—A NATIONAL LEVEL VIEW
2.1 Public Opinion on Local Governments Throughout the 1990–2000 Period
2.1.4 To What Degree Are Citizens Willing to Participate in Public Activities?
Figure 2.8
Changes in Citizen’s Satisfaction with Local Services and Living Conditions From 1994 to 1997
Figure 2.9
Citizen’s Willingness to Participate in Public Activities (1995)
As can be seen, willingness to participate in public activities is distributed rather evenly: the same proportion of clearly decided respondents (11.1% of “certainly yes” and 11.6% of “certainly not”) and almost the same proportions of the others (22.0% of “generally yes”, 26.3% of
“generally no”, and 22.3 undecided).
As to the differentiation of that attitude, the significant socio-demographic characteristics are gender (men are more willing to participate), socioeconomic status (higher professional status implies higher interest in public affairs), and the size of respondent’s community. (This tends to be expressed as a reverse linear relation: the bigger the community, the lower a respondents’
interest). Higher willingness to participate in public activities can also be observed among those who have improved their socioeconomic status since 1989. It is also significant for those who said they would go to polls “even if they took place tomorrow”.
The important fact is that among factors differentiating the willingness to participate in public activities, there was neither the level of education, nor the level of satisfaction with local self-government or local authority performance, nor the level of satisfaction with everyday life conditions.
We get a rather different picture when we compare the results mentioned above with opinions held by public administration “professionals” (i.e., councilors and local authority officials). A citizen’s willingness to participate in public activities, as seen by those people, is shown in Table 2.5.
generally yes 22%
certainly yes 11%
no answer 7%
certainly not 12%
generally no 26%
nor yes, nor no 22%
Table 2.5
Councilors’ and Officials’ Views on Citizens’ Participation in Public Activities
Type of citizen participation Office position Political affiliation* Total Official Councilor Indepen- Party
dent member
Citizen takes no active interest
in community life 3.8% 8.1% 0.0% 13.8% 6.1%
Citizen may criticize, but is not willing
to be proactive 55.8% 54.7% 49.1% 58.6% 55.0%
Citizen only shows initiative re.
“personal“ matters 29.8% 25.7% 31.6% 21.6% 27.9%
Citizen is regularly active
in community affairs 2.9% 6.3% 8.8% 4.5% 4.5%
Other characterization(s) 7.7% 5.3% 10.5% 1.7% 6.6%
* This applies only to councilors
SOURCE: Faculty of Social Sciences, 1995 [3]
As the data show, about 60% of “professionals in public administration” are convinced that citizens are either not interested in community affairs at all, or interested in them as the subject of their criticism only, divorced from any feelings of potential cooperation. Only 5% of them considered the average citizen as willing to lend a constructive hand. Almost 30% of them thought that the majority of citizens started to be interested in public affairs only when their private interests were directly effected.
These data do not readily correspond with other data about the level of citizens’ interest in public matters. It can be supposed that the “reality” lies somewhere within the limits that are drawn on one side by the image given by the public administration and on the other side by the manifested opinion of the citizens themselves. This discrepancy cannot be readily explained through other research findings, which show that the officials meet more frequently with complaining people than with those who are content, or are even willing to help actively.
Figure 10 shows the citizens’ actual participation and their willingness to participate in 14 public activities, the list of which was given to the respondents. The answer “I do not want to take part in ...” is not shown in Figure 2.10, as it is rounded up to 100%.
Figure 2.10
Citizen’s Participation in Respective Local Activities
Among the activities, in which most of the citizens are interested, as indicated by their participation in such activities, are:
• voluntary free time activities (culture, sport, etc.);
• interest and professional associations, and,
• trade unions.
Slightly less interest is attracted by the following public activities, as the percentage of participants show:
• church and religious organizations, and,
• voluntary organization providing public services.
Voluntary free-time organization (culture, sport)
Voluntary organization providing public services
Ecologist movement
Human rights movement
Interest and professional associations
Trade unions
Local self-government
State administration
Church and religious organizations
Protest movements or ad-noc actions
Rightist political party
Centristic political party
Leftist political party
National political party
30 25 20 15 10 5
0
I do I intend to I would like to
An interesting result was obtained using factor analysis, which divided the 14 public activities into four groups with respect to citizens’ participation or their interest in participation.
• Factor A: “Humanitarian and spiritual participation” as it joined the following activities:
human rights movement, ecological movement, voluntary organization providing public services, and church and religious organizations.
• Factor B: “Power and state-forming participation” grouped together participation in local self-government, state administration, rightist political party, centrist political party, and national political movement.
• Factor C: “Oppositional participation” was composed of protest movements or ad hoc actions, leftist political party, and trade unions.
• Factor D: “Independent participation of common interest” covered voluntary free-time organization (culture, sport) and interest and professional associations.
Table 6 shows the level of participation with respect to the four extracted factors: the average percentages of the four degrees of participation in each factor.
Table 2.6
Citizens’ Willingness to Participate in Public Activities
Factor (abbr.) Participating in Public Activities [%]
I do I intend to I would like to I do not want to
A (humanitarian ...) 4.7 14.2 21.7 59.4
B (power ...) 3.2 5.0 10.6 81.6
C (oppositional ...) 7.0 6.3 7.4 79.3
D (independent ...) 16.5 12.5 19.5 51.5
SOURCE: Faculty of Social Sciences, 1995 [3]
Independent associations (factor D) play the most significant role in citizens’ participation.
These engage in the highest actual participation and the second highest potential participation (“I intend to” and “I would like to”). The second highest actual participation rate belongs to oppositional participation (C), though it has the lowest potential participation of all four factors.
The other two tendencies have similar low actual participation rates, but they differ in potential levels: the power participation (B) category has the second lowest potential, in contrast to humanitarian participation (A) with the highest potential of all.
As to citizens’ willingness to participate in local self-government or in state administration, the socio-demographic characteristics which differentiate this significantly are age (higher willingness
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is observed among people of 18 to 44 years of age); socio-economic status (more interest is among entrepreneurs and workers), and the size of the community of domicile (significantly greater willingness is found to be in communities with populations of between 3 000 to 20 000 inhabitants).