ANALYSIS OF CORRELATION BETWEEN THE LEVEL OF RURAL COMMUNITIES DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEGREE OF STAKEHOLDERS INVOLVEMENT. CASE STUDY, CALARASI COUNTY, ROMANIA

The citizen participation in decision-making is a basic democratic process. We live in an open society, where we have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process and the good developing of the community. Although the process is long, the civil society participation strengthens the democratic system, as the key component of a democracy is public participation, which ensures the transparency of the decision-making process and the efficiency of the governing act. Based on these considerations, we carried out a survey in 24 rural localities in Calarasi county to see the respondents satisfaction on the achievements in the commune, assessments on the interest of local elected officials in the development of the commune, economic implications of lack of specialists, active involvement of the inhabitants of the commune in making decisions for the development of the community in which they live. The research was based on the survey method based on questionnaire and the data were processed by the method of analysis and comparison, using also chi(2) test. The questionnaire covered a number of 8 items, to which a number of 762 persons answered. The questions were structured on 2 levels, respectively, 4 filter questions and 4 grid questions, with 3 or 4 predefined answers. These questions were analyzed according to 5 criteria, namely: by the locality size according to the number of inhabitants, by the respondents' age, by the level of education, by gender and by social status. Analyzing the degree of respondents' satisfaction with the achievements of the commune, it is found that the answers differ significantly depending on the commune size according to the number of inhabitants, age, education, gender, social status. The most satisfied are those in communes with a population of over 6000 inhabitants (86%), men (81.6%), those with higher education (83.1%).