ИСТИНА

The tension between democracy and its effectiveness is an old dilemma dating back to the emergence of the concept itself and reiterating through the history. Today, the tension between democracy, legitimacy, and efficiency is back on the forefront as most western democracies are mired in manifold crisis resulting in an eroded support for the concept at home and abroad. Among the many attempts to resolve this tension, policy networks are believed by many scholars to be one of the most suitable solutions to revitalize democracy, especially at the local/municipal levels. Though, while almost everyone agree on their relative efficiency in dealing with the challenges of the new century, a considerable number of scholars warn against their lack of democratic legitimacy, of civil control and of accountability. In this paper, we do not only share this position, but also question the networks’ commonly believed efficiency focusing on the micro/local level. The analysis of several recent case studies of local infrastructure projects, involving networks of some sorts, in several European countries, tends to support our view that networks are far from enhancing efficiency and can also undermine the legitimacy of the local decision making process. As an alternative, this paper explores new ways how to involve citizens in the decision making process restoring their faith in local institutions while in fine increasing the overall efficiency of the local politics. Among them, new sophisticated forms of direct democracy, drawing inspiration from game theory and behavioral economy and enabling the citizens to simply rank and express preferences seem the most promising.