Local referendum as a tool of direct participation of citizens in the decision-making of municipalities in the Czech Republic

Authors

HAMPL Filip

Year of publication 2020
Type Article in Proceedings
Conference 23rd International Colloquium on Regional Sciences. Conference Proceedings.
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Economics and Administration

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CZ.MUNI.P210-9610-2020-31
Keywords direct participation; local government; local referendum act; municipality; voter turnout
Description The local referendum is the only tool of direct democracy in the Czech Republic, allowing citizens to decide on issues falling within the independent competence of municipalities directly. The aim of the paper is to assess the use, voter turnout, binding force, and thematic focus of local referenda as a tool of direct participation of citizens in the decision-making on local issues in the Czech municipalities with respect to their size defined by the population in the period 2006-2019. To fulfil the aim, descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression, classification analysis and correlation analysis have been employed. A total of 288 local referenda were held in the examined period, 193 of them in the municipalities up to 1,999 inhabitants. The results do not indicate a statistically significant relationship between the municipality size and the holding of referenda. On the other hand, the results show a weakly negative correlation relationship between the municipality size and the turnout (the binding force, respectively). The referenda focused on territorial development, environment, alternative sources of power and infrastructure predominate in the municipalities up to 4,999 inhabitants. The referenda on municipal property and public order prevail in the municipalities with 5,000 and more inhabitants.

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