participative democracy (Geissel, 2009b, p. 407). Chapter 28 of the document 4

 The Czech Republic adopted Agenda 21 in 1992 (Hrabalová et al., 2006, p. 16).

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Agenda 21 directly encourages local authorities to open up a dialogue with local citizens, organizations, and businesses. It urges the public to take a new form of participation in the decision-making where the local authorities receive suggestions from citizens and consult them while establishing the municipality’s sustainable development strategy (Agenda 21, 1992). The participative process is a central idea behind the LA21 programme. It is based on the prerequisite that local authorities have the best qualifications to establish a dialogue with the citizens because they are the most accessible authorities in terms of the public administration level (Coenen, 2009, pp. 165–167). Within LA21, decision-making in political matters is based on the principle of shared responsibility, which means making political decisions on the basis of partnership between the civil society and the local authorities. Municipalities as main actors in the fulfilment of LA21 should be places promoting the establishment of an open dialogue between politicians and citizens (Coenen, 2009, p. 173). From the perspective of citizen participation, a well-accomplished Local Agenda 21 provides a range of benefits—active participation of people in problem solving, cooperation of various social and professional groups, greater understanding of the activities of official bodies and representatives together with increased trust in their decisions, identification of actual problems and optimal solutions, ensuring feedback related to municipal governance, understanding of various opinions and attitudes, strengthening and developing democracy, enhancing the sense of belonging to the municipality, greater citizen satisfaction, improved quality of citizen life, etc. Many municipalities, however, do not have sufficient knowledge and capacity to be able to independently implement LA21 and the principles of sustainable development in their territory (Barrutia et al., 2007, p. 34). It is more beneficial for them to join associations that may provide them with methodological guidance. In the Czech Republic, cooperation across municipalities is very important, also because the Czech system of territorial administration is heavily fragmented. It consists of a high number of municipalities—6257 municipalities in 2020 (CSO, 2020). A municipality is viewed as the lowest organizational unit of the territorial administration, a community of citizens entitled to independently manage local affairs. The backbone of the national public administration system comprises 205 municipalities with extended powers (MEPs) (CSO, 2020), in which the majority of the

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population of the Czech Republic lives.5 The afore-mentioned municipalities exercise delegated public administration powers for smaller municipalities within their administrative districts. Almost 80% of the remaining municipalities have less than 1000 citizens (CSO, 2020). In reality, small municipalities in the Czech Republic are not able to manage the needs of their own citizens (mainly due to insufficient funding) and ensure their independence guaranteed by the law. Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic is an association that may help municipalities to implement the principle of sustainable development. It is an internationally certified association of cities/towns, municipalities, and regions. At present, it has approximately 130 members with regional influence over 2109 municipalities with 5390 million citizens (51% of the Czech population). 6 It systematically supports its members in implementing the LA21 programme in their territories. It provides them with specific methodology for municipality management towards sustainable development, as well as with specialist and technical support while implementing individual steps, and a database involving measurements of indicators and benchmarking. In addition, it organizes educational programmes and courses focused on sustainable development, strategic management, and programmes Healthy Cities and LA21, etc. The association creates a unique space and opportunities for sharing inspiration and exchanging experience among cities/towns, their official bodies, and organizations. It also offers help to its members regarding promotion of their successful activities through press releases, campaigns, documentation for the media, training related to media communications, presentations on social networking sites, etc. (HCCZ, 2020). Activities of the association also incorporate support for DI implementation. In the area of participation, the HCCZ provides targeted assistance for discussions with the public (specialist support when hosting round-­ table discussions, citizen forums, etc.), recommendations for activation of citizens and promotion of public life development, methodological support for establishment of participative budgets, emotional maps (work with geoinformation systems), organization of Youth Forums (‘Mladé Fórum’—discussions with young citizens), eSurveys (feedback from citizens in the electronic form), eVoting of the assembly/council/ 5  This category of municipalities was created in conjunction with the public administration reform of 2003 (Act No. 314/2002 Coll.). 6  More information about the association can be found at HCCZ (2020).

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commission (serving for wide engagement of the public), training in work with the public, examples of good practices, etc. In this area, representatives of municipalities are also offered targeted counselling and consultancy for their steps and activities directed at citizens (HCCZ, 2020).7 A specific tool that is systematically supported as part of the membership in the HCCZ is geoinformation systems (GIS). A preliminary survey among municipality representatives in three countries suggests that the utilization of geoinformation tools as a type of democratic innovations is not common (taking into account solely municipalities of a relatively big size and importance, in Poland GIS in  local administration are used by approximately 20% of municipalities, in Slovakia approximately 30% of municipalities, and in the Czech Republic more than 50% of municipalities; see Chap. 4). GIS do not serve only for provision of cadastral data or highly specialized data to the professional community. The potential for using these tools lies in a simple transfer of geographically viewable data towards citizens and especially in the possible interactivity. In the Czech Republic, GIS are frequently used in the form of so-called emotional maps through which the citizens can mark problematic places on the map of a particular municipality (places where public utilities have been impaired, excluded localities, especially places where citizens do not feel comfortable due to a threat of higher criminality, pollution of public spaces, etc.). Representatives of a municipality who use emotional maps for collection of information from citizens receive concise and well targeted information on where to direct their effort for rectification of problems in the municipality. More generally, this results in increased efficiency of the municipality’s (not only) financial investments. There is also a new function of emotional maps which enables citizens to mark places with traffic hazard in a nationwide map; these are subsequently included in preventive traffic safety activities of the Police of the Czech Republic. Since we know that the HCCZ provides municipalities with systematic methodological guidance in the implementation of GIS into municipal practice and provides them with the opportunity to test this tool directly as part of a remedy to a certain problem, we presume that the membership in the HCCZ itself may be a sufficient precondition for the initiation of mechanisms that lead to the implementation of this tool in the municipality. The membership in the HCCZ therefore indirectly, through the 7  For details, see the Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic website https://www.zdravamesta.cz/cz/sluzby-nszm (May 10, 2020).

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Fig. 5.1  Basic display of the causal mechanism towards GIS implementation and follow-up effects. Source: Own chart based on process-tracing methodology (Beach & Pedersen, 2019)

cumulative effect of DIs, leads to the adoption of other DI tools and emergence of positive effects, as assumed and described in theoretical publications and as illustrated in Fig. 5.1. The aim of this chapter is the empirical support of the effort for testing the causal mechanism that leads from the membership of a municipality in the HCCZ to the implementation of GIS in municipal practice.

Research Design and Methodology The aim of the research is to test the correctness of the construction of causal mechanism between the particular cause and the consequence of the implementation of a democratic innovation in the Czech Republic. For the research purposes, based on the theoretical and empirical starting points, the cause is determined as the membership of a municipality in the Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic, and the consequence is determined as the introduction of geoinformation tools as a common tool for collection and presentation of data in the municipality practice. The research presented in this chapter uses the mixed-methods approach and, unlike the majority of studies from this field, focuses primarily on testing the causal processes leading to the implementation of tools of participative and deliberative democracy, rather than on the consequences of the implemented innovations regarding the quality of democracy. We follow up on our previously conducted starting research (the study was published in 2019 (Hurtíková & Soukop, 2019), which was focused on testing the assumption that the selected political

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characteristics of municipalities support the implementation of tools of participative and deliberative democracy (Chap. 6 discusses the issue). This kind of research is limited only to dealing with correlations, and despite the substantial theoretical background utilized, it can only discover a causal effect (which the cause may potentially have on the consequence), but not the causal mechanism between the cause and the effect. The follow-up research presented in this chapter focuses on an in-depth insight into the issue of implementation of participative and deliberative democracy tools. It focuses on proposing and testing the procedure of a causal mechanism (i.e. testing the influence of a particular cause on the occurrence of a particular consequence), which mediates the causal effect. In this case, we follow a testing procedure regarding the causal process between the membership of municipalities in the association supporting the implementation of participative and deliberative tools in municipalities (in particular in the HCCZ) and the implementation of a selected participative tool (in particular the utilization of geoinformation systems). With regard to the multi-causal character of the tested relationships, including the presumed equifinality (Newton, 2012), we use the mechanism-­based approach and the process-tracing method presented by Beach and Pedersen (2013, 2019; Beach & Rohlfing, 2018; Bennett & Checkel, 2015; Mazák, 2017; etc.), which allows not only observing but also empirically testing an isolated causal mechanism and its individual steps between the deterministically defined cause (the HCCZ membership) and the consequence (adoption of GIS in common municipality data collection and presentation practice).8 For every step, we determine the presumed empirical evidence as verification of the existence and correct succession of the individual steps of the causal mechanism. If the presumed causal mechanism is empirically verified, it can be generalized with a certain probability, involving typical cases represented by municipalities that are members of the HCCZ and share even other demographic or political characteristics with the tested case. In order to obtain the final results of the research, the QCA method and the Bayesian approach need to be employed in the process of the generalization of the potentially verified causal mechanism.

8  The selection of the cause and consequence is based on a series of statistical analyses, some of which are presented in this chapter.

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Empirical Results One of the key factors supporting the implementation of tools of participative and deliberative democracy is the membership of municipalities in the HCCZ.  According to the assumptions based especially on expert observation and entries in the database of good practice, as well as on empirical statistical outputs, we may say that the membership itself and the related measures and activities support the implementation of some participative and deliberative tools. This part of the research (Hurtíková & Soukop, 2019) involved elaborating t-test statistic based on the significance of the difference in the adopted tools of participative and deliberative democracy between members and non-members of HCCZ.  The results are presented in Table 5.1. Apparently, members and non-members of the HCCZ manifest a non-­ incidental statistically significant variability in the adoption of municipal surveys, geoinformation systems, online municipal assembly meetings, and nearly clickable budget. In fact, all these tools, and especially GIS, are Table 5.1  T-test of democratic innovations based on the HCCZ membership (CZ) Democratic innovation t-test for two independent samples

Municipal surveys Social networks Clickable budget Online contracts Transparent account Online MA meetings Participative planning Geoinformation systems Participative budget Open data Round-table discussions

T

Sig. (2-tailed)

Difference of means

S.E. difference

Eta

−3.483 −1.320 −1.937 −1.115 −0.098 −2.945 −0.360 −3.261

0.001 0.188 0.054 0.268 0.922 0.004 0.720 0.002

−0.613 0.061 −0.149 −0.158 −0.005 −0.225 −0.029 −0.250

0.158 −0.201 0.077 0.142 0.047 0.076 0.081 0.077

0.24 0.09 0.13 0.08 0.01 0.20 0.03 0.22

−1.088 0.278 −0.594 0.554 −1.372 0.171

−0.038 −0.025 −0.225

0.346 0.150 0.164

0.08 0.04 0.10

Source: Hurtíková and Soukop (2019) Note: Compared groups based on the membership of the municipality in the Healthy Cities of the Czech Republic association. Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance was carried out

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systematically supported as part of the membership in HCCZ, so we may formulate the assumption that the membership in the HCCZ has a positive causal effect on the implementation of these participative and deliberative tools and there is a causal mechanism between the HCCZ membership and the implementation of these tools. Similar findings are manifested by the correlation matrix in Table 5.2. A municipality’s membership in the HCCZ is positively correlated with municipal surveys, availability of online meetings of the municipal assembly, and geoinformation systems that are observed in this study. There is also a slightly positive, but statistically insignificant correlation with clickable budget. All these tools are systematically supported (but not required or imposed) within the membership in the HCCZ, so it may be presumed that there is a direct causal mechanism linking the membership in the HCCZ with the implementation of these tools, without an indirect influence of another factor.

On-line MA meetings

Participative planning

Geoinformation systems

Participative budgeting

Open data

.135

.076

.007

.202**

.025

.223**

.076

.046

.097

.087

.072

.111

.007

.134

.140*

.015

.115

.024

.212**

.045

.006

.178*

.344**

.100

.198**

.037

.164*

.029

.187**

.084

.214**

.135

.095

.112

.075

.115

.181**

.138*

.036

-.014

-.072

.064

.030

.198**

.193**

.061

.153*

.143*

.127

.274**

Social networks

.237**

Municipal surveys Social networks

Clickable budget On-line contracts

Transparent account On-line MA meetings

Round-table discussions

Transparent account

.092

Clickable budget

On-line contracts

HCCZ membership

Municipal surveys

HCCZ membership

Table 5.2  Correlation matrix of used democratic innovations (Czech MEPs)

Participative planning

-.026 .183**

Geoinformation systems

.144

*

Participative budgeting

.269

**

.136

Open data Round-table discussions

*p