Šiaulių miesto savivaldybės vaidmuo regionų valdysenoje ; The role of Šiauliai city municipality in the regional governance
The aim of this thesis is to analyze the role of Šiauliai City Municipality in the regional governance. The regional governance is a relatively new concept that is also significant due to the fact that the population of municipalities have easier access to a local government and, thus, a greater chance to be heard. Problems related to a region are better solved when a person is able to contact the interested parties and receive direct aid. The regional governance and institutions related to the regional governance are indisputably regulated by legislation. It is especially important to identify fundamental problems in the regional governance and possible solutions to them. On the regional level, the interested parties that play the more prominent role are the local and the central government with business and other organizations, including various non-governmental ones, also playing important role. The analysis in this thesis is divided into two parts, in order to achieve the results. The first part contains the analysis of decisions made by Šiauliai Regional Development Council and their connection to the regional governance and Šiauliai region. The analysis shows that the Municipality is actively engaged in the decision-making process by Regional Development Council by offering solutions, in order to ensure that important issues related to the region are discussed. The second part concerns the research whose results confirm the conclusions made from the analysis of Regional Development Council documents that Šiauliai City Municipality is actively involved in the regional governance and plays a significant role in both the issue-raising and the decision-making process. In addition, attention is paid to the cooperation between the interested parties and Šiauliai City Municipality with the results of the interview showing the lack of purposeful cooperation and communication between both sides, the lack of willingness on the part of the Municipality to cooperate and the lack of involvement of the interested parties in the activities of the Municipality.