Vietos savivaldos esmė ir socialinė paskirtis visuomenėje

Abstract

The objective of the article is to clarify the nature and the social mission of local government in the society. The article formulates several goals:
- to reveal the nature of term “self-government”;
- to describe the relationship among the cognate categories “self-government” and “management”;
- to identify the correlation among the concepts “local government” and “state government”;
- to analyse the influence of democratic ideas to local government.
In the first chapter, the author emphasizes, that the term “self-government” is universal and could be used ina lot of sciences such as cybernetic, sociology, management, law and etc. The nature of category “selfgovernment” and its tentative definitions are analysed in the article.
The second chapter of the article calls for the discussion about cognate categories – “self-government” and “management”. The term “management” is described in broad sense, underlining the difference and the analogy of categories “self-government” and “management”.
The third chapter identifies the correlation among the “local government” and “state government” institutions, analysing the contraposition and the difference of those meanings, describing the supremacy of local government over the state government.
In the fourth part of the article the author analyzes the democracy aspect of local government and maintains that ideas of democracy determine the development of progressive local government.
After the analyses of the chosen topic several conclusions have been drawn.
1. Tentative definitions of self-government that appeared at the beginning of XIX century are similar in content to the current self-government definitions. The expanded decentralization level in Great Britain determined the birth of this term.
2. As distinct from management, in self-government process the distance between management subject and management object is not great. Usually the management object is independent of the will of management subject and, what is more important, it can change the content of commands.
The relations of subordination among the management subject and management object in selfgovernment are tenuous, they are based on coordination level.
The organization based on principals of self-government is more independent to choose the objective and the ways of activities and they are different organizations that are based on management principals.
3. The local government is independent and self-sufficient from state government, not to conflict with its institutions, but coordinate local and state interest in municipality through the sophisticated structure and democratic management system of society.
4. The local government is the attribute of each democratic society, it is the product of democracy as well as the form of governance beloging to the municipality communities.