Civil Society Versus Local Self‐Governments and Central Government in V4 Countries: The Case of Co‐Creation

Michal Plaček, Juraj Nemec, Mária Murray Svidroňová, Paweł Mikołajczak and Éva Kovács
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Michal Plaček: Faculty of Social Science, Charles University, Czech Republic
Juraj Nemec: Faculty of Economics and Administration, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Mária Murray Svidroňová: Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University, Slovakia
Paweł Mikołajczak: Institute of Finance, Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland
Éva Kovács: Institute of Social and Political Sciences, Corvinus University, Hungary / Lajos Lőrincz Department of Administrative Law, University of Public Service, Hungary

Politics and Governance, 2023, vol. 11, issue 2, 293-304

Abstract: In the new EU member states, there are very few studies analyzing the role of central and local self-governments in co-design processes. Nevertheless, such studies are particularly important as co-creation takes place in the context of former post-communist countries where central power reigned supreme and cooperation with the civil sector was very limited. This article aims to enrich the existing debate on the role of central and local self-government in the context of co-creation at the local level—specifically to map the extent to which local and central governments in the Visegrad Four region (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) support local participatory budgeting initiatives as one of the most important forms of co-creation. The findings are very interesting, as each country has its situation and specificities. The (positive but also negative) role of the central state is limited but not invisible, except in the Czech Republic. The relations between civil society (and formal NGOs) and local self-governments are somewhat more similar within the countries studied. At the beginning of participatory budgeting, the civil sector and NGOs served as initiators and local self-governments as followers. However, this position has been steadily shifting towards the dominance of local self-governments and the marginalization of the civil society’s role.

Keywords: co‐creation; local level; participatory budgeting; V4 countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v11:y:2023:i:2:p:293-304

DOI: 10.17645/pag.v11i2.6282

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