PARTICIPATION OF THE CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF DUBROVNIK IN DECISION-MAKING ON BUDGETARY MATTERS

The paper is based on the results of empirical research conducted on a convenient sample of 215 respondents. The main goal of the paper is to gain insight into the respondents' perception of real budget transparency and openness in the City of Dubrovnik, their awareness and interest in budget topics, the respondents' previous involvement in decision-making and creation of public policies at the local level, the causes of political abstinence and the willingness to participate in the participatory budgeting. The results of the research show the poor involvement of respondents in decision-making and creation of public policies at the local level, and the goal was to discover the causes and give suggestions for changes. The causes are: lack of interest, poorly informed respondents, lack of time and the feeling that they cannot change anything. Participatory budgeting is a specific innovative democratic process that directly involves citizens in decision making about allocation of the part of the local budget. A prerequisites for the successful citizens participation are interest and informativeness, for which the transparency of the local government's work is necessary. Despite the highest value of the Transparency Index, the research results point to problems in the City of Dubrovnik.