Article Critique 3:

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Review of Contemporary Philosophy Vol. 14, 2015, pp. 138–143, ISSN 1841-5261

CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN

ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION MAKING

DOINA POPESCU LJUNGHOLM [email protected]

University of Pitești ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine the function of individuals and stakeholders in governance, the effectiveness of the citizen involvement process, processes of direct citizen participation, and challenges to thickening democracy via raised citizen involvement. The analysis presented in this paper contributes to re- search on direct separate citizen participation in governance, the relevance of citizen involvement and participatory democracy in constructing a feasible society, citizen participation in decision-making processes, and governance operations in which individuals enhance governmental responsibility via their involvement. Keywords: citizen participation; decision-making process; governmental accountability

1. Introduction Citizenship involvement is the bedrock of democracy. Direct citizen partici- pation frequently lies on the shoulders of public administrators for effective performance. Associating the enlarged perspective of citizen and the notions of collective power and decision making (Nica and Potcovaru, 2015), citizen participation is the operation by which constituents of a society share power with bureaucrats in making concrete decisions (Lăzăroiu, 2015) and in tak- ing actions associated with the public. Direct citizen involvement establishes the terms and requirements for citizenship and for how we regard the decision maker’s function in backing of it, and is noticeable at all layers of govern- ment, despite the fact that it has a tendency to be more obvious locally and regionally because of questions of scale. The more significant the discontent among individuals within a policy sphere, the more vociferous the demands for direct citizen participation. (Roberts, 2004) Individuals can have a signif- icant function in public policy and decision making, and have the right to determine what is relevant to them (Popescu-Ljungholm, 2015a) and how they can most fully attain their goals. Public managers should further greater citizen participation in the activity of government. Leaders in public affairs

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recognize tools for the new governance (de Beaufort and Summers, 2014) via arrangements of public, private, and nonprofit entities: it entails citizens and the mechanisms via which they engage in the activity of government. (Blomgren Bingham et al., 2005)

2. Citizen Participation in Decision-making Processes Engagements in local entities improve particular experiences as performances of citizenship and supply associational experience which stimulates the acknowledgement of and the pre-eminence of shared and public goods. The performance of citizen engagement, by its associational feature, tends to bring about an increased sense of strength (Nica and Potcovaru, 2014), which, in turn, supports additional participation. Local entities are critical to the criterion of local self government and furnish the chief process for expanding citizen involvement in the political system. Individuals performing in groups collec- tively can establish political capital (Lăzăroiu, 2013), either as they can convert that recognition into votes or by reason of their competence to transfigure the entity into an adequate pressure group. Professionalization of government, which depends on professionals, minimizes the advantages of self governance and citizen involvement. (Gittell and Newman, 2012) The types of partici- pants who launch and back citizen participation (Petcu, 2014) represent a various and reciprocally interacting environment. Mechanisms of political contest via elections offer individuals a good justification to back and follow the schemes that derive from the former: they have had chances to select the policy makers. Rightly vetted, individuals who are not political experts may perform for grounds that promote concerns that are more widely shared by other persons. The latter may hold epistemic benefits over more qualified political participants. Legitimacy may hold closely to the essential recognition between citizens at-large and decision makers. Numerous multisectoral problem-solving, networked governance, or collective governance endeavors do not bring about a significant function for individuals. The latter can assist in expressing specific problems in more precise and feasible manners than experts performing alone. (Fung, 2015)

With citizen involvement, devised schemes may be more realistically established in citizen choices, individuals may become more supportive appraisers of the difficult decisions that government decision-makers have to make, and the enhanced backing from citizens may generate a less disruptive, contentious public to supervise. A thorough citizen engagement process can assist in surpassing the obstacles to successful policy brought about by the sound-bite media culture. Knowledgeable and implicated persons become citizen-professionals, grasping technically hard situations and identifying holistic community-wide explanation. Several citizen involvement programs

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may chiefly satisfy a marketing reason, where the engagement process com- prises government members steering the individuals toward decisions that the decision maker would have made originally. Influencing the citizens by interacting with them frequently and fundamentally earning their confidence and companionship may be the only manner that regulators can further novel schemes in communities where anti-government attitude runs high. (Irvin and Stansbury, 2004) The deficiencies of the advanced democracies lie in a pervasive citizen unease concerning the formal entities (Mulligan, 2015), and prevalent opinions among citizens that political entities underachieve. Demo- cratic shortfalls may weaken the strengths of democratic political systems to develop (Tognato, 2015) and reconstruct into ever more adequate and war- ranted agents of individuals. A viable democracy should empower people to hone their political resources: individuals should be able to concentrate their voting on selecting representatives who will defend nearly all of their concerns (democracy is diminished when the citizenry are deficient in collective agents for public reasons). (Warren, 2009)

3. The Relevance of Citizen Involvement and Participatory Democracy in Constructing a Feasible Society Global entities are short of a democratic citizenry: decision-making is far eliminated from the citizens’ choices. The democracy shortage entails a dep- rivation of responsiveness to the choices of the individuals, both concerning the delivery of outcomes and the employment of decision-making processes. Decisions on global treaties taken by the citizenry earn considerable legitimacy. Democracy is established on the belief that individuals can make political decisions in a fair manner. In a representative democracy, the experienced representatives are sensitive to the citizens’ choices, particularly at election time. The latter can make logically argues political decisions: the more widespread individuals’ direct participation rights are, the better is the public economy managed. The notion of giving persons a direct influence with reference to global entities can make progress towards an international civil society easier. (Frey and Stutzer, 2006) When decisions entail significant ethical or material trade-offs, individuals may be most highly positioned to resolve them. Citizens who are frequently most impacted by endeavors to aim at public problems are well positioned to supply data significant to formulating solutions and assessing enforcement. Individuals may become directly involved in finding answers public problems and therefore provide supplementary resources via coproduction. By rearranging themselves to integrate more significant citizen involvement, public agencies can raise their strength by employing more data and the specific potentials and resources of individuals. (Fung, 2015)

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For numerous public authorities, involvement implies notifying citizens of plans and decisions. The most unmanageable disputes between various political groups, unconditioned concerns and individuals have broadened out of the setting up and advancement of considerable public infrastructure schemes. Demands of backing for local democratic process may be accelerated by signed citizen solicitations gathered by persons or civic associations. (Carson and Lewanski, 2008) Citizen involvement may diminish the level of citizen disbelief in government, and instruct individuals about government undertak- ings. The objective is for citizens to have a dynamic function in decisions and not just be compliant users of government services. Concern in citizen participation has comprised the public budgeting operation, where significant scheme and resource allowance decisions are made. Public input influences budgetary decision-making, especially when a group of individuals associate on a specific matter: the intricacy of the budget and the sensed general absence of citizen concern are considerable obstacles to participation. (Ebdon, 2002)

4. Governance Operations in which Individuals Enhance Governmental Responsibility via Their Involvement At the operational level, bureaucrats will interact more customarily and successfully with citizens to grasp the hopes and requirements of community inhabitants. Governments have introjected the notions of responsibility and operation in such a manner that individuals do not sense that public under- takings frequently fulfill prevalent demands. Direct democracy provides the chance not only for individuals to become more instructed but also for lead- ers, devisers, and bureaucrats to establish what agendas and decisions are relevant to citizens, and to evidence and report responsibility and operation in more relevant fashions. Bureaucrats need to steer elected officials via the labyrinths of citizen participation while simultaneously advancing and support- ing the civic engagement undertakings in their governments. The governance operation in which community arrangement is associated with benchmarking and performance supervision is a crucial component for reuniting citizens via the participatory operation and for advancing a more manifest measure of responsibility. (Gibson et al., 2005) Digital technologies and social media may generate the resources for individuals to receive data about public aspects and information about themselves that prepare them to be more qualified collaborators in public problem solving. Participatory budgeting involves a diversity of institutional patterns in which direct citizen engagement is an essential component, but the furtherance of social justice is a conditional effect. Citizen participation may be a solution to reinforcing the democratic legitimacy of governance operations. (Fung, 2015)

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Including individuals in making strategies is a starting point for first-rate planning practice. Plan enforcement depends on the extent to which citizens regard plans as a warranted foundation for taking action (Popescu Ljungholm, 2015b) and evidencing public reasons to directly impact private property and decision making. Crowdsourcing, as with any citizen engagement undertaking, can be both effective and convincing for a massive group if it draws on the place-based interests and reliabilities held by actors, and if involvement is perceived as a process for both having an effect and earning consideration among peers. Valuable citizen participation is the outcome of a host of techniques and chances in a planning operation. Citizen engagement covers allowing us to get to better decisions in partnership, with better expectations for being partly responsible for legitimate and habitable communities. The swiftly forward-moving practice of employing urban data flows to notify both decision makers and individuals constitutes a boost of novel work and chance. (Seltzer and Mahmoudi, 2012) 5. Conclusions

Citizens should know something about their representatives’ trustworthiness (Nica, 2015), grounded on assessments about arrangements of concerns and relevance, and should engage to the degree that they can guarantee that they are being spoken for. Individuals may choose that bureaucrats share their concerns, and will maintain the confidence established in them by the public (Mircică, 2014), and that their typical representatives will inform them when and if their confidence seems misplaced. A sound democracy would empower citizens to split their connections to government between those of dynamic involvement and those of confidence established on knowledgeable respect. Operations that citizens appreciate to be uncoordinated, incompetent, uneco- nomical, unjustified, or biased can undermine individuals’ trust in public sector entities. (Warren, 2009)

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