Tendencies of improvement of local self-government in political parties’ programmes and their implementation

Abstract

Having performed literary analysis, the aspects of improvement of local self-government in the context of new public governance have been theoretically substantiated. Referring to theoretical insights, the provisions of programmes of the biggest political parties of the Republic of Lithuania related to local self-government have been analysed covering period from December 12, 2012 to March 31, 2014. In addition, the agendas and reports of the meetings of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania have been analysed in order to determine main tendencies of improvement of local self-government that receive biggest attention from the political parties in decision making process. The research has shown that improvement of local self-government in the programmes of political parties is oriented to 4 tendencies: 1) independence/autonomy; 2) strengthening of democracy and civil society; 3) improvement of governance; 4) quality of public sector services. In the agendas of the meetings of Government of the Republic of Lithuania mainly the issues related to efficiency, effectiveness, legitimacy of local self-government, strengthening of abilities of civil servants have been analysed.