Citizens’ involvement in public decisions: between normative framework and actual findings (I – Theoretical overview)

Public institutions should be driven both by efectiveness and financial targets, and by ethical rules principles governing their activities. In a democratic state, all public institutions and all public decisions should function based on mechanisms applying the principles of participation, accountability, transparency, rule of law, subsidiarity and equality of opportunity and treatment. This paper focuses on emphasizing main contributions in the theory of participatory democracy in local governance institutions, but also some practical considerations, including results and restrictions concerning how they are actually implemented in the Romanian public institutions