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The characteristics and effects of public participation in Croatian e-consultations in fiscal matters
Article | Year: 2023 | Pages: 71 - 87 | Volume: 47 | Issue: 1 Received: April 24, 2022 | Accepted: September 7, 2022 | Published online: March 6, 2023
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FULL ARTICLE
FIGURES & DATA
REFERENCES
CROSSMARK POLICY
METRICS
LICENCING
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Traditional government departments
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Administrative organizations by function
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Social
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Technical
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Economic
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Ministries of
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Finance
Defence
Internal Affairs
Justice
State Property
Public Administration
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Science and Education
Health
Culture
Work and Pension system
Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy
Croatian War Veterans
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Environment and Energy
Construction and Spatial Planning
Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure
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Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts
Ministry of Agriculture
Ministry of Tourism
Ministry of Regional Development and EU funds
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State administration organizations
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State Administration Organization for Civil
Protection
State Administration Organization for Radiological
and Nuclear Safety
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State Institute for Intellectual Property
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State Geodetic Administration
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State Meteorology Institute
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Agencies
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Croatian Agency for the Oversight of Financial
Services
Croatian National Bank
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Croatian Agency for Health Insurance
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Croatian Energy Regulatory agency
Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries
Croatian Civil Aviation Agency
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Duration (average, days)
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Clarity
(median value 1-4)
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Number of
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Acceptance rate of comments (%)
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E-consultations
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Participants
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Comments
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Ministry of Finance (MF)
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19.8
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1
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105
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736
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1,543
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34.8
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Traditional governmental departments (TGD)
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23.2
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1
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606
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2129
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6,016
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34.3
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State-level administrative organizations (SAO)
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24.8
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1
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1.643
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13,615
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32,906
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23.8
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Duration (average)
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Number of
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Acceptance rate of comments (%)
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E-consultations
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Participants
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Comments
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Ministry of Finance (MF)
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19.1
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230
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1,285
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2,638
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29.4
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Ministry of Finance
(MF)
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State-level administrative organizations
(SAO)
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Interested public (participants)
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Individuals
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42.7
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50.0
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Chambers
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16.8
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5.9
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Private sector organizations
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15.6
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10.0
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CSO
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15.2
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17.2
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Public companies
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3.0
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6.2
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Other
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6.7
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10.7
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Type of comments
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Technical
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13.6
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28.8
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Attitudes
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28.6
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21.9
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Reasoning
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15
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22.1
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Very well reasoned
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40.8
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22.9
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Other
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2
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4.3
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Status of comments
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Accepted
Completely
Partially
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34.8
26.6
8.2
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23.8
15.7
8.1
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Not accepted
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32.6
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43.5
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Noted
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32.1
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28.1
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No response
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0.6
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4.7
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Table 1State-level administrative organizations included in the research DISPLAY Table
Table 2Characteristics of e-consultations conducted by the Ministry of Finance compared to other administrative organizations (2016-2018) DISPLAY Table
Table 3Characteristics of e-consultations conducted by the Ministry of Finance (2016-2020) DISPLAY Table
Table 4Characteristics of participants in the e-consultations conducted by the Ministry of Finance and state-level administrative organizations DISPLAY Table
* The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their very useful comments and suggestions.
1 The main part of the research covers the period from 2016 to 2018, while some research data have been supplemented with the year 2019 and 2020. On methodology design see section 4.
2 Public can also exert influence via informal channels, as in the case of lobbying or clientelistic networks (narrower public) or via different media platforms (wider public).
3 Such as experts and professionals, representatives of civil society organizations (CSO) and other organizations and institutions involved in policy implementation.
4 Participatory budgeting has become quite popular worldwide in a number of implementation variations. In countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain it has become well established (more in: Wampler,  2012; Wampler, McNulty and Touchton, 2021).
5 At the central state level, e-consultations are the main policy-making instrument which involves the wider public in the policy formulation. Local participatory instruments, such as referenda, initiatives and forms of submunicipal government are very rarely used (see Koprić and Klarić ( 2017); Milošević ( 2017); Manojlović Toman and Vukojičić Tomić ( 2018)).
6 The data collected for 2019 and 2020 include only basic information on the number of conducted e-consultations, number of participants and comments, and the acceptance rate of comments, without the analysis of the type of participants and comments, and the correlations between them, which was made only for the period 2016-2018.
7 Administrative organizations in this paper include government organisations at the central-state level (19 ministries, 5 central state organizations and 6 regulatory agencies), for which 1.643 e-consultations procedures were analyzed.
8 After conducting the research, certain reorganizations took place within the system of state administration in Croatia in accordance with the new Law on the State Administration System of 2019 (see Koprić, 2019; Lopižić and Manojlović Toman, 2019). Therefore, the names and scope of some of the mentioned administrative organizations here has changed.
9 The category of technical comments refers to nomotechnic and grammarly remarks as well as minor technical observations without reasoned support. The category of opinions refers to comments reflecting a pure attitude, opinion or preference, also unsupported. The other two categories refer to supported comments, with the difference between them in the level of expertise in the reasoning. The criteria for differentiating very well reasoned comments were expert terminology, referring to scientific and professional sources, providing and explaining data, and similar.
10 Law on the right to access information, Official Gazette (25/13, 85/15).
11 Budget Law, Official Gazette (144/21) article 12; LRAI, article 10.
12 The obligation of proactive transparency consists of four main elements: decision-making transparency (availability of decisions and acts, as well as the opportunities for the public to get involved in decision-making processes); financial transparency (includes financial acts and documents, allowing the control of government spending and its financing of various activities); operational transparency (information on organizational structure and functioning, i.e. planned activities and projects, regulations that apply to citizens' individual rights, public calls etc.); communication transparency (transparency in providing public services to citizens and in citizens' communication with the government and officials) (Musa, Bebić and Đurman, 20155).
13 On open data in general see van Loenen, Vancauwenberghe and Crompvoets (2018); for open data in Croatia see Musa, Đurman and Hadaš ( 2021).
14 In 2021, new recommendations for the period 2022-2024 were published as well (MoF, 2021).
15 Government transparency and openness were inherent elements of anticorruption policy, which became a very salient issue during the process of Croatian accession to the European Union, one of the crucial prerequisites for the EU membership (see Đurman, 2016).
17 More on e-consultations in general and in Croatia in: Đurman ( 2020); Đurman, Musa and Koprić ( 2022).
18 In both dimensions, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Macedonia and Serbia are lagging behind Croatia and Slovenia.
19 The number of participants differs from the number of the comments, because a participant can submit more than just one comment.
20 Although it may appear illogical at first, this finding is actually similar to some other empirical findings (Schalk, 2015) and is also in accordance with theoretical premises of communication theory on information overload of organizations.
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March, 2023
I/2023
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