The first of the above mentioned sets of factors included the socioeconomic context and the operational performance of local policy making and local service provision. While the former can be influenced only very slowly and indirectly (if at all), the quality of local service provision can be raised more effectively by various development programs, such as training programs, technical assistance, and so on. This could be one of the central action fields in improving citizens’ overall opinions of their local government.
The second of the above mentioned sets of factors—local policy makers’ commitment and ability to pursue effective communication strategies—turns our attention towards behavioral and cultural patterns among mayors and other top local policy makers. This opens up a second central action field of development policies. Training and, more generally, organizational development within local governmental organizations can have a significant effect on promoting the establishment of truly perceptive and participative local governmental operations.
Hubácek, Ondrej; Rose, Lawrence; Grochowski, Miroslav; Gajduschek, György; Buchta, Stanislav (1996): Political Culture and Citizen Involvement, In: Baldersheim, Harald et al. (1996): Local Democracy and the Processes of Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe.
Kákai, László; Csegény, Péter (2000): A részkutatások eredményeinek összegzése (“Summary of Research Findings”), In: Csegény, Péter; Kákai, László (2000): Köztes helyzet? A civil szervezetek és az önkormányzatok kapcsolatában pp. 137–145.
Kiss, József; Kabai, Imre; Dénes, Attila (2001): Az önkormányzatok társadalmi deficitje 1992–
2000 (“The Social Deficit of Local Governments 1992–2000”), Politikai Évkönyv (under publication) Kolosi, Tamás; Tóth, István György; Vukovich, György; (2000): Társadalmi Riport 2000 (“Societal Report”), Budapest: TÁRKI.
Stoker, Gerry (1991): The Politics of Local Government, Houndmills: MacMillan.
Temesi, István (2000): Local Government in Hungary, In: Horváth M., Tamás (ed.) (2000):
Decentralization: Experiments and Reforms, LGI: Budapest, pp. 343–385.
Tóth, János (2000): Nyitott hivatal, átlátható önkormányzat (“Openness and Transparency in the Mayor’s Office”), Önkormányzati Képzési Alapítvány.
Weimer, Leo; Vining, T. (1989): Public Policy Analysis Englewood Cliffs: HarperCollins.
NOTES
1 We express our gratitude to György Gajduschek, Tamás M. Horváth and József Kiss for their comments and ideas.
2 A good overview of the existing system is given in English by Temesi (2000). Thus we restrict ourselves to a very brief summary of the fundamental facts about the local government system.
3 The specific legal-organisational form and extent of responsibility taken by local governments in running various public services varies to a large extent. The local government’s share of responsibility varies, too; in some cases it is entirely borne by the local government (e.g.
local roads, public transport etc. are both financed and managed by the local government), in other cases responsibility for funding and/or management is shared by other institutional players (social security funds, central government etc). A description of local public service provision can be found in Temesi (2000) pp. 365–369.
4 Another analysis—placed in an international comparative context—of the initial attitudes towards local governments based on the same survey data can be found in Rose et al.
(1996).
5 Although the system that had existed before 1990 didn’t call itself Communist—and neither would it be reasonable to qualify it with that term – in order to avoid confusing it with present-time Socialist/Social Democrat streams, and for the sake of uniform use of language we use the term ‘Communist’ instead of adhering to the adjective ‘Socialist’.
6 For some details on the modus operandi of the Communist local-territorial administration and the „decentralisationism” and localism of reformist/anti-Communist movements see Baldersheim–Illner (1996).
7 Percentages are usually rounded to integer numbers, opinion scores, ratings, etc. are usually rounded to 1 decimals.
8 Although the wordings of the two items are slightly different as well as the preceding questionnaire items we judged them suitable for the purpose of direct comparisons.
9 Compared to the total number of respondents.
10 Another spectacular feature here is the downward sloping character of this pattern at settlements below 1000 inhabitants. We will come back to this phenomenon in the next point.
11 The survey took place in November 2000; it included the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. See Kolosi–Tóth–Vukovich 2000.
12 Turnout data published by other authors in some cases don’t coincide with data presented here (for example, Bôhm 1999). One reason for this might be the many different ways, in which—due to the difficult election system—the „number of valid votes” can be operation-alised.
13 For the purpose of analysing the relationship between RR–N and settlement size respondents from the town Szentendre as extreme outliers have been removed from the data set.
14 The pattern exhibiting relatively low values in smaller settlements doesn’t change even if the effect of per capita household income or educational level or respondent, settlement level average personal income, or ratio of elderly in the settlement is controlled.
15 In 2000 almost 30% of local governments received exceptive financial support from the central government due their inability to cover their budgetary deficit by own resources (Népszabadság, 24 November 2000, p. 5.).
16 An illustrative indicator is that per capita consumption was 84.2% of the 1990 level in 1996, and 90.5% in 1998 (National Office for Statistics data; http://www.ksh.hu/hun/
h1998/h104ha98/h10404.html – 10 January 2001); meanwhile income and consumption inequalities multiplied within a few years (TÁRKI 1999, TÁRKI 2000 surveys).
Corresponding to the ends and means of the present study we will restrict ourselves to identifying and following this process only through “soft” opinion data .
17 The primary means of ensuring this preference were the election rules regulating the possibility of voting on lists of nominating (party) organisations.
18 In 1991 respondents were asked to rate between 1 (much worse) and 5 (much better) the possibility of the (ordinary) people to influence local government decisions, compared to the situation two years earlier. In 2000 the question was to what extent local decisions reflect the preferences and interests of local citizens (rated again between 1/“not at all”, and 5/“fully”).
19 Data source: the Jelenkutató (1995–1998) city surveys; results published in Kiss–Kabai–
Dénes (2001).
20 The scale used originally was slightly different; we transformed it into one that is comparable with the other scales used in the study.
21 Kiss, József (personal comment, October 2000).
22 This is, of course, not unique to the Hungarian local government sector; for further arguments – both empirical and theoretical – see e.g. Stoker (1991)
23 There are some additional options defined by law that ensure citizens’ participation, such as various public forums, the participation of public interest groups and associations in the work of the council, etc. These options can be elaborated in the statutes of local governments. Complaints, questions, etc. related to state administrative acts carried out by the local government authorities are not discussed here; we will briefly refer to them in the next sub-section (“Other means of discovering public preferences”).
24 It is interesting that council members (representatives) are not required by law to make themselves personally available for their constituencies (no mandatory calling hours, etc.);
however it seems often to be the case that they have some regular office hours for consulting their electors. This might be due to the institutionalisation of regular calling hours made obligatory by the pervious, Communist regulation on local governments.
25 Tóth János (2000) pp. 108-110. The Appendices to the manual offer numerous examples and case descriptions of various techniques used in communicating with the local public
26 Kiss, József (personal comment; October 2000). This impression is reassured by information from the user side of opinion surveys: the former mayor of Budapest 19th District Local Government (between 1994 and 1998) commented that there were a variety of purposes of the local government conducting regular public opinion surveys, once or twice a year.
But, he added, ‘it was in fact never the real purpose of opinion surveys to decide on actual policy issues’ (Gábor Zupkó, personal comment, November 2000).
27 “The special practice of Nagybaracska village in fostering communication between its citizens, and the councilors and the mayor”; Tóth (2000) pp. 152–154.
28 Calculated from Jelenkutató (2000) survey data.
Sympathetic Disengagement:
Public Perception of Local Governments in Poland
Pawel Swianiewicz
Table of Contents
1. A Brief History of Local Government Reform in Poland ... 173 2. What Do People Think About Local Governments? ... 175 2.1 Do People Care? ... 175 2.2 Do Citizens Know About Local Politics? ... 180 2.3 Do Citizens Trust Their Local Government Officials? ... 181 2.4 Are Citizens Satisfied? ... 185 3. Public Opinion and Decentralization Reforms ... 188 3.1 Support for Decentralization ... 189 3.2 The Case for Primary School Decentralization ... 191 3.3 The Case of the Powiats and Regional Reform (1999) ... 192 3.4 How Has Public Opinion Influenced Local Government Reform? ... 199 4. Citizens and Local Decision-making
—Do They Have a Chance to Make an Impact? ... 201 4.1 How Local Governments Learn About Citizen’s Perceptions
—the Mayors’ Point of View ... 201 4.2 Do Local Governments Translate Knowledge of Citizen’s Perception
into Local Decision-making? (And if So, How?) ... 203 4.2.1 Public Attitudes Regarding Political Representation ... 204 4.2.2 Attitudes Regarding Political Influence ... 206 4.2.3 Forms of Communication ... 208 5. Conclusions ... 217 References ... 220 Main Sources of Information Used in this Chapter ... 221 Notes ... 221
Local government reform is widely viewed as one of the most successful parts of the political, social and economic transformations in Poland since 1989. Local government reform may have not been the most talked-about type of political initiative, but it has occupied quite a high position in the political agendas of successive governments.
On May 26 1990, one day before the first democratic local elections in Poland, Prof. Jerzy Regulski—a prominent academic and one of the main authors of decentralization reform—
announced on television that the next day, “Polish citizens would wake up in a new country”.
But have they noticed that change? And how do they see local governments and their operations now, after over a decade of the new system in operation? Do they care about decentralization reforms, or do they think they have been, at best, of secondary importance? And finally, how do local governments try to communicate with their citizens between election campaigns? This chapter tries to present brief answers to all of these questions.