1 - Review of Management and Economic （1 -对管理和经济）.doc

miscomprehension of meaningful public participation and its consequences on effective policy-making Oana ALMASAN National School of Political Studies and Public Administration Bucharest, Romania Abstract: The purpose of this article is to point out how various, apparently insignificant legislation flaws might induce major errors in the comprehension of the true spirit of democratic governance, corrupting the process of citizen participation in policy making and depriving the Romanian public administration of a very powerful and valuable tool. Keywords: Citizen participation, public administration, legislation, effective governance 1. Public administration reforms and community involvement in democratic societies In January 2006, through the Governmental Decision 128/2006 (HG 128/2006, Art.10), the Romanian Government assigned the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform the Managerial Authority of The Operational Program for the Development of Administrative Capacity, financed by the European Social Fund. As a part of the program, a thorough analysis of the Romanian public administration was conducted; this pointed out two major problems that the system was facing: a. citizens’ distrust and b. failure to identify citizens’ needs (The Operational Program for the Development of the Administrative Capacity, Chapter II). This circular dilemma is not unique to the Romanian public administration: to different degrees, it affects all public administration systems (United Nations, 1997): no matter how high the democratic values and principles of the governance are, systems fail to identify and meet citizens’ needs, consequently, citizens lose their trust in the system and distance themselves from it, making it even more difficult for the public servants to have meaningful interactions with the people whom they are supposed to serve (Mosher, 1982). Over the last decades, in their attempt to improve the outcomes of public service and offer their citizens a more efficie