Public and social participation in contemporary Poland: ideas, forms, subjects and determinants

Public participation, understood as activity being aimed at involving citizens and nongovernmental organizations into the public life, into decision-making processes, the forming of public policies and into the performance of public tasks, is one of key elements of the Good Governance conception. Also in Poland it is possible to observe increasing an interest in solutions, having a positive effect on a quality and the effectiveness of governing the public sector in last years. Specially solutions based on increasing the level of efficient use the civil potential. Amongst numerous of legislative projects, such initiatives appear as: increasing the influence of citizens on using public funds; using available instruments of the participatory democracy (e.g. public consultation, referendum); creating forums of the public debate; increasing the access to public information; improving the information and the opinion exchange between citizens and the authorities; creating or bringing into play functioning of support units of the local self-government and the institution of the civil dialogue; and the like. However, implementing and practical using of proposed instruments of the public participation are coming across a number of problems: lack of interest, lack of the support or resistance of political environments; administrative barriers; imprecise rules of functioning of non-governmental organizations, financial-property condition of the NGO’s sector. It is main conditioning of the public participation and causes of delays and impediments in for her functioning and the development