Vainius Smalskys

The paper presents a study, which describes the current governance model of the electricity sector in Lithuania. Electricity and energy production and distribution is highly regulated worldwide. This is also true in Lithuania, where the electricity sector is highly politically prominent, and policy is highly centralized. There are geopolitical concerns towards Russia, which is an important supplier of electricity, and Lithuania’s grid is highly integrated with that of Russia. In addition, Lithuania is a small country dominated by a small number of large state-owned producers and has no regional administrations. Lithuania rhetorically has adopted increased citizen participation as a strategic policy goal. The study investigates how far the rhetorics are followed up by policy planning, implementation, and development of new governance modes. The authors base the study on interviews with 19 experts and regulation analysis. The study found that regulation process is transparent, but this causes lower public interest and consequently lower citizen participation. Existing stakeholder involvement at the policy level is highly arbitrary and favorable to large electricity producers. As production is set to decentralize, this has the potential to overburden the regulatory system and cause conflict between different producers.

Civil participation is the main component of effective governance. The topicality of this paper lies in civil participation in decision-making defined by the principles of “new public governance” of the 21st century. This study aims to analyze the impact of civil participation in decision-making on waste management at the municipal level. In this work, the following aspects were considered: theoretical assumptions of civil participation; civil participation in the activities of institutions responsible for environmental protection; issues regarding the development of opportunities of citizens’ involvement in municipal waste management. The article is devoted to the theoretical assumptions about civil participation, theoretical model of analysis, and activity of institutions. To develop a theoretical model of analysis, a classification of civil participation was carried out. Among the methods used, one can mention the questionnaire. The analysis was focused on a legal basis for the activity of institutions; the actual activity of institutions and survey of representatives of the national environmental authorities in Lithuania. The results showed that currently there is no mechanism in Lithuania to ensure civil participation in municipal waste management. Civil participation is still formal and limited. Overall, citizens are informed about the decisions made, but they do not participate actively in decision-making. The analysis of civil participation capacity in waste management leads to the conclusion that Lithuania has no single mechanism to ensure civil participation in waste management. To enhance civil participation in decision-making on waste management, it is suggested to set up a council where the representatives of civil population are delegated.

The strategic approach to sustainable territorial development precisely assesses all regional disparities. Implementing this approach allows considering the interests and requirements of all stakeholders and identifying priority areas for regional development. A detailed analysis of existing regional development strategies and programs confirms the active region interaction with numerous organizations, groups, and individuals. The growing role of stakeholders in shaping regional policy determines the necessity of the research. Proposed conceptual approach will contribute determining the stakeholders’ interaction effectiveness in ensuring sustainable territorial development. Algorithm for analyzing the stakeholders’ interaction effectiveness was worked out based upon critical analysis of the scientific professionals’ main approaches of identifying and comparing the interests of stakeholders’ sectoral and territorial groups in the context of solving the region existing problems. A feature of the proposed measure scheme of the stakeholder interaction efficiency is the synthesis of quantitative and qualitative assessment of the stakeholder interaction effectiveness using the method of expert assessments, statistical analysis, and fuzzy sets. The practical part of the developed approach to determining the effectiveness of stakeholder interaction allowed to assess the level of regional development programs implementation in the Kharkiv region and to identify the synergistic effect of stakeholder interaction. The made conclusions and recommendations regarding the solution of region existing problems have found practical application in predicting scenarios for the territory development.