COOPERATION BETWEEN COMMUNITY AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE - A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MUNICIPALITIES OF PRISTINA REGION

Abstract

Lately, the development of local government and community has taken new direction, especially in the countries of the Western Balkans, creating a partnership between these two parties. Local government is an important segment that has the legitimacy to organize local public affairs. Whereas community is regarded mainly as a social philosophy pertaining to the domain of communitarianism. More broadly, a community is a unit that includes the social networking, beliefs, values, norms and the social cohesion between its members, who are considered as social capital and are identified as part of the community. In Kosovo, the system of local government is one-tier type, central and local levels of government and municipalities are the basic unit of local government. Whereas the cooperation between the community and local government, although it is regulated by local self-government law, is still a needed practical implementation. It is important for the community to participate in public meetings, which are means used as local decision-making and policy-making mechanisms. The purpose of this study is a comparative analysis between the participation of the communities in the decision-making process in the municipalities of Pristina region (Pristina, Fushe Kosove, Obilic, Drenas and Gracanica) and the use of local decision-making mechanisms. The methodology uses analytical and comparative analysis, focusing on the communities in the Pristina region regarding their participation in public meetings. Additionally, the study analyses the empirical research conducted with the communities in the above-mentioned municipalities with a sample of 550 respondents. The results of this research show that the participation of the community in public meetings is low. About 50% of the study participants indicated that they do not attend public meetings for a number of reasons, such as the sense that their opinions and ideas were disregarded, the distance to the meetings, lack of timely information, and other influential factors.

Keywords: Collaboration, community, local government, case, Pristina region.