Decision Making in local Self-Governance

Abstract

The functions and powers of local self-governance are broadly discussed at all levels of government institutions,
non-governmental organizations and communities. There is an expressed position that local communities and
their local self-governing institutions should be given the power of subsidiary decision making in locally specific
issues. However, year after year, the unanimous attitude is suppressed by financial and fiscal dependence upon the
central government, unreasonably large territorial units with high population density. These circumstances limit
down the decision-making and, moreover, the implementation of the decisions. From this point of view, the financial
and fiscal powers of local self-governing institutions and, consequently, the decision-making strata are significantly
different from those in other Baltic and Central European countries, as well as Scandinavian states. This article
deals with the analysis of local self-governing administration in terms of its fiscal and financial empowerment, the
size of the local communities and its impact on decision-making. A comparison is drawn with Scandinavian, central
European and Baltic countries.