Participation of citizens in public financial decision-making in Serbia

Abstract

Participation in the local public finance decision-making process in Serbia is not a new concept as it was implemented even during the ‘Titoistic’ period. However, direct participation is still in an infant phase altogether with the low interest of citizens in participating in local financial decision-making procedures. The aim of this paper is to explain the main types of civic participation in the local financial decision-making process (i.e., referendum voting on self-imposed contribution, participatory budgeting, and civic crowdfunding) and to focus on the main factors that lead to a low participation of citizens in such processes. Additionally, the article analyses how these factors affect general mistrust in politics and society. For this purpose, a total of N=421 citizens were interviewed. Using the principal component analysis, the following three main components for low participation were defined: 1) lack of knowledge, 2) lack of interest, and 3) lack of political will. Thereafter, using the regression analysis, the study confirmed that the first two components are statistically significant predictors for mistrust in politics and society.